Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
This thesis investigates the linguistic expression and conceptualization of lexical temporal concepts in Kavalan, a highly endangered Austronesian (Formosan) language spoken on the east coast of...Show moreThis thesis investigates the linguistic expression and conceptualization of lexical temporal concepts in Kavalan, a highly endangered Austronesian (Formosan) language spoken on the east coast of Taiwan. The first part consists of a grammar sketch. The second part is the core component, describing and analyzing lexical time in Kavalan based on fieldwork data. The lexical temporal concepts are taken from Haspelmath’s (1997) typological semantic classification of temporal NP-based adverbials. The conceptualization of these concepts is examined using the Conceptual Metaphor Theory as advanced by Lakoff & Johnson (e.g. 1980, 1999b) and adjusted and expanded by Moore (2000, 2006, 2014). Expressions motivated by various TIME IS SPACE metaphors are found to be fairly frequent in Kavalan. The third and final part contains a small typological study, in which Kavalan’s linguistic behavior in terms of temporal expression and conceptualization is compared to that of four other Formosan languages: Tsou, Saisiyat, Isbukun Bunun, and Paiwan. A general pattern is the different encoding of temporal clauses in past situations as opposed to those in future and generic/habitual situations (Zeitoun 1997). Both Kavalan and Saisiyat are curiously found to deviate from this two-way distinction by being more implicit. Tsou is an obvious outlier in various respects, as expected from its likewise diverging general linguistic properties.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
This thesis presents a systematic study on plural words, a particular type of nominal plurality marking, in Austronesian languages. Building on previous studies, I explore how plural words in...Show moreThis thesis presents a systematic study on plural words, a particular type of nominal plurality marking, in Austronesian languages. Building on previous studies, I explore how plural words in Austronesian languages are distributed, and discuss the diachronic developments of these plural words.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
Predicates of fear and apprehension in Russian can be followed by clauses with a marker of negation that does not alter the truth value of the proposition as in 'Ja bojus’, kak by ne bylo dožd’ja' ...Show morePredicates of fear and apprehension in Russian can be followed by clauses with a marker of negation that does not alter the truth value of the proposition as in 'Ja bojus’, kak by ne bylo dožd’ja' (I am afraid that it might rain), where it is the possibility of rain that causes the fear and not the contrary. The negative particle ne thus seems superfluous and illogical if the two clauses are assumed to be linked by subordination. This thesis reapplies Jespersen’s insight of paratactic negation (Jespersen 1917) to address this well-known problem of Russian syntax. Corpus-based evidence is presented in support of analyzing clauses with 'kak by' and negation as instantiations of an autonomous, independent-clause construction rather than as embedded complements. By way of corroboration, the historical path along which the construction is likely to have developed is also examined to demonstrate its main-clause origins. While this analysis provides an elegant solution to the problem of negation by removing restrictions stemming from the notion of embeddedness, the precise function of negation is explored within an intersubjective approach (Verhagen 2005). The role of negation in the construction is shown to consist in cognitive coordination whereby the speaker instructs the addressee to entertain two mental representations of an apprehension-causing situation and to adopt the one in which this situation is construed as non-existent through the use of negation.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
In this thesis I lay the foundation towards a 'grammar of space' of Iraqw based on original fieldwork conducted in the Manyara region of Tanzania. The thesis focuses on how Iraqw makes predications...Show moreIn this thesis I lay the foundation towards a 'grammar of space' of Iraqw based on original fieldwork conducted in the Manyara region of Tanzania. The thesis focuses on how Iraqw makes predications about (static) topological relations and motion events, and how Iraqw uses the three frames of reference . The appendix contains some observations on spatial deixis.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
In this thesis, I investigated interjections in spoken Taiwan Mandarin. I gathered data from a contemporary spontaneous conversation between two Taiwan Mandarin speakers that I recorded in the...Show moreIn this thesis, I investigated interjections in spoken Taiwan Mandarin. I gathered data from a contemporary spontaneous conversation between two Taiwan Mandarin speakers that I recorded in the Leiden University for Linguistics Phonetics Laboratory. I described these interjections by writing down their form as accurately as possible, and placed them into categories I designed based on their meaning. After that, I discussed existing literature about interjections and compared it with my own data. Since there is no standard definition of interjections, I formulated my own definition based on my data. Finally, I tested whether or not the presence of a running microphone has an influence on the use of interjections by speakers. I compared one part during which the speakers think the microphone is running with another part during which they think it is off. The interjections I found in these parts are very similar, suggesting that my data reflect a natural language conversation. This work aims to shed light on the use of interjections in Taiwan Mandarin, and to contribute to a wider discussion of interjections.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
