Description
If we go by their phoneCcs and lexis, it is obvious that Belgian and Netherland Limburg (arebeginning to) represent separate standard language uniCes: speakers from both provinces
manifest an audibly different accent in their Standard Dutch (Steegs et al. 2008), alongside
some deviaCng lexical choices (Huisman et al. 2021). These differences are canonically
interpreted in light of the claim that Belgian and Netherlandic Standard Dutch are diverging
in any conceivable component.
While there has tradiConally been some reluctance to recognize North/South divergence in
the syntacCc component of Dutch (Grondelaers et al. 2020) , De Troij et al. (2023) reports
convincing corpus evidence that Belgian and Netherlandic Dutch are also diverging in their
deepest syntacCc motor.
But does this divergence also hold for the Limburg area, which was a poliCcal unity long
before the birth of the Belgian and Netherlandic naCon states in 1839? While some evidence
suggests the existence of syntacCc differences between the two Limburgs – most noCceably
in the use of Netherlandic do-support (Ik doe tafeltennissen, Cornips 1994; 1998) which is
categorically absent in Belgian Limburgian Dutch –, other evidence from the domain of
existenCal sentences (Grondelaers & Ghyselen 2023) suggests some syntacCc alignment
between the two Limburgs against the backdrop of massive naConal divergence.
In this paper, we zoom in on adjunct-iniCal sentences with and without er (Op het dak staat
(er) een schoorsteen) to further probe the syntacCc motors of Belgian and Netherlandic
Limburgian Standard Dutch, and to invesCgate to what extent they diverge. The presence or
absence of existenCal er in adjunct-iniCal sentences is a privileged variable in this respect:
• It is anchored too deep in the syntacCc motor to be accessible for (conscious)
planning efforts: Netherlandic Limburgians may believe, for instance, that it is
preferable to drop their postverbal er’s in light of naConal preferences, but it is
unlikely that they can do so consciously.
• From previous psycholinguisCc experiments and corpus studies (see Grondelaers et
al. 2009 for an overview), we know how adjunct-iniCal clauses and the existenCal er
in them funcCon in Dutch, and how these funcCons materialize in the lexicon and
syntax of these clauses: while adjunct-iniCal clauses are tailormade strategies for the
convenient introducCon of new informaCon in discourse, existenCal er is an
“expectancy monitor” which signals low probability subjects.
• In addiCon, we know how the respecCve grammars of Belgian and Netherlandic
Dutch shape the syntax and the lexicon of adjunct-iniCal sentences and the
distribuCon of er in them (see especially Grondelaers et al. 2008).
In this paper, we go one granularity level lower, and limit our acenCon to a comparison
between the distribuCon of existenCal er in Belgian Limburgian and Netherlandic Limburgian
adjunct sentences. We build on a dataset of some 1500 tweets from the recently compiled
Meertens Twicer corpus, and on both manual and automaCc annotaCon (notably
distribuConal analysis and predictability measures) to invesCgate to what extent the
emergence of naConal standards has impacted the grammar of Limburgian.
| Period | 27 Sept 2024 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Limburg as a linguistic laboratory: The impact of territorial reorganization and coalmining on language variation and grammar |
| Event type | Workshop |
| Location | Genk, BelgiumShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |