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- Volume 35, Issue 1, 2018
Linguistics in the Netherlands - Volume 35, Issue 1, 2018
Volume 35, Issue 1, 2018
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Realigning alignment
Author(s): Bernat Bardagil-Mas and Charlotte Lindenberghpp.: 1–18 (18)More LessAbstractWe analyse case marking in the Jê language family (Brazilian Amazonia) with the new completeness alignment typology proposed by Lindenbergh & Zwart (2017). In contrast with classical alignment typology, the completeness typology first determines whether all grammatical functions participate in a grammatical process (e.g. case marking) and only then determines how these grammatical functions are aligned, adding nine incomplete alignment types to the five types of classical alignment typology. Nine of the ten Jê languages are classified as split-ergative, while Panará is seen as fully ergative, making it a typologically odd language within the family. We show that applying the completeness typology to Jê languages more accurately describes the true variation in case marking patterns across the Jê language family.
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The syntax of Dutch gapping
Author(s): Hans Broekhuispp.: 19–33 (15)More LessAbstractThis article takes as its point of departure Neijt’s (1979) claim that gapping is a rule of syntax with properties also found in wh-movement constructions. I will refine this proposal by concluding that gapping remnants are A′-moved into the clause-initial position (SpecCP) and/or the specifiers of functional projections such as TopP, FocP and NegP found in the middle field of the clause. I will further show that this approach sheds new light on various problems (such as the distribution of modal and polarity particles) not satisfactorily solved in earlier analyses.
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Deriving anteriority in the perfect of recent past
Author(s): Martijn van der Klispp.: 35–50 (16)More LessAbstractMost Romance languages share a grammaticalized construction to refer to events in the recent past, e.g. the passé récent in French and the pasado reciente in Spanish. In English, typically a present perfect alongside the adverb just is used to convey this meaning, commonly referred to as perfect of recent past (Comrie 1985) or hot news perfect (McCawley 1971). We show the French passé récent leads to a reading of immediate anteriority, which blocks readings that are available for the passé composé (Bres & Labeau 2015). In a parallel corpus study, we find that the Spanish and French recent past forms have a similar distribution, and the Germanic languages generally use perfect + just in translation. We then provide a DRT analysis to derive immediate anteriority compositionally.
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Glides and laryngeals as a structural class
Author(s): Kenneth de Kok, Bert Botma and Marijn van ’t Veerpp.: 51–64 (14)More LessAbstractPhonological processes typically affect natural classes of sounds, with the members of such classes sharing some phonetic property to the exclusion of other sounds. Recent typological work shows that not all phonological classes are natural, however (Mielke 2008). This paper considers the class of glides and laryngeals, a combination of sounds which resists a straightforward characterization in terms of shared features. Adopting the framework of Element Theory (Harris & Lindsey 1995; Backley 2011), we argue that class behaviour of glides and laryngeals is due not to their having shared phonetic content, but shared phonological structure: glides and laryngeals contain a single element in their melodic structure. We conclude that phonological processes can be sensitive to the difference between simple and complex expressions.
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Processing delays
Author(s): Loes Koring and Hans van de Kootpp.: 65–78 (14)More LessAbstractAn eye-tracking experiment using the Visual World Paradigm (VWP) shows that in on-line sentence processing in English the argument of an unaccusative verb reactivates late after verb offset. In contrast to previous studies, this VWP experiment establishes the exact time course of this effect, which matches the time course previously found for Dutch, despite differences in word order between the two languages. Furthermore, it uncovers an early reactivation of the argument of unergative verbs that has previously gone unnoticed. Such an effect has previously been observed for Dutch, but not for English. Moreover, the effect seems to occur earlier in English than in Dutch. We suggest that this difference may be due to the more rigid word order of English, which provides the parser with more informative cues.
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Do we want more or less variation?
Author(s): Marten van der Meulenpp.: 79–96 (18)More LessAbstractThe suppression of optional variability is a cornerstone of English prescriptivism. For Dutch, however, it is unknown whether this concept is equally important. The goal of this paper is to investigate which stance towards variation is taken in Dutch prescriptivism, and what arguments are used to support this stance. I address these questions by looking at 236 usage advice items from 73 Dutch prescriptive publications concerning the comparative particles als and dan. This data shows a clear division in the allowance of variation. With the standard comparative (groter als/dan), variation is often allowed, but with equative constructions (even groot als) only one form is ever accepted. Furthermore, the allowance of variation decreases over time. The argumentation that is used shows few patterns, and is frequently completely absent. This indicates the existence of an ipse dixit (‘assertion without proof’) tradition in Dutch prescriptivism since 1900.
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Gender-mismatching pronouns in context
Author(s): Joske Piepers and Theresa Redlpp.: 97–110 (14)More LessAbstractGender-(mis)matching pronouns have been studied extensively in experiments. However, a phenomenon common to various languages has thus far been overlooked: the systemic use of non-feminine pronouns when referring to female individuals. The present study is the first to provide experimental insights into the interpretation of such a pronoun: Limburgian zien ‘his/its’ and Dutch zijn ‘his/its’ are grammatically ambiguous between masculine and neuter, but while Limburgian zien can refer to women, the Dutch equivalent zijn cannot. Employing an acceptability judgment task, we presented speakers of Limburgian (N = 51) with recordings of sentences in Limburgian featuring zien, and speakers of Dutch (N = 52) with Dutch translations of these sentences featuring zijn. All sentences featured a potential male or female antecedent embedded in a stereotypically male or female context. We found that ratings were higher for sentences in which the pronoun could refer back to the antecedent. For Limburgians, this extended to sentences mentioning female individuals. Context further modulated sentence appreciation. Possible mechanisms regarding the interpretation of zien as coreferential with a female individual will be discussed.
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The Dutch verb-spelling paradox in social media
Author(s): Tijn Schmitz, Robert Chamalaun and Mirjam Ernestuspp.: 111–124 (14)More LessAbstractAlthough the Dutch verb spelling system seems very straightforward, many spelling errors are made, both by children and adults (e.g., Sandra, Frisson, & Daems 2004). These errors mainly occur with verbs with two or more homophonous forms in their inflectional paradigms. Ample experimental research has been carried out on this topic, but these studies hardly reflect everyday language behavior. In the current corpus study, we reassessed previously found experimental results, but now in a Twitter corpus containing 17,432 tweets with homophonous verb forms. In accordance with previous results, we found a clear preference for the suffix -
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Empathy for the inanimate
Author(s): Thijs Trompenaarspp.: 125–138 (14)More LessAbstractNarrative fiction may invite us to share the perspective of characters which are very much unlike ourselves. Inanimate objects featuring as protagonists or narrators are an extreme example of this. The way readers experience these characters was examined by means of a narrative immersion study. Participants (N = 200) judged narratives containing animate or inanimate characters in predominantly Agent or Experiencer roles. Narratives with inanimate characters were judged to be less emotionally engaging. This effect was influenced by the dominant thematic role associated with the character: inanimate Agents led to more defamiliarization compared to their animate counterparts than inanimate Experiencers. I argue for an integrated account of thematic roles and animacy in literary experience and linguistics in general.
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Voice and information structure in Surinamese Javanese
Author(s): Sophie Villeriuspp.: 139–153 (15)More LessAbstractThis paper examines the grammatical voice system of Indonesian and Surinamese Javanese speakers. Alongside Javanese, the Surinamese speakers also speak Sranantongo and Dutch. Studying the use of voice in both speaker groups shows that it depends both on givenness and animacy of arguments. This interacts with the speaker group. The Surinamese speakers were found to be less discourse-dependent, due to general language contact processes as well as convergence to Dutch and Sranantongo.
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Have-doubling constructions in historical and modern Dutch
Author(s): Joanna Wallpp.: 155–172 (18)More LessAbstractHave-doubling constructions closely resemble periphrastic perfect tense constructions but have an additional, seemingly superfluous form of the verb have. Whilst these constructions are only found in a small number of modern Dutch dialects, they appear much more broadly in historical varieties of Dutch. In this article, I present new data from a corpus study of have-doubling constructions in Early Modern Dutch (ca. 1500-1700) which reveals both similarities and an important difference with the modern dialectal phenomenon. I argue that there are two structurally distinct types of have-doubling in this older period: one which contains a canonical adjective (i.e. with one internal argument) and one with a non-canonical adjective with a vP layer (Koeneman et al. 2011). I further show that this sheds new light on the observed link between doubling constructions and the rise of the periphrastic perfect tenses, with implications for the nature of this syntactic development.
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Modal particle or emerging inflection?
Author(s): Ton van der Woudenpp.: 173–186 (14)More LessAbstractDutch has a construction consisting of a verbal part and something else: ′wɛrksə ‘enjoy your work’ (< werk ‘to work’), ′rujzə ‘enjoy your rowing’ (< roei ‘to row’). According to accepted wisdom, this ‘success imperative’, as it is known in the literature, consists of an imperative and a pronoun ze ‘them’. The paper challenges the standard analysis and investigates two alternatives: an imperative form plus a modal particle, and a verbal stem plus an inflectional ending.
Volumes & issues
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Volume 40 (2023)
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Volume 39 (2022)
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Volume 38 (2021)
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Volume 37 (2020)
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Volume 36 (2019)
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Volume 35 (2018)
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Volume 34 (2017)
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Volume 33 (2016)
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Volume 32 (2015)
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Volume 31 (2014)
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Volume 30 (2013)
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Volume 29 (2012)
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Volume 28 (2011)
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Volume 27 (2010)
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Volume 26 (2009)
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Volume 25 (2008)
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Volume 24 (2007)
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Volume 23 (2006)
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Volume 22 (2005)
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Volume 21 (2004)
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Volume 20 (2003)
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Volume 19 (2002)
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Volume 18 (2001)
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Volume 17 (2000)
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Volume 16 (1999)
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Volume 15 (1998)
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Volume 14 (1997)
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Volume 13 (1996)
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Volume 12 (1995)
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Volume 11 (1994)
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Volume 10 (1993)
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Volume 9 (1992)
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Volume 8 (1991)
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