closed access
The current thesis discusses the topic of partial agreement between a coordinated subject and the agreeing verb in Russian. Previous accounts have pointed out the relevance of word order for the...Show moreThe current thesis discusses the topic of partial agreement between a coordinated subject and the agreeing verb in Russian. Previous accounts have pointed out the relevance of word order for the related agreement phenomena in languages like Arabic, Slovenian and Dutch. No proposal has gone beyond describing this factor, and offered an explanation for the role of word order. In this thesis, I present a formal analysis explaining the relevance of word order from the perspective of Information Structure considerations. I show that the structures facilitated by the discourse-related operations enable the establishment of additional agreement, namely agreement in definiteness. Definiteness-driven agreement affects the syntactic and semantic weight of the conjuncts, which poses consequences for the standard phi-feature agreement.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
Most research on language in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has focussed on social and communicative impairments, whereas grammatical impairments are less explored. This study delves into the...Show moreMost research on language in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has focussed on social and communicative impairments, whereas grammatical impairments are less explored. This study delves into the syntactical knowledge and processing of passives in children with high-functioning autism (HFA) and aims to answer the research question “Do children and adults with HFA comprehend and process passive sentences differently from typically developing children and adults?” Four groups, comprising children with HFA (N=2; age 8.52-8.75), TD children (N=13; age 6.78-11.07), adults with HFA (N=3, age 23.23-25.92), and TD adults (N=6; age 22.63-29.65) were tested on their processing of passives through reading of a sentence (recorded by an eye-tracker) and comprehension (picture-selection) of long actional passives. Results suggest that children and adults with HFA have a good comprehension of long actional passive sentences, as they perform at ceiling level. The TD adults answered 100% correctly too, and the TD children selected 90.4% of the correct pictures. The eye-tracking results are insufficient to comment on the processing of passive sentences, because the collection of eye-tracking data was unsuccessful. The comprehension results are discussed in comparison to three recent studies on passives in Farsi-, Greek-, and English-speaking children (Heshmati, 2013; Terzi et al. 2014; Perovic, unpublished manuscript). Options for the analysis of complete eye-tracking data and suggestions for further research are discussed.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
The current paper set out to investigate new dialect formation in progress in the Dutch new town of Dronten. Designated in the early 1960s, this city provided to be an excellent place to study new...Show moreThe current paper set out to investigate new dialect formation in progress in the Dutch new town of Dronten. Designated in the early 1960s, this city provided to be an excellent place to study new dialect formation in progress. This study looked into the phonetic characteristics of this variety of Dutch and it was examined how this variety could be defined. Further, the time scale of koineization was addressed. Lastly, the perceived degree of standardness was studied, based on a claim made by Scholtmeijer (1992). Interviews and an online survey provided data that shed more light on these issues. The current study has identified a number of remarkable phonetic features, such as lowering of the first element of (ei) and devoicing of (v) and (z). However, these features seem to be part of a more general tendency found in Standard Dutch and are therefore not exclusive to the Dronten variety of Dutch. In addition, Dronten Dutch was associated with a high degree of perceived standardness, as expert analysis as well as the online survey confirmed. Note, however, that this applies particularly to second-generation speakers, revealing evidence of focusing towards a more homogeneous linguistic variety in this generation.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
