This thesis examines whether native speakers of Dutch can aspirate unvoiced word-initial plosives in English as a second language and if they are able to do so to the same degree as native speakers...Show moreThis thesis examines whether native speakers of Dutch can aspirate unvoiced word-initial plosives in English as a second language and if they are able to do so to the same degree as native speakers of English. Aspiration was measured in word-initial unvoiced plosives /p, t, k/ using Voice Onset Time (VOT). Influence of sex, age, age of onset of the second language, and self-reported general pronunciation ability in English were also examined. Native Dutch VOT generally lies between 0-20ms, while native English VOT is anywhere between 50-100 ms. Using recordings from 19 participants who read both Dutch and English sentences out loud, it was found that participants increased their aspiration with an average of 10 ms when switching from Dutch to English. The analysis also shows that two participants out of 19 had an average VOT at a native-like level (>50 ms). Further investigation showed that sex, age, and age of onset did not influence VOT. Participants who graded their general pronunciation abilities with an 8 or higher did show a bigger increase in VOT, but there was no correlation to higher VOT in English when compared to other speakers. Other results showed that /p, t, k/ were not aspirated to the same extent, with /t/ being aspirated significantly more and /p/ significantly less. Lastly, the co-existence of words in both English and Dutch did not significantly alter the VOT, only when words started with /k/ did aspiration significantly improve when the exact word also existed in Dutch. These results conclude that native speakers of Dutch increase aspiration and can aspirate to a native-like degree while speaking English. Any defining factors of the participants who were able to do so are not available due to the limited sample size.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
under embargo until 2025-07-31
2025-07-31T00:00:00Z
While multiple models of language production exist, it remains difficult to find conclusive evidence for one or the other model. The present study is one of the first to incorporate both behavioral...Show moreWhile multiple models of language production exist, it remains difficult to find conclusive evidence for one or the other model. The present study is one of the first to incorporate both behavioral data and EEG data in a native Dutch noun phrase production task to investigate the processing of grammatical gender. We used a picture-word interference paradigm in which speakers had to name a picture while being distracted by a superimposed word. The distractors were manipulated for grammatical gender congruency with and semantic relatedness to the picture names. In separate blocks, participants had to produce either bare nouns, or determiner noun constructions. We found a robust effect of the semantic relatedness effect in the behavioral data, in which targets belonging to the same semantic category as the distractor were named significantly later than unrelated targets. The EEG data on the semantic relatedness effect were less clear, possibly due to opposing ERP components in (partly) overlapping time windows. More importantly, we replicated the gender congruency effect in reaction times, showing that naming latencies were longer for gender-incongruent trials than for congruent trials. This behavioral effect disappeared in bare noun naming. The EEG data showed similar results, in which a more positive peak was found between 385-585 milliseconds for incongruent than for congruent trials, again only in the determiner noun block. The result seems to indicate a P300 effect rather than the expected enhanced N400, suggesting higher conflict resolution processes for incongruent trials. The absence of the gender effect in bare noun naming in both data types suggests that grammatical gender is not automatically accessed or selected in Dutch noun (phrase) production. This in turn has implications for speech production models.Show less
As offensive and taboo language is becoming increasingly common in day-to-day life, this type of language has also become a part of our entertainment media, including in subtitles. Offensive and...Show moreAs offensive and taboo language is becoming increasingly common in day-to-day life, this type of language has also become a part of our entertainment media, including in subtitles. Offensive and taboo language can be used for many different reasons and to create many different effects in the source text. This means that offensive and taboo language can also be used for a character’s characterisation, meaning it will be a way for them to express their own personality, their intent, or to form a relationship with the people around them. However, subtitlers often deal with spatio-temporal constraints that will not allow them to retain every single instance of offensive and taboo language in the target text. This means offensive and taboo language is often the first to be omitted, and this could potentially negatively affect the characterisation of certain characters. This study is an analysis of the offensive and taboo language in the first season of Netflix’s Sex Education and the characterisation of four characters in the English and Dutch subtitles. Ávila-Cabrera’s (2016) taxonomy of offensive and taboo language was used to categorise the offensive and taboo language that was found in the target text. Pinker’s (2007) and Dynel’s (2012) typologies of function were used to classify the functions of the offensive and taboo language. Lastly, a combination of Vinay & Darbelnet’s (2000) and Díaz Cintas & Remael’s (2007) translation strategies were used. The results show that, even though all four characters had parts of their offensive or taboo language omitted during the translation process, their characterisation was not negatively affected. This entails that the Dutch subtitles did not portray an entirely different personality compared to the English source text.Show less
This thesis questions whether dangling topics, also often called ''Chinese-style'' topics really only occur in Chinese. This is done by investigating Chinese (from mainland China and Taiwan),...Show moreThis thesis questions whether dangling topics, also often called ''Chinese-style'' topics really only occur in Chinese. This is done by investigating Chinese (from mainland China and Taiwan), Japanese, Turkish and Dutch. The results show that dangling topics in Chinese are only possible to a certain extent. Moreover, they are also acceptable in other languages (although mostly in marginal contexts).Show less
Merchant’s (2004) work on fragment answers has been groundbreaking in how clausal ellipsis is discussed today. In the article, Merchant defends the notion that in fragmented utterances, an...Show moreMerchant’s (2004) work on fragment answers has been groundbreaking in how clausal ellipsis is discussed today. In the article, Merchant defends the notion that in fragmented utterances, an interpretable syntactic structure is present but elided on the surface; a view that has been much contended with (see e.g. van Riemsdijk 1978; Hausser and Zaefferer 1978; Ginzburg and Sag 2000; Jackendoff 2002; Barton 1990; Stainton 1995, 1997, 1998; Jackendoff and Culicover 2005). His main argument boils down to the fact that fragments in fragment answers are part of a generated structure, and are proven to undergo movement (p. 664). Ever since, movement has been a crucial element in the discussion on ellipsis. Consequently, Ott and Struckmeier (2017) published an article on why the theory by Merchant is false, using gapping, a type of clausal ellipsis, in German for their prime examples. This thesis aims to further tackle Merchant’s approach using gapping in Dutch and showing that particles in gapping propose significant problems for Merchant’s theory.Show less
When the Dutch settled in North America during the seventeenth century, for colonising and trade purposes, came language contact between the two groups of speakers. One result from this contact is...Show moreWhen the Dutch settled in North America during the seventeenth century, for colonising and trade purposes, came language contact between the two groups of speakers. One result from this contact is loanwords. This research investigates Dutch loanwords in American English and their frequency. Through a combination of Schultz’s (2012, 2017, 2018, 2019) framework, the Oxford English Dictionary and Van der Sijs’ (2010) glossary of Dutch loanwords in North American languages, this research was performed. The frequencies were analysed through the Corpus of Historical American English and the Corpus of Contemporary American English. These corpora provided an overview of the development of frequencies both over time and across text types. This research concludes that the frequency of Dutch loanwords in American English increases over time.Show less
This thesis aims to shed light on legal practice of the nineteenth century in France and The Netherlands and contrast it with legal theory and current historiography. In both older and newer French...Show moreThis thesis aims to shed light on legal practice of the nineteenth century in France and The Netherlands and contrast it with legal theory and current historiography. In both older and newer French and Dutch historiography, the nineteenth century is described as the century of legalism, also referred to as exegetical thinking. This exegetical school of law considers the codified law to be the highest and practically the only source of law on which the judge and legal scholar must rely. This historiography is mainly based on the development of legal theory as practised at universities. Implicitly or sometimes even explicitly, legal practice is equated with this legal theory. This fallacy obscures the practice of law, which did not take place in the university or the chambers of scholars