Future venues of research and the SAND (volume 1)
0. Introduction *)
The award-winning Syntactic Atlas of Dutch Dialects, 'Syntactische Atlas van de Nederlandse Dialecten,
abbreviated as SAND (volume 1) features the latest results of a dialect
survey spanning The Netherlands and Dutch (Flemish) speaking Belgium. I will
point out two types of future research, for and with the SAND. On the one hand,
I will point out research which can be done with the material that has already
been collected within the SAND project,
but which must be dug out and analysed. An example of this type of
research involves testing the hypothesis of Hoekstra & Smits (1997, 1998)
on complementiser agreement (section 1.2). On the other hand, I will point out
research which entails sending out new questions to informants, hence a
continuation of the SAND. An example of this is given in section 4.1. on
reciprocals with singular antecedents.
Volume 1 of the SAND
contains the following five chapters, corresponding to five areas of syntactic
research: complementisers (chapter 1), subject pronouns (chapter 2), subject
doubling (chapter 3), reflexive and reciprocal pronouns (chapter 4) and
fronting (chapter 5). My review has the same substructure, dealing with each of
the chapters of the SAND in turn in a separate section. It is not my aim to
present a full-fledged critical review of the SAND. I have done that elsewhere
(Hoekstra 2006, to appear); there is some slight overlap, though, between that
article and the present article. In this contribution, I will focus on future
venues of research for and with the SAND.
I will pay special
attention to complementisers. Hence the sections dealing with complementisers
and complementiser agreement are more elaborate than the others.
The contents of my
review, which correspond to the contents of the SAND, are given below:
1. Complementisers
2. Subject pronouns
3. Subject doubling and
subject clitics following ja ('yes') and nee 'no'.
4. Reflexive and
reciprocal pronouns
5. Fronting
6. Conclusion
1. Complementisers
1.1. Temporal
complementisers
1.1.1. Temporal
complementiser voor 'before' +
tensed clause
The complementiser dat 'that'
can be optionally present following various other complementisers such
as relative complementisers, Wh-complementisers, temporal complementisers,
among others.1) Dialects differ to which extent they allow
doubling of complementisers by dat, whereas the standard language tends to disallow doubling. Curiously,
the standard language allows doubling in the case of voor 'before' and voordat 'before that'. The commentary raises the
question of how this doubling complementiser should be analysed syntactically.
Two analyses are proposed, of which we quote the first (p.10):
"This would mean
that voordat consists of two elements, namely, a preposition voor 'before' and a complementiser dat 'that'. The latter can be left out because
it does not contribute to the meaning of the clause."
There are two problems
here. First, it is not generally the case that meaningless elements are
optional in syntax; thus there is not necessarily a causal connection between
the optionality of dat and its
alleged lack of a semantic contribution to the sentence. Secondly, as it turns
out, the presence or absence of dat does have an effect on the sentence's meaning, in the case of the
alternation between voor and voordat, as noted by Jarich Hoekstra in unpublished
work.
Jarich Hoekstra refers to
Geis (1970), who notes that the following sentence is ambiguous in English, as
indicated here by the paraphrases in (1a) and (1b):
(1) I saw Mary in
(1a) I saw her before the time at which she made
the claim about her time of arrival.
(1b) I saw her before the time at which she would
arrive according to her.
Jarich Hoekstra notes
that only voordat is ambiguous
in Dutch, whereas voor is not:2)
(2a) Ik zag Marie in Leeuwarden, voordat ze zei
dat ze daar zou zijn.
I saw Mary in
"I saw Mary in
(2b) Ik zag Marie in Leeuwarden, voor ze zei dat
ze daar zou zijn.
I saw Mary in
"I saw Mary in
Ïn (2a), the seeing can
take place either before Mary's saying or before Mary's being there. In (2b),
the seeing can only take place before her saying so. If these judgments hold
water, then the presence or absence of the complementiser dat does affect the sentence's meaning. Jarich Hoekstra reports
similar facts for Frisian:
(3a) Ik seach Martsje yn
I saw Mary in
"I saw Mary in
(3b) Ik seach Martsje yn Amsterdam, foar't se sei
dat se dêr wêze soe.
I saw Mary in
"I saw Mary in
In Frisian, the
complementiser dat may be
present, or it may cliticise onto the complementiser foar. In case
cliticisation takes place, the downstairs reading (compare (1b)) is
unavailable. It would be interesting to investigate this semantic effect in the
various dialects of Dutch.
1.1.2. Temporal
complementisers na 'after' and alvorens
'before' + infinitival clause
It is noted in the
commentary that infinitival clauses can be introduced by an allegedly
meaningless complementiser like om "for" or by meaningful complementisers like na 'after', alvorens 'before' and zonder 'without' (p.10). Here I would like to
point out the remarkable behaviour of na in Standard Dutch. This complementiser
requires the presence of the verb hebben 'have' in infinitival clauses:
(4a)* Na lekker te slapen werden we wakker.
after well to sleep
became we awake
"After sleeping well we woke up."
(4b) Na lekker te hebben geslapen werden we
wakker.
after well to have slept
were we awake
"After sleeping well we woke up."
Is this the case in the
dialects as well? Spanish certainly allows any verb to occur after después 'after'. Furthermore, we note that the
complementiser 'before' may change shape
in Standard Dutch depending on whether it introduces a finite or a non-finite
clause. The complementisers voordat and voor are used to introduce finite
clauses, but they cannot be used to introduce infinitival clauses. The complementiser alvorens, however, can introduce both finite and
non-finite clauses. Frisian only features the complementiser foar, which is followed by dat or the cliticised variant 't. Interestingly, foar is not allowed to introduce non-finite
clauses in Frisian, and there is no direct Frisian equivalent for alvorens. How
is this in the dialects of Dutch?
1.2. Complementiser
agreement
Several maps are relevant
for, and tend to confirm, the generalisation made by Van Haeringen (1958),
which says that the agreement on the complementiser is identical to that of the
verb in inversion: 23b, 24b, 29b, 31b, 34b. The maps also test the narrower
hypothesis suggested by Goeman (1979) (and discussed in subsequent work such as
De Vogelaer, Neuckermans en Vanden Wyngaerd (2002)), who relates complement
agreement to the agreement of tensed monosyllabic verbs in inversion. However,
the notion 'monosyllabic verb' is not unproblematic. First of all, monosyllabic
verbs tend to behave as (regular) bisyllabic verbs in the present tense, but
they hardly ever do so when used as infinitives. So the verb gaan is often regularised in the present tense
plural from gaan to gane. The infinitive is hardly ever thus
regularised. The conceptual question is, why should complementiser agreement
'look' at the infinitival form of verbs? The complementiser itself introduces
finite, not infinitival sentences. Furthermore, Goeman (1979:299) does not seem
to distinguish between complementiser agreement proper and suffixed and infixed
clitics in forms such as astie ('when + he')
and merktiede (merk 'perceive' = verb stem, die = clitic, de = past tense suffix). Let us quote the relevant
passage from Goeman's article in full:
Person agreement on subordinators also occurs in the
past tense, but not by means of the ordinary verbal past tense suffixes but
with the clitic induced suffixes of the present tense. Person agreement on
subordinators is therefore unspecified for [+ tense], so astie maar
goed werkte (when he merely good worked) is paralleled by infixed forms as merktiede
(merk verb stem, die pronoun, de past tense suffix:
'remarked he") ... while forms such as ase die werkte (when he
worked) do not exist.
Now, for pronominal
clitics it is trivially true that they are unmarked for tense. Verbal affixes,
however, may conflate tense and agreement information: the -t of Standard Dutch
comprises synthetically both agreement information (3SG) and tense information
(present). The schwa of Standard Dutch, though spelled differently in present
and past, only gives agreement information (PL), no tense information. Goeman's
incidental remark quoted above, however, may be taken as the first explicit
speculation indicating that complementiser agreement is never synthetic, though
he does not develop it further. That is
done in Hoekstra & Smits (1997). They propose a generalisation which states
that complementiser agreement never bears tense information, and test this
claim on a number of dialects by comparing the present tense and past tense
paradigm of (inverted) verbs to the complementiser paradigm. Thus Hoekstra
& Smits can account for the absence of complementiser agreement in Frisian:
they note that the verbal agreement in the present tense is distinct from the
past tense (-E versus -EN). Unfortunately, the hypothesis of Hoekstra &
Smits, which is supported by data from several dialects, was not tested, which
is obviously a desideratum for future research.
In fact, the data in the SAND already make it possible to make this
comparison, but it is quite a job and it will also require knowledge of the
dialect in question.
Incidentally, the Frisian
data also contradict the idea that monosyllabicity is a conditioning factor for
complementiser agreement. Frisian features monosyllabic gean 'go'; it shows up as geane in inversion in the present tense plural,
hence complementiser agreement datte should be found in the plural, on the hypothesis of
Goeman that verbal monosyllabicity is somehow relevant. But Frisian does not
feature complementiser agreement in the plural.
Complementiser agreement
has been related to the agreement of tensed verbs in inversion. But verbs
constitute a large class. It is hardly conceivable that a grammatical condition
checks on all members of the class of verbs. It is far more likely that only a
characteristic closed subset of all verbs is concerned. Hence Hoekstra &
Smits (1998, see http://members.chello.nl/e.hoekstra8/96Everything.html) suggested
that it is the agreement of auxiliaries (a functional category) which is
relevant. Since monosyllabic verbs like gaan 'go' are auxiliaries, the special
similarity with monosyllabic verbs now follows. See Hoekstra & Smits (1998)
for further arguments in defense of this claim. The material of the SAND could
be used to test whether the proposed refinement of Hoekstra & Smits is
empirically adequate. Again, this is a task for future research. The large
amount of variation in the field of complementiser agreement indicates that the
syntactic agreement mechanism must be very powerful (compare Barbiers 2006).
2. Subject pronouns
2.1. Premodified subject
pronouns 2SG
Chapter 2 of the SAND
deals with various aspects of subject pronouns. One of the most peculiar
properties of Standard Dutch is that the verb loses its inflectional ending -T
in inversion in the present tense 2SG:
(5a) Je gaat. Ga je? Je ging. Ging je?
You go. Go you? You went. Went
you?
(5b) Je leeft. Leef je? Je leefde. Leefde je?
You live. Live you? You lived.
Lived you?
It would be interesting
to investigate which dialects share this property with Standard Dutch, and also
to investigate whether there are dialects which feature this phenomenon with
other person/number combinations of the paradigm (cf. De Wulf & Taeldeman
2006).
In addition, I found out
(Hoekstra 1994) that the pronoun 2SG tends to resist premodification just in
case there is no preceding -T.
(6a)
(*) Morgen ga zelfs jij braaf naar school.
tomorrow go even you
well-behaved to school
"Tomorrow even you will go to school like a good boy /
girl."
(6b) Gister ging zelfs jij braaf naar school.
yesterday went even you
well-behaved to school
"Yesterday even you went to school like a good boy /
girl."
In Standard Dutch,
premodification of the second person pronoun is for many speakers
ungrammatical, just in case the (zero) flection of the second person in
inversion is distinct from the (non-zero) flection used in the non-inverted
order. In other language varieties, deviant behaviour of the 2SG can also be
found. Take Frisian for example:
(7a) * Moarn giest sels do braaf nei skoalle ta.
tomorrow go-2SG even you well-behaved to school to
"Tomorrow even you will go to school like a good boy /
girl."
(7b) * Ik tink datst sels do moarn braaf nei
skoalle ta giest.
I think that-2SG even you
well-behaved to school to go-2SG
"Yesterday even you went to school like a good boy /
girl."
Here premodification of
the second person is never allowed in inversion. This phenomenon seems well
worth investigating and will doubtlessly yield a wealth of interesting
material.
3. Subject doubling and
subject clitics following ja ('yes') and nee 'no'.
3.1. Premodification and
doubled pronouns
The premodification tests
of the previous section can also be done with doubled pronouns. Furthermore, De
Haan (1997) reacted to Van der Meer (1991) on the subject of distinguishing
cliticisation from agreement. Van der Meer had argued that the Frisian 2SG,
which observationally features pro-drop, should be analysed theoretically as
cliticisation. De Haan's article contains a wealth of tests distinguishing
clitics from agreement. Those tests could also be the basis for further surveys
in the SAND. See also De Schutter (1997).
4. Reflexive and
reciprocal pronouns
4.1. Elkaar 'each other' with singular antecedent
The SAND features one map
with the reciprocal, which has the form elkaar 'each other' in Standard Dutch. The example
sentence used is one in which elkaar has a plural antecendent. However, Standard Dutch
features a remarkable phenomenon, which is absent in English and French. The
reciprocal can also take a singular antecedent:
(8a) Het horloge viel uit elkaar.
the watch fell out each other
"The watch fell apart."
(8b) Dat stel is uit elkaar.
that couple is out each other
"That
couple is divorced."
(8c) Ik zet het horloge in elkaar.
I put the watch in each
other
"i put the watch together."
Frisian features the
construction in much the same way as Dutch does. It would be interesting to
investigate the extent to which the southern dialects of Dutch have this
construction, regardless of whether the explanation for this phenomenon is going
to be syntactic or semantic.
4.2. Distribution of z'n eigen 'his own' meaning 'himself'
As is clear from the
SAND, many central Dutch dialects feature the non-Standard reflexive z'n eigen. The maps of the SAND already contain the
results of this reflexive in a number of syntactic contexts. Interestingly, the
reflexive z'n eigen 'his own' is systematically absent in this example
sentence (map 70a), as noted in the commentary:
(9) The timmerman heeft geen spijkers bij zich.
the carpenter has no
nails with him
"The carpenter has no nails with him."
This is curious, as the
reflexive does show up with inherent reflexice verbs like zich herinneren / z'n eigen herinneren 'remember'.
This calls for an in-depth investigation of this reflexive.
Preliminary research on
this reflexive was performed by a trainee of mine who investigated the Kempisch
dialect (Breukels 1997), spoken in the province Noord-Brabant. According to Breukels, Kempisch uses z'n eigen ('his own') both for men and for women. Map
74b of the SAND reports the results for
a female antecedent third person. The map only features the female form of the
reciprocal, d'r eigen ('her own'),
which is absent in Kempisch according to Breukels. Strangely enough, the form z'n eigen with female antecedent (a gender neutral
form) is not found in the results of the SAND. Now, Breukels notes that
Kempisch lacks the female form d'r eigen simply because it lacks the possessive pronoun d'r 'her'. However, the SAND had to abstract
away from this in order to produce a map, so the Kempisch data were (probably)
assimilated to the data from dialects which had distinct forms for reflexives
with male and female third person antecents. Thus we see that an atlas, by
presenting a map in which only a restricted number of subcategories in the data
have been made visible, sometimes makes abstractions which are misleading. This
is inherent to the making of maps.
5. Fronting
With respect to fronting,
the results of the SAND do not seem to raise questions for future research,
except for the lack of verb-second in French Flemish, as shown on map 95a. It
would be interesting to find out which elements do trigger verb-second in those
dialects.
6. Conclusion
The SAND offers an
overwhelming amount of Dutch dialect data. It can be used as an excellent
starting point for further research, and there is still lots of work to be
done. I also checked out the digital version of the SAND (http://www.meertens.knaw.nl/sand/zoeken/), and I found
it quite useful. I suspect that assistance is required when one wants to do
some complex data-mining. For example, I suspect that some outside help would
be needed if one wanted to test the hypothesis of Hoekstra & Smits (1997)
on complementiser agreement (see section 1.2). Nevertheless, the digital SAND
(dynaSAND) is well worth an effort on the part of the user.
Notes
*) I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for providing
useful comments.
1) A reviewer suggests that dat, if it occurs, is obligatory in such
cases, rather than optional. I suspect that this depends on the dialect
involved. When analysing dialect material from South Holland, North Holland,
Friesland and
2) This contrast is not shared by everybody:
one reviewer shares J. Hoekstra's judgments, the other does not and reports
that both voor and voordat are ambiguous. Apparently,
different dialects (or even idiolects) are involved. Perhaps the following
example, suggested by a reviewer, makes it easier to distinguish between the
two readings:
(ia) De trein vertrok voor de spoorbeamte zei dat
hij zou vertrekken
the train left before the
railway official said that it would leave
"The train left before the railway official said that
it would leave.
(ib) De trein vertrok voordat de spoorbeamte zei
dat hij zou vertrekken
the train left before the
railway official said that it would leave
"The train left before the railway official said that
it would leave.
Complexities may be due
to the interaction of a temporal complementiser with the past tense, and the
use of the past tense could also be due to dialect variation.
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