Sentence final particles (SFPs) play an important role in the every-day spoken communication of various languages. For example, the addition of a Dutch intentional particle hè or hoor to a bare...Show moreSentence final particles (SFPs) play an important role in the every-day spoken communication of various languages. For example, the addition of a Dutch intentional particle hè or hoor to a bare declarative utterance such as het is lekker weer ‘the weather is great’ can make the difference between the sentence being interpreted as an agreement-seeking question, or a correction. Still, we know very little about the psycho- and neurolinguistic properties of the processing and production of final particles. The purpose of this thesis is to generate more research on the psycholinguistics side and to deepen the theoretical knowledge we have by gathering experimental data. There are theoretical reasons to assume that intentional SFPs play an important role from the beginning of sentence formulation. The SFP-head selects for the entire proposition as its complement, so it is possible that speakers plan the particle ahead before they start producing the rest of the sentence. This hypothesis also makes sense from a psycholinguistic perspective, as it is presumed that the intention of the speaker is already determined before he/she starts uttering a sentence. In this thesis, I focus on sentences in isolation, and investigate the production, planning and perception of Dutch pragmatic particles (i.e. SFPs) that convey the speaker’s intention. The question I pursued to answer is whether Dutch sentence final particles are planned in advance, or whether they are inserted at the final moment. To investigate the potential planning of intentional SFPs I conducted three experiments. In a production experiment (Experiment 1) I investigated whether the speaker already starts encoding the intention of the message with prosodic cues preceding the intentional particle. Such cues would indicate that the speaker is already building up the illocutionary force of the sentence before the particle. Results indicate that there are such cues, and that even though they are sometimes quite small, they are used quite consistently across participants. In Experiment 2, the gating-technique is used in a perception experiment to investigate whether these prosodic cues preceding the particle could possibly help the listener anticipate for the intention or attitude expressed by an utterance. The results of this experiment indicate that participants were not that good at anticipating the end of sentences containing the final particles hè and hoor in the given task. Experiment 3 directly addresses the question whether the speaker plans a final particle ahead or whether they integrate the particle at a later stage of production. This question is about how incremental and how far ahead a sentence is planned in production. In this experiment, I examined the production process of the intentional SFPs hè and hoor in Dutch with a variant on the picture-word-interference task to investigate whether the particles are planned in advance, or not. I created an experiment that manipulates the prime preceding colored pictures, which are associated in a training task with a particular final element. The target condition of the experiment contains sentences with the final elements hè and hoor, which are intentional final particles. The effect of the distractor prime on the target condition was compared to a control condition. A congruent prime was assumed to facilitate sentence production at speech onset, only if the speaker is already planning the particle congruent with the prime. In the control conditions, in which it is assumed that speakers are not yet planning ahead for the final element of the sentence at speech onset, facilitation was assumed not to take place at speech onset. The results obtained for this experiment were not significant, due to high standard deviations. In future research it would be interesting to see whether the paradigm of this experiment could be adjusted, to gain more reliable results that can answer the main question we pursued.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
The present thesis is concerned with the difference between two definite marking strategies in Swedish: the double definite construction and the suffixed definite article construction. By means of...Show moreThe present thesis is concerned with the difference between two definite marking strategies in Swedish: the double definite construction and the suffixed definite article construction. By means of a distributional analysis of adjectivally modified definite noun phrases, it will be shown that the two constructions do not differ from each other in overall degree of Accessibility (Ariel 1988, 1991). The distributional analysis of the factor of Competition brings to light a clear distinction between the two definite constructions. The double definite construction is strongly preferred over the suffixed definite article construction in contexts where the noun is modified by more than one information piece. Based on this, a Competition Hypothesis is formulated. The basic formulation of this hypothesis is that the double definite construction in Swedish signals that there is competition on the role of antecedent, while the suffixed definite article construction lacks this function.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
