Adverbial Clauses in English and Norwegian Fiction and News

This paper considers the placement of adverbial clauses in English and Norwegian with regard to their form, meaning, information status and semantic relation to the matrix clause proposition. The study is based on comparable original texts in both languages, representing two registers: fiction and news reportage. End position of adverbial clauses is most common in both languages, with initial position as an alternative in many cases. Positional freedom is found to differ greatly between finite and non-finite clauses, and also across different semantic types of adverbial clauses. For those types of adverbial clauses that vary across positions, mostly time and contingency clauses, information status (new vs. anchored) is found to have some influence. Iconic order was found to be less important, but was more noticeable in fiction than in news. The placement of adverbial clauses seems to be guided by similar principles in both languages. Register differences are identified in both languages, but they do not show consistent patterns