Taal en Tongval. Jaargang 42

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Summaries

G. de Schutter
The study of the syntax of Dutch and Frisian dialects

This text seeks to provide a general overview of research done in the field of the synchronic syntax of non-standard Dutch, mainly but not exclusively that of geographical dialects. It encompasses both linguistic analyses of special phenomena as such, as well as their topographic diustribution. Emphasis has been given to those construction types which may be seen as a challenge to current linguistis theory. The overview itself is divided into four sections:

i.	The development of parts of speech, focusing on subordinating conjunctions, and especially on pre-, circum- and post-positions (section 3).
ii.	Syntactic formation rules: possessive constructions, existential and medial clauses (section 4).
iii.	Formal characteristics of clauses, with three further subsections: (a) expansion rules, focusing on a number of characteristics of the COMP node (double filling); (b) agreement rules and case assignment, in all types of constituents; emphasis is given to the existence of COMP-agreement in a wide variety of Dutch dialects; (c) word order rules, with themes such as the fundamental SVO / SOV-status of Dutch dialects, topicalisation procedures, extraposition and cliticisation of pronouns (sections 5.1, 5.2, 5.3 resp.).
iv.	Interpretation rules, with special attention to pragmatic features and to cohesion.

Marinel Gerritsen
Methodological aspects of the study of the areal distribution of syntactic variants for the Syntactic Atlas of Dutch (AND)

This paper deals with the study of the areal distribution of syntactic variants. After a discussion of the stepmotherly treatment of syntax in dialect geography

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and the reasons for this (1), the pros and cons of the different methods for the study of the geographical distribution of syntactic variants are discussed, and special attention is paid to the methodology that is applied to the investigations for the Syntactic Atlas of Dutch (AND) (2). A brief outline of the results of the survey for the Syntactic Atlas of Dutch is given in section 3.

This paper presents two important issues for dialect geography. It shows in the first place that it is possible to obtain an insight into the regional variation of syntactic phenomena with the help of such a relatively simple device as written questionnaires. It demonstrates in the second place that there are so many regional differences on the level of syntax that it is worth the effort to make syntactic atlases.

J. de Rooij
Regional variation in the use of ‘er’ (I)

This article is the first of three on the syntactically interesting Dutch word ‘er’.

In the introduction materials and methodology are described. Besides the available literature, data from dialect questionnaires, dialect atlases, standard language questionnaires and a standard language corpus were gathered and analysed quantitatively.

In the following sections the type koffie met suiker (er)in, ‘coffee with sugar in (it)’ is investigated. The variant with ‘er’ belongs to the standard language. The variant without ‘er’ occurs in regional usage in Belgium (and very rarely in southern dialects of The Netherlands), but is losing ground: it is used more in dialect than in standard, and more by older than by younger people.

Ineke Schuurman en Annet Wierenga
The Groningen dialect: ‘Verb-Raising’ in types and degrees’

In this paper we focus on instances of Verb-Raising constructions in the Groningen dialect, which is spoken in the northern part of the Netherlands. We argue that different types of Verb-Raising need to be distinguished in this dialect. A closer look at similar constructions in Dutch reveals that there are arguments in favour of such a distinction in Dutch too.

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Germen de Haan
The Frisian Imperativus-pro-Infinitivo

The topic of this paper is a syntactic construction of West Frisian, known as the Imperativus-pro Infinitivo. The second part of this construction consists of the conjunction ‘en’ ‘and’ followed by a preposed verbal form.

The paper defends the position that the traditional distinction of the construction in a subordinate type and a coordinated type should be replaced with two types of subordination. This analysis offers a perspective on the historical development of the construction that does not have to make use of an a priori implausible kind of grammatical restructuring.

As to the internal structure of the construction, attention is paid to alternative ways of accounting for the identification of the implicit subject.

W.P.F. de Geest
Subject Clitics and Clitic Doubling in the East Flemish Ghent dialect and their relevance for the Principles and Parameters Framework

Weak forms of subject personal pronouns can be adjoined pro- of enclitically to the finite verb in main clauses and enclitically to the complementizer in subordinate clauses. Optional Clitic Doubling coincides with both these cases.

The paper assumes that the external, subject theta-role is discharged to the argument in [SPEC, VP] and that the Clitic Doubling pronoun is an expletive situated in [SPEC, AGRP].

In the central part of the paper the interest focuses on the distribution data, on the mechanisms of Case assignment and on the implications of the hypotheris that in East Flemish as in West Flemish, the head of the COMP projection is bearer of the Tense and Agreement features.

C. Braecke
‘Out of the brace’ or +/- prominent?

Prepositional phrases in final position have been interpreted as a performance-related phenomenon, easing the tension caused by the brace construction typical of the Dutch clause.