Ever since Elliott’s (1974) seminal work on exclamatives in English, formal linguists have dealt with questions such as how to formally characterize exclamatives, which components contribute to...Show moreEver since Elliott’s (1974) seminal work on exclamatives in English, formal linguists have dealt with questions such as how to formally characterize exclamatives, which components contribute to exclamativity and how many components are involved. In the literature there are several different approaches to exclamative constructions. Some have argued that exclamatives are semantically derived from questions (Guti´errez-Rexach, 1996; Zanuttini and Portner, 2003), others, however, derive exclamatives from degree constructions (Rett, 2008). Then there are some accounts claiming that exclamatives are derived from neither one of the two. Chernilovskaya and Nouwen (2012) for instance, claim that noteworthy evaluation is most crucial to exclamatives. The current thesis will follow Chernilovskaya and Nouwen (2012) by claiming that noteworthiness is a crucial component of exclamatives. This thesis aims at getting a better understanding of exclamative constructions. It makes an attempt to identify the components that are crucial to exclamative constructions and explain how each component semantically contributes to exclamativity. To do so, I examine Dutch particle exclamatives and define its characteristic components. These constructions consist of a first person singular pronoun me and a modal particle toch, as in, for example, the sentence Hij heeft me toch een boel auto’s! ‘Boy, does he have a lot of cars!’. Interestingly, unlike any other pronoun, the me pronoun in exclamative constructions occurs invariably in first person singular form and therefore has no other paradigmatic forms. I argue that this me pronoun is semantically distinct from all other pronouns in that it marks ego-evidentiality. Such being the case, the me particle indicates that the source of the content is the actual speaker him/herself or in other words the EGO. As a direct consequence of ego-evidentiality, the exclamative proposition becomes veridical, that is to say that whatever the speaker’s opinion is, it should be assumed to be true according to his/her perceptive world. To simplify matters, I have taken veridicality to be equal to factivity. The modal particle toch in isolation indicates an inconsistency with the common ground (Hogeweg et al., 2011), a notion we see back in the semantics of toch in exclamative constructions. I take the exclamative toch to be the overt realization of widening, a concept introduced by Zanuttini and Portner (2003). According to Zanuttini and Portner (2003) widening can be characterized as an operation extending the domain of a certain proposition to a wider domain which lies beyond what is expected. My concept of widening, however, slightly differs from Zanuttini and Portner’s concept of widening as I will incorporate the notion of noteworthiness, as defined by Chernilovskaya and Nouwen (2012), as well as a non-specificity requirement (a notion to some extent comparable to Rett’s (2008) degree restriction). By doing so, I am able to account for a wider range of exclamative constructions. The interaction of these two particles gives rise to exclamativity. It can be concluded that lexically the particle exclamatives consist of two components: an ego-evidentiality marker me and a widening marker toch. Semantically, it consists of factivity and widening. At the end of this thesis I examine to what extent this analysis is applicable to another Dutch exclamative construction, namely wh-exclamatives and how such analysis relates to the more general literature on exclamative constructions.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
closed access
The realization of *q in spoken Arabic of Chad and Sudan shows a great variety. A systematic comparison of vocabulary based on literature (Chad) and fieldwork (Sudan) reveals a standard realization...Show moreThe realization of *q in spoken Arabic of Chad and Sudan shows a great variety. A systematic comparison of vocabulary based on literature (Chad) and fieldwork (Sudan) reveals a standard realization [g] for both varieties, while the realization [k] is present in specific semantic fields in both countries For Sudan the most important sub-standard realizations is [ġ], while it is absent in Chad. In Chad the most important sub-standard is [x], while this realization is absent in Sudan.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
This study attempts to devise a unified account for three linguistic phenomena -- object type, object movement, and again-ambiguities -- that can be observed in Dutch and Swedish. Specifically,...Show moreThis study attempts to devise a unified account for three linguistic phenomena -- object type, object movement, and again-ambiguities -- that can be observed in Dutch and Swedish. Specifically, this study tries to untangle the interaction between theses three phenomena, as illustrated in the following Dutch sentences (in their literal reading): (1) a. Jan heeft weer de deur geopend. (repetitive/*restitutive) John has again the door opened `John opened the door again.' b. Jan heeft de deur weer geopend. (rep/res) John has the door again opened (2) a. *Jan heeft weer hem geopend. John has again it opened b. Jan heeft hem weer geopend. (rep/res) John has it again opened `John opened it again.' (3) a. Jan heeft weer een deur geopend. (rep/*res) John has again a door opened `John opened a door again.' b. *Jan heeft een deur weer geopend. John has a door again opened Comparing these three sets of sentences, it seems that the availability of the repetitive/restitutive ambiguity associated with the adverb weer `again' lies in both the type of the object and its position relative to the adverb. The unified account