This thesis describes a study in which Dutch learners of English are asked to interpret a set of novel Dutch and English noun-noun compounds. The complete set of test items is divided into a set...Show moreThis thesis describes a study in which Dutch learners of English are asked to interpret a set of novel Dutch and English noun-noun compounds. The complete set of test items is divided into a set with compounds designed to encourage participants to select the appropriate semantic relation in the compound, and another set with compounds designed to elicit figurative interpretations. The thesis investigates whether there are significant differences between Dutch ESL learners’ interpretations of Dutch (L1) novel noun-noun compounds and their interpretations of English (L2) compounds. Differences were found for the figurative compounds, but not for the relation-based compounds.Show less
The thesis quantitatively measures the extent to which a selection of speeches of two Dutch and two UK politicians, Thierry Baudet, Geert Wilders, Nigel Farage, and Boris Johnson, contain lexical...Show moreThe thesis quantitatively measures the extent to which a selection of speeches of two Dutch and two UK politicians, Thierry Baudet, Geert Wilders, Nigel Farage, and Boris Johnson, contain lexical and grammatical indicators of a populist communication style.Show less
This thesis looks at two instances of language variation in Middle English and Modern English: the choice between bare gerundive and to-infinitival complements after the catenative verbs start,...Show moreThis thesis looks at two instances of language variation in Middle English and Modern English: the choice between bare gerundive and to-infinitival complements after the catenative verbs start, begin, stop and finish, and the semantic preferences these complementation patterns have at different time periods. Previous studies have uncovered diachronic tendencies among the complementation patterns of the catenative verbs begin/start and stop/finish (see e.g. Mair 2002, De Smet 2013 and Leech et al. 2009), however, they say little or nothing on the frequencies with which different verbs occur in the bare gerundive -ing complement clause and to-complement clause of these catenative verbs. Consequently, the aim of this thesis is to investigate the diachronic development of the bare gerundive and the to-infinitive complementation patterns of the catenative verbs begin/start and stop/finish across the Middle English and Modern English period. More specifically, this thesis will investigate the differences between the frequencies with which different semantic domains occur in the bare gerundive and the to-infinitive complementation patterns of the catenative verbs begin/start and stop/finish.Show less
The middle construction in English can be formed with an adverb. Though much has been said about constraints on themes and verbs in the middle construction, less has been said about constraints on...Show moreThe middle construction in English can be formed with an adverb. Though much has been said about constraints on themes and verbs in the middle construction, less has been said about constraints on adverbs. This thesis is a short study of what adverbs can participate in middle formation.Show less