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The analysis of a corpus of spoken Dutch in a Flemish village suggests a pragmatic explanation of clause-final PPs. They occur more frequently in that position if they have a syntactic function that is more likely to be focal. Focus also seems to be a more effective factor than length.

F. Jansen
Brace constructions and no reaction to them

In a brace construction, two parts of one constituent occupy radically different positions in the sentence. Although brace construction are a fundamental characteristic of Standard Dutch, they have always been considered clumsy for both speakers and listeners. Sometimes, there is a remedy for the brace: extraposition. A prepositional phrase is optionally placed directly after the verbal group at the end of the sentence.

Do dialect speakers prefer the brace, or the extraposition? And, what linquistic factors condition their choises? After answering these questions, I return to the concept of the brace, and its supposed clumsiness. I present some anectodal evidence that, as a matter of fact, speakers prefer all kinds of braces, provided that their is only one constituent within it.

F. de Meersman
Word order in subordinate clauses with respect to two-part verb groups: an exploratory historical sketch

The order of the finite verb (Vf) and the non-finite verb forms (V), i.e. past participle (VD) or plain infinitive (I), in Dutch subordinate clauses seems to have been far from stable from the Middel Dutch period until now. The figures mentioned in earlier studies show a good deal of variation in the degree of VfV and VVf. No-one has yet offered a satisfactory explanation of the factors triggering a specific ordering of the verbal forms. Neither has there been any real attempt at a diachronic, systematic survey of Middle Dutch verb order.

This article is concerned with supplying some factual knowledge as to this ordering and with unravelling some of the mysteries behind it.

A substantial corpus of 13th-16th century non-literary Flemish and Brabantic texts prove verb order to be linked with the dialect area from where the texts originate and with their age.

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Moreover, the order of finite verb and infinitive appears to have changed in a direction different from that of finite verb and past participle. Both orders, VfV and VVf, were quite common in the 13th century, although the most western dialects show relatively more VfV than the rest. During the 14th and the 15th centuries the VfV-ordering loses ground. VfVD especially crumbles away: by the 15th century it even has become a somewhat marginal phenomenon. VfI manages to recover in the course of the 16th century, at least in the Brabantic and western dialects. Later on it even annihilates IVf. On the other hand VfVD is eliminated completely.

This regionally and temporally determined evolution seems in no way connected with a possible typological evolution of Middel Dutch dialects. Yet, to some degree verb order may well be linked with style aspects of the texts or stylistic considerations from the part of their authors. VVf-orders seems liable to be favoured in formal texts. Learned authors might even seem to cultivate this verb order. Conservatism in writing, a slowly developing tendency towards language standardization and unification of simply common personal preferences may account for the higher proportion of VVf displayed in some of the texts. The partly innovative VfI-ordering in 16th century Brabantic (and western Flemish) texts seems particularly frequent in less formal texts. These stylistic tendencies however centainly need to be examined much more closely before the evidence can be considered conclusive.

C. van Bree
The stability of syntax and other language elements. Awareness of ‘Twentisms’ among groups of ‘Twenten’ and speakers from the western parts of the Netherlands

(1) In this article I discuss the notion stability of language elements. Elements easily tranferred from L1 to L2 are stable, elements easily borrowed from L2 by L1 are unstable. To a great extend the degree of stability is determined by the degree of consciousness resulting from the process of first language acquisition. Secondary factors may be important during second language acquisition, e.g. the degree of deviation of L1 elements from L2 norms.

(2) The hypotheses about stability were tested by means of investigations in Borne (Twente) in the period 1985-1987. 42 dialect speakers were interviewed in order to investigate to what extent they are aware of Twentisms in Standard Dutch. An acceptability test was an important part of the interview.

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(3) Later, other groups were also tested by means of the same acceptablility test: non-dialect speakers in Twente, immigrants from the western parts of the Netherlands in Twente, immigrants from Twente in the western parts, speakers born and brought up in the western parts.

(4, 5) In conformity with our expectations, the dialect speakers of Twente are most tolerant towards Twentisms, the western speakers least tolerant. The non-dialect speakers of Twente are rather tolerant but to a lesser degree than the dialect speakers. The two immigrant groups are characterized by about the same in-between scores. The reactions of the non-dialect speakers and of the immigrant groups show that the language environment in which one lives is of great importance. Use of constructions and function words (syntax) turn out to be very stable, content words turn out to be very unstable. Word orders (another syntactic domain) and adverbs of time and place occupy intermediate positions. The results concerning morphology and the lexical phonological aspect are problematic probably because of complications of interview technique.

(5.3) In a final section special attention is paid to the stability of syntax not only in contact situations but also in cases of internal change.