developed in this study has as its backbones the Mapping Hypothesis proposed by Diesing and Jelinek (1995) and a structural theory on again-ambiguities advocated by von Stechow (1995, 1996). The Mapping Hypothesis partitions a syntactic tree into the Nuclear Scope and the Restriction Clause and handles the interpretation of different object types by the object's syntactic position at LF. When the object is moved to the Restriction Clause by some object movement rule, it receives a specific reading, whereas when the object remains in the Nuclear Scope, it gets a non-specific reading. The structural theory on again-ambiguities claims that the repetitive/restitutive opposition has a syntactic origin. This theory relies heavily on a semantico-syntactic decomposition of verbs into an action and a state component, with the repetitive reading resulting from again modifying a syntactic constituent that represent an action and the restitutive reading from again a constituent that denotes a state. The current study argues that either the Mapping Hypothesis or the structural theory alone can explain only part of the data, and that only by integrating the two can we have a unified account that justifies the whole data. This unified account allows the position of the object (i.e., whether object movement applies or not) and the dual readings of again to be govern by two different mechanisms, but it also permits the two mechanisms to interact with each other so that ungrammatical constructions can be successfully ruled out. To explain the Dutch data above, we first move the objects that have a specific reading, as is often the case for definite descriptions like de deur `the door' and definite pronouns like hem `it', to the Restriction Clause and leave the objects with a non-specific reading, such as the indefinite een deur `a door' in the Nuclear Scope. Then we let weer `again' adjoin to different constituents that map onto either an action (which leads to the repetitive reading) or a state (the restitutive reading). The whole derivation just described can be represented as follows (NS stands for Nuclear Scope): (4) a. Jan heeft weer [NS de deur geopend ]. (rep/*res) John has again the door opened b. Jan heeft de deur_o [NS weer t_o geopend ]. (rep/res) John has the door again opened (5) a. *Jan heeft weer [NS hem geopend ]. John has again it opened b. Jan heeft hem_o [NS weer t_o geopend ]. (rep/res) John has it again opened (6) a. Jan heeft weer [NS een deur geopend ]. (rep/*res) John has again a door opened b. *Jan heeft een deur_o [NS weer t_o geopend ]. John has a door again opened (5a) and (6b) are rejected because the objects in them are in the wrong domain. Although (4a) is grammatical, this sentence does receive a slightly different interpretation than (4b) due to the position of the definite de deur in the Nuclear Scope. The same principles can be applied to Swedish as well, albeit only at LF instead of at S-structure as in Dutch. In future research, it will be useful if more data, especially from Icelandic, can be brought in and if we consider verbs beyond a simple open.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
Dutch grammar prescriptions decree that in subject position, the subject pronoun 'zij' and not the oblique 'hun' should be used. Consequently, the following sentence can only exemplify proper...Show moreDutch grammar prescriptions decree that in subject position, the subject pronoun 'zij' and not the oblique 'hun' should be used. Consequently, the following sentence can only exemplify proper written and spoken Dutch if 'zij' is selected: *Hun/Zij hebben dat gedaan! ("Them/They did that!"). Scholars have revealed that university students disapprove of *hun in a spoken Dutch story (Janssen 2004), and that the more highly educated a group of speakers is, the lower that group’s self-reported use of *hun is likely to be (Bennis & Hinskens 2014). Yet, it remains unclear whether and, if so, how different educational groups perceive 'hun hebben' as well as other 'taalergernissen' (“language annoyances”, or “usage problems”) in spoken Dutch. My sociolinguistic study into 45 young Dutch females’ perception and evaluation of five usage problems in spoken Dutch confirms that speakers’ education is a relevant social variable that future studies about related topics should consider. The speakers with a WO degree (“university degree”) more often commented on the non-standard features in a radio listening task than speakers with HBO (“higher vocational education”) or MBO (“intermediate vocational education”) degrees did. Additionally, the university graduates also were less tolerant of, and more strongly distanced themselves from, spoken sentences that included such non-standard features as compared to the HBO and MBO graduates.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
