LINGUIST List 17.2070
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Mon Jul 17 2006
Diss: Syntax: De Sutter: 'Rood, groen, corpus! Een taalgebruiksgeba...'
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1. Gert
De Sutter,
Rood, groen, corpus! Een taalgebruiksgebaseerde analyse van woordvolgordevariatie in tweeledige werkwoordelijke eindgroepen
Message 1: Rood, groen, corpus! Een taalgebruiksgebaseerde analyse van woordvolgordevariatie in tweeledige werkwoordelijke eindgroepen
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Date: 14-Jul-2006
From: Gert De Sutter <gert.desutter arts.kuleuven.be>
Subject: Rood, groen, corpus! Een taalgebruiksgebaseerde analyse van woordvolgordevariatie in tweeledige werkwoordelijke eindgroepen
Institution: Catholic University of Leuven
Program: Department of Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2005
Author: Gert De Sutter
Dissertation Title: Rood, groen, corpus! Een taalgebruiksgebaseerde analyse van woordvolgordevariatie in tweeledige werkwoordelijke eindgroepen [A usage-based analysis of word order variation in Dutch bipartite clause final verb clusters]
Dissertation URL: http://hdl.handle.net/1979/98
Linguistic Field(s):
Syntax
Subject Language(s): Dutch (nld)
Dissertation Director:
Dirk Geeraerts
Dirk Speelman
Dissertation Abstract:
In this dissertation, one of the most intriguing types of syntactic variation in Dutch is studied, viz. word order variation in bipartite verb clusters, consisting of a past participle and the auxiliary verb. In such a context, the participle can either precede or follow the auxiliary verb. The goal of the research is to assess the mechanisms that influence the choice for participle-first or participle-final word order in contemporary Dutch, and to answer the question why both word order variants are available. On the basis of language data, extracted from two representative corpora, the effect of a set of language-internal and language-external factors on the choice of word order is studied empirically and quantitatively. In order to organize things properly, the different language-internal and language-external factors are classified along 4 dimensions: a contextual dimension, a prosodic dimension, a semantic dimension and a psycholinguistic dimension. Along the contextual dimension, the influence of the factors region and register is studied. The results show that participle-first word order is used more frequently in Belgian Dutch than in Netherlandic Dutch. Furthermore, the choice of word order is influenced by the language mode, the degree of interaction and the degree of editorial control. Along the prosodic dimension, the effect of the factor accent distribution before, in and after the verbal cluster is discussed. More specifically, it was investigated whether the choice of word order is influenced by the avoidance of an accent clash, the avoidance of a long interval with unaccented syllables and the protection of the so-called 'flat hat' pattern (which is one of the basic intonation contours in Dutch). All variables that were scrutinized against this background confirm the existence of such a prosodic principle. Along the semantic dimension, the effect of the factor status of the past participle is studied, i.e. the distinction between adjectivally used participles and verbally used participles. The results show that adjectival participles occur more often in participle-first word order than verbal participles, but, contrary to what is traditionally assumed, it is not impossible that adjectival participles show up in participle-final word order. Along the psycholinguistic dimension, the role of syntactic priming and participial frequency is scrutinized. The results show that word order is determined by the word order chosen in a previous verbal cluster, and that highly frequent participles occur in participle-final word order more often than participles that are less frequent. Next to these individual empirical analyses, we also performed a logistic regression analysis, which weighs the effect of all the factors against each other and computes the explanatory and predictive power. The results shows that all investigated factors, except for the prosodic factors, have a statistically significant effect on the choice of word order. Based on these results, a linguistic explanation for the coexistence of both word order variants was formulated. It is argued that at least part of the observed variation can be explained in terms of production pressure: the higher the production pressure, the more participle-first word order is chosen, i.e. the higher the temporal restrictions on the phonological, prosodic and/or grammatical encoding of the intended message, the more participle-first word order is chosen.
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