LINGUIST List 17.2070
Mon Jul 17 2006
Diss: Syntax: De Sutter: 'Rood, groen, corpus! Een taalgebruiksgeba...'
Editor for this issue: Hannah Morales
<hannahlinguistlist.org>
Directory
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
Date: 14-Jul-2006
From: Gert De Sutter <gert.desutterarts.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 syntacticvariation in Dutch is studied, viz. word order variation in bipartite verbclusters, consisting of a past participle and the auxiliary verb. In such acontext, the participle can either precede or follow the auxiliary verb.
The goal of the research is to assess the mechanisms that influence thechoice for participle-first or participle-final word order in contemporaryDutch, and to answer the question why both word order variants areavailable. On the basis of language data, extracted from two representativecorpora, the effect of a set of language-internal and language-externalfactors on the choice of word order is studied empirically andquantitatively. In order to organize things properly, the differentlanguage-internal and language-external factors are classified along 4dimensions: a contextual dimension, a prosodic dimension, a semanticdimension and a psycholinguistic dimension.
Along the contextual dimension, the influence of the factors region andregister is studied. The results show that participle-first word order isused 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 distributionbefore, in and after the verbal cluster is discussed. More specifically, itwas investigated whether the choice of word order is influenced by theavoidance of an accent clash, the avoidance of a long interval withunaccented syllables and the protection of the so-called 'flat hat' pattern(which is one of the basic intonation contours in Dutch). All variablesthat were scrutinized against this background confirm the existence of sucha prosodic principle.
Along the semantic dimension, the effect of the factor status of the pastparticiple is studied, i.e. the distinction between adjectivally usedparticiples and verbally used participles. The results show that adjectivalparticiples occur more often in participle-first word order than verbalparticiples, but, contrary to what is traditionally assumed, it is notimpossible that adjectival participles show up in participle-final word order.
Along the psycholinguistic dimension, the role of syntactic priming andparticipial frequency is scrutinized. The results show that word order isdetermined by the word order chosen in a previous verbal cluster, and thathighly frequent participles occur in participle-final word order more oftenthan participles that are less frequent.
Next to these individual empirical analyses, we also performed a logisticregression analysis, which weighs the effect of all the factors againsteach other and computes the explanatory and predictive power. The resultsshows that all investigated factors, except for the prosodic factors, havea statistically significant effect on the choice of word order. Based onthese results, a linguistic explanation for the coexistence of both wordorder variants was formulated. It is argued that at least part of theobserved variation can be explained in terms of production pressure: thehigher the production pressure, the more participle-first word order ischosen, i.e. the higher the temporal restrictions on the phonological,prosodic and/or grammatical encoding of the intended message, the moreparticiple-first word order is chosen.
|