De Relatie Potentiële - Gerealiseerde Konstruktie Als Meetprobleem in de Sociolinguistische Benadering Van de Syntaksis

F. Jansen:The relation between potential and realised constructions as measuring problem in the sociolinguistic approach of syntaxThis paper aims at drawing attention to some differences between words and sentences which make a sociolinguistic investigation into syntactic variation more difficult than quantitative research into phonological variation. To begin with there are several theoretical problems with syntactic rules compared with optional phonological rules.However, the greater part of the paper is directed toward more practical problems, the importance of which is demonstrated by presenting the results of a quantitative sociolinguistic investi-gation into the correlation of the frequency of Left Dislocation in spoken Dutch with 'classic' sociolinguistic conditioning factors such as class, sex and style.The conclusions are: (i) that sociolinguists should take into account the distinctions made in theoretical linguistics, and (ii) that beside these distinctions, there are other, even less studied, factors, such as complex internal structure of the NP, which may have a considerable influence on the frequency' of a construction