Aspects of the acquisition of one or more languages are influenced by many variables, e.g. age of acquisition, quality and quantity of input, social economic status, and the presence of older...Show moreAspects of the acquisition of one or more languages are influenced by many variables, e.g. age of acquisition, quality and quantity of input, social economic status, and the presence of older siblings. The influence of these factors has been investigated in monolingual learners, adult second language learners, less in child second language learners, and not at all in young bidialectal speakers. This study investigated how various factors influenced vocabulary scores of bidialectal children from Limburg, the Netherlands. Results show that input quantity and age of acquisition are significant predictors of vocabulary scores, but in a different manner than in traditional bilinguals. Other significant predictors are mother fluency and socioeconomic status. The specific situation of bidialectal speakers in the Netherlands might be of influence on their language acquisition, making it different from traditional bilingual language acquisition.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
closed access
This thesis is a descriptive grammar sketch of the Naueti language, an Austronesian language spoken by around 15.000 people in the East Timorese subdistricts of Uatolari and Uatocarbau (Viqueque...Show moreThis thesis is a descriptive grammar sketch of the Naueti language, an Austronesian language spoken by around 15.000 people in the East Timorese subdistricts of Uatolari and Uatocarbau (Viqueque district) and the southwestern part of Baguia (Baucau district). There are a few differences between the varieties spoken in Uatolari and the Uatocarbau-Baguia area. This thesis is mostly based on the Uatolari variety. The topics covered by this thesis include phonology (chapter 2), nouns, pronouns and noun phrases (chapter 3), prepositions, prepositional verbs and prepositional phrases (chapter 4), the clause (chapter 5), predicate modification (chapter 6), serial verb constructions (chapter 7) and multiclausal constructions (chapter 8). The appendices contain a Naueti-English glossary, three transcribed texts and a Matebianic Swadesh list.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
2016-06-30T00:00:00Z
Recent debates in the field of creole linguistics (creolistics) over the validity of a typological class of creole languages have inspired the adoption of new techniques to empirically test the...Show moreRecent debates in the field of creole linguistics (creolistics) over the validity of a typological class of creole languages have inspired the adoption of new techniques to empirically test the most prominent theories of creole origins and creole typology. Phylogenetic computational tools, i.e. phylogenetic trees and networks, have been utilized in linguistics to model evolutionary scenarios and to predict genetic relationships between languages, and more recently in creolistics to identify typological and genetic relationships between pidgin and creole languages. Following several recent analyses seeking to validate the creole typological class and to test theories of creole genesis and classification using phylogenetic computation (Bakker et al. 2011; Daval-Markussen & Bakker 2012; etc), the present thesis continues this line of research by applying the same methods in order to test an older, frequently overlooked theory of creole genesis—Derek Bickerton’s Language Bioprogram Hypothesis (LBH). Bickerton’s LBH attributes creole genesis to an innate human Bioprogram for language, invoked in situations where linguistic input is insufficient due to the influence of certain extralinguistic factors, resulting in a break in transmission of the lexifier language. This thesis seeks to test the accuracy of a set of LBH features in distinguishing between creoles and non-creoles in a phylogenetic network analysis, supplementing the results with a multiple regression analysis testing the correlation between the degree of creoleness and sociohistorical factors predicted by Bickerton’s theory. Following the specifications of the LBH, the network analysis was expected to show a clear distinction between creoles and non-creoles, as well as patterns within the cluster of creoles associated to the presence of certain extralinguistic factors. The output of the analysis indicates the validity of a creole typological class, yet the complete distribution of the languages in the networks cannot be entirely accounted for by the predictions of the LBH. While some of the clusters in the network can be attributed to prolonged contact with the superstrate language, which proved to be a significant factor in the regression analysis, other groupings are less predictable. The similar patterning of creoles and languages with low complexity scores according to Parkvall’s (2008) metric in the phylogenetic network analysis indicates the compatibility of Bickerton’s LBH and the proposal of a structurally less complex, synchronic class of creole languages. The variability in the patterning of creoles within the creole cluster in the phylogenetic network analysis is thought to be related to the unique combination of extralinguistic factors influencing the development of each individual creole. The structural variation among the class of creole languages is expected to increase with time.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
2016-08-31T00:00:00Z
