Extraposition in English and Swedish 249
(33) Eriksson vande sig aldrig vid sin sömnlöshet och det hände att han då och då
arbetade alldeles för hårt för att nå tröttheten. (SC1)
‘... and it happened that he now and then worked far too hard for to reach
tiredness’
Eriksson never got used to his insomnia, and he sometimes worked far too
hard in order to make himself tired. (SC1T)
(34) Dessutom är det så att om man vill ha en förändring till stånd kan man t o m
medvetet skapa problem.
‘Furthermore, is it so that if one wants have a change to come about can one ...’
(BB1)
Furthermore, in some cases when we want to effect changes, we may even
purposely create problems (BB1T)
The number of noncongruent correspondences which are clause complexes with
external evaluations, as in (21) and (22) above, are, however, similar in both sam-
ples (15 vs. 16).
There are, thus, a large number of extrapositions in the Swedish sample which
correspond to simple clauses in English, either with clause-internal evaluations,
nominalisations of the content of the subject clause, or, in some cases, no corre-
spondence to the matrix predicate at all. There are a number of reasons for this.
Firstly, English, but not Swedish, has a gerund -ing form which may nomi-
nalise the content of the subject clause. This normally corresponds to an infinitival
clause in Swedish, but as the -ing gerund is somewhat more nominal in character,
it is less frequently extraposed (Herriman 2000a), as in (37).^8
(35) Eftersom träden saknar löv vid den här årstiden är det jämförelsevis lätt att
följa fåglarnas förehavanden. (SUG1)
‘As the trees lack leaves at this time of the year is it comparatively easy to follow
the birds’ movements’
Since the trees lack leaves at this time of year, following the movements of the
birds is comparatively easy. (SUG1T)
Secondly, because of the V2 constraint in Swedish, and the greater potential for
complex information to be placed in preverbal position in English, extraposition
is often used in Swedish when English has a simple clause with a complex Theme.
As it has a complex clause structure, extraposition allows a clustering of meanings
at the onset of the message. In (36), for instance, the English original, which is a
simple clause with a complex theme (often in science the same idea) is translated
- There is only one extraposed -ing clause in the English sample.