The choice of the perfect auxiliary in contemporary spoken Danish

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the distribution and the usage pattern of the two perfect auxiliaries – have and be – in contemporary spoken Danish in order to investigate whether the choice between the two auxiliaries is undergoing systematic changes. To do so the LANCHART corpus of contemporary spoken Danish is used. First, the macro-level distributional pattern is established through quantitative apparent and real-time analysis. In the subsequent qualitative micro-level analysis, particular attention is paid to cases where the selection of the auxiliary deviates from what could be expected based on Sorace’s Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy and grammars of Danish. The investigation focuses on the verbs gå ‘go’ and komme ‘come’ – the two most frequent verbs of motion in the corpus. The apparent time analysis of gå indicates an increased use of have across generations. In real time, no change is registered, indicating that any change is stemming from generational differences. With komme – although unexpected examples with have are attested – no statistically significant change is registered neither in apparent nor in real time. The micro-level analysis shows that the variation in auxiliary selection largely conforms to expectations; however, deviations are registered and discussed.