Intra-sentential code-switching in Dutch-Papiamento bilingualism may create a conflict within the determiner phrase, because in Dutch the adjective precedes the noun (1), whereas in Papiamento the...Show moreIntra-sentential code-switching in Dutch-Papiamento bilingualism may create a conflict within the determiner phrase, because in Dutch the adjective precedes the noun (1), whereas in Papiamento the adjective follows the noun (2). 1.Het rode huis [Dutch]. 2.E kas kòrá [Papiamento]. “The red house”. The Matrix Language Framework (MLF – Myers-Scotton, 1993) suggests that the matrix language will provide the grammatical frame and that the embedded language will supply some content elements. The matrix language will thus determine the word order in a code-switched determiner phrase. In the case of Dutch-Papiamento intra-sentential code-switching, the MLF will predict an [adjective-noun] order when the matrix language is Dutch, and the MLF will predict a [noun-adjective] order when the matrix language is Papiamento. However, the MLF does not make a prediction about the origin of the adjective or the noun. Thus, when the matrix language is Dutch, both combinations of [Dutch adjective-Papiamento noun] and [Papiamento adjective-Dutch noun] would be possible according to the MLF. The same principle applies for Papiamento as the matrix language, both language combinations [Papiamento noun-Dutch adjective] and [Dutch noun-Papiamento adjective] would be possible according to the MLF. The aim of the present study is to test the predictions of the MLF in Dutch-Papiamento code-switching production. The four code-switching patterns mentioned above were used as conditions that match the predictions of the MLF (“MLF+ conditions”). Another four conditions were created by reversing the order of the adjective and the noun in both matrix language paradigms, to create a violation of the predictions of the MLF (“MLF- conditions”). A total of eight conditions were used in this study. The MLF predictions were tested by using an advanced psycholinguistic method, namely electro-encephalography (EEG). The integration of a psycholinguistic method in a code-switching experiment is an innovative way of testing the predictions of a theoretical model. In this study, an EEG signal was recorded while Dutch-Papiamento bilingual speakers conducted a modified picture naming task. The conditions were analysed by looking at naming latencies and by looking at the part of the EEG signal following target presentation. Based on results of previous picture naming tasks (Christoffels, Firk & Schiller, 2007; Rodriguez-Fornells, Van Der Lugt, Rotte, Britti, Heinze & Münte, 2005; Misra, Guo, Bobb & Kroll, 2012), I expected slower naming latencies and a more negative waveform for the conditions that violate the predictions of the MLF. The expected slower naming latencies were observed in two MLF- conditions: Papiamento adjective followed by a Dutch noun (Papiamento matrix language) and Papiamento noun followed by a Dutch adjective (Dutch matrix language). The expected negative waveform was observed in only one MLF- condition: Papiamento adjective followed by a Dutch noun (Papiamento matrix language). Furthermore, a P300 (with an early peak in the frontal/central area and a later peak in the occipital area) and a late positive component seem to be elicited in code-switching production. The amplitude of the P300 peak was higher in the conditions that contain a violation of the MLF, which could be explained by the higher complexity of the MLF- conditions. The occurrence of the P300 could be explained in terms of the context-updating theory (Donchin, 1981; Donchin & Coles, 1988) or the neural inhibition theory (Polich, 2007). On the whole, the results do not provide conclusive support for the predictions of the MLF.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
closed access
Birdsong is often used as an animal model for human speech and language, because of the many similarities between them. The assumption that in songbirds generally only males produce learned...Show moreBirdsong is often used as an animal model for human speech and language, because of the many similarities between them. The assumption that in songbirds generally only males produce learned vocalizations whereas in humans both sexes do was, on the other hand, considered to be an important difference. A recent study, however, demonstrated that this assumption probably reflects a geographical research bias towards temperate zones. Most species found in this region belong to the most recently evolved group of songbirds, the Passerida, in which female song is uncommon. The study shows that female song is widespread across the more basal, non-Passerida, groups. Only few studies so far have investigated how different or similar song produced by male and female birds in non-Passerida species is. To compare sex differences across many different species, one needs a song analysis method that is independent of singing style. The aim of this thesis was to devise such a method based in part on sex differences that have previously been reported in the literature. To test this method, it was used to investigate sex differences in the song of six non-Passerida songbird species. This song analysis showed that the method could indeed be used to analyze sex differences in birds with different singing styles, and sex differences in some parameters, such as spectral similarity and element versatility, were found. In future studies, this method can thus be used to investigate sex differences in more species from different phylogenetic groups which can help better understand the selection pressures that led to the sexual dimorphism in song that can currently be observed in Passerida songbirds. This insight can then be used to generate hypotheses about the evolution of sex differences in the learned vocalizations of other vocal learning species, such as humans.Show less