Kari Kinn
Position
Professor, Scandinavian linguistics
Affiliation
Research
My academic interests include comparative syntax, language change, historical linguistics, language contact and heritage languages. To date, null arguments, pronouns, DP syntax and clause structure have been been my major focus areas. I am currently investigating aspects of Norwegian as a heritage language in North and Latin America, i.e. Norwegian spoken by the descendants of Norwegian emigrants. These speakers have acquired Norwegian in a naturalistic setting as young children, but are separated from the speech community in Norway.
I was awarded a PhD at the University of Oslo in 2016 and have teaching experience from courses in Norwegian grammar, syntax and historical linguistics. Before taking up my current post, I held postdoctoral research positions at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oslo.
I am the Principal Investigator of the research project Norwegian across the Americas, funded by the Research Council of Norway (RCN). I am also one of the partners of the infrastructure project Norchron (Norwegian Diachronic Corpus), which starts in 2025, also funded by RCN.
Publications
Academic lecture
- Kinn, Kari; Berg, Ivar (2025). Norchron: Tekster og metadata. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari; Putnam, Michael T. (2025). Free relative clauses in North American Norwegian. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari; Putnam, Michael T. (2024). Free relative clauses in North American Norwegian. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari (2024). Norsk som arvespråk i Latin-Amerika. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari; Larsson, Ida Gunilla (2024). Embedded verb placement in North American and Argentine heritage Scandinavian. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari (2024). Microvariation and microchange in Scandinavian heritage languages. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari; Larsson, Ida Gunilla (2024). Bisatsordföljd i nordiskt arvspråk i Nordamerika och Argentina. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari; Larsson, Ida Gunilla (2024). Embedded verb placement in North American and Argentine heritage Scandinavian. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari (2024). Observasjoner av norsk som arvespråk i en ny kontekst: Latin-Amerika-norsk. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari; Larsson, Ida Gunilla (2023). Embedded verb placement in North American and Argentine heritage Scandinavian. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari; Larsson, Ida Gunilla (2023). Investigating a low-frequency phenomenon in nearly extinct HLs: embedded verb placement in Argentine Heritage Norwegian/Swedish. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari; Osland, Melvær June (2023). V2 in non-subject-initial main clauses in Latin-American Norwegian. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari; Larsson, Ida (2023). Investigating a low-frequency phenomenon in nearly extinct HLs: embedded verb placement in Argentine Heritage Norwegian/Swedish. (external link)
- Larsson, Ida Gunilla; Kinn, Kari (2023). Språkförändring och nordiskt arvspråk. (external link)
- Larsson, Ida; Kinn, Kari (2022). Stability and change in the C-domain in American Swedish. (external link)
- Larsson, Ida; Kinn, Kari (2022). Satsens inledning i svenskt arvspråk. (external link)
- Larsson, Ida; Kinn, Kari (2022). Satsens inledning i amerikasvenskt arvspråk. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari (2022). Substantiv som predikativ i Latin-Amerika-norsk. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari (2022). Predicate nouns in Latin American Norwegian. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari; Walkden, George (2021). Investigating historical heritage languages: Possessives in Norn. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari (2021). Stability and change in American Norwegian: Perspectives from the nominal domain. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari; Stokka, Marie Lund (2021). New approaches to Norwegian as a heritage language: Norwegian across the Americas. (external link)
- Larsson, Ida; Kinn, Kari (2021). Transmission of complex variation: American Norwegian argument shift. (external link)
- Larsson, Ida; Kinn, Kari (2021). Transmission of complex variation in a heritage language context: American Norwegian argument shift across generations. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari; Larsson, Ida (2021). Transmission of complex variation in a heritage language context: American Norwegian argument shift across generations. (external link)
- Larsson, Ida; Kinn, Kari (2020). Pronominal demonstratives in homeland and heritage Scandinavian. (external link)
- Larsson, Ida; Kinn, Kari (2020). Pronominal demonstratives in homeland and heritage Scandinavian. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari; Larsson, Ida (2020). Argumentskiften över gränser och generationer. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari; Walkden, George (2020). Exploring Norn from a Heritage Language Perspective. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari; Larsson, Ida (2019). Argumentskifte over grenser og generasjoner. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari; Rusten, Kristian A.; Walkden, George (2014). Null subjects in early Icelandic. (external link)
- Kokkinakis, Sofie Johansson; Sköldberg, Emma; Henriksen, Britt et al. (2012). Developing Academic Word Lists for Swedish, Norwegian and Danish – a joint research project. (external link)
Lecture
- Kinn, Kari (2025). Norsk som arvespråk i Nord- og Latin-Amerika. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari (2025). Norsk som arvespråk i Nord- og Latin-Amerika: Fra feltarbeid blant etterkommere av norske utvandrere. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari (2024). Nordiske arvespråk i Nord- og Latin-Amerika. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari (2021). Norsk som arvespråk i Nord- og Latin-Amerika: Norwegian across the Americas. (external link)
Academic article
- Larsson, Ida Gunilla; Kinn, Kari (2025). Variation Over Time in a Heritage Language: Argument Placement in American Norwegian. (external link)
- Melvær, June Osland; Kinn, Kari; Stokka, Marie Lund (2025). V2 in non-subject-initial main clauses in Latin American Norwegian: Results from a narration task. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari; Hjelde, Arnstein; Stokka, Marie Lund (2024). The Norwegian language in Argentina: A first look at heritage Norwegian in a new context. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari; Stokka, Marie Lund; Pajaro, Veronica (2024). Latin-Amerika-norsk: Noen første observasjoner. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari (2022). Pragmaticalised determiners in American Norwegian. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari; Larsson, Ida (2022). Pronominal demonstratives in homeland and heritage Scandinavian. (external link)
- Larsson, Ida; Kinn, Kari (2022). Stability and Change in the C-Domain in American Swedish. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari (2021). Split possession and definiteness marking in American Norwegian. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari; Larsson, Ida (2020). Pronominale demonstrativer: Nye perspektiver fra norsk og svensk. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari (2020). Et grammatisk uttrykk for nærhet: psykologisk proksimale possessiver i norsk. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari (2020). Stability and attrition in American Norwegian nominals: a view from predicate nouns. (external link)
- Blaxter, Tam; Kinn, Kari (2018). On Ek and Jak in Middle Norwegian: Mixed Methods in Historical Sociolinguistics. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari (2017). Null arguments in Old Norwegian: Interaction between pronouns and the functional categories of the clause. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari (2016). Referential vs. non-referential null subjects in Middle Norwegian. (external link)
Academic chapter/article/Conference paper
- Larsson, Ida Gunilla; Kinn, Kari (2025). Argument placement in North American Norwegian: Subject shift, object shift and verb particles. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari (2025). Possession in determiner phrases in North American Norwegian. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari; Walkden, George (2023). Exploring Norn: A Historical Heritage Language of the British Isles. (external link)
- Larsson, Ida; Kinn, Kari (2021). Argumentplacering i norskt arvspråk i Amerika. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari (2020). High and low phases in Norwegian nominals: Evidence from ellipsis, psychologically distal demonstratives and psychologically proximal possessives. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari (2019). Bare singular nouns in Middle Norwegian. (external link)
- Kinn, Kari (2014). The cognitive status of null subject referents in Old Norse and their Modern Norwegian counterparts. (external link)
- kokkinakis, sofie johansson; Sköldberg, Emma; Henriksen, Birgitte et al. (2012). Developing Academic Word Lists for Swedish, Norwegian and Danish - a joint research project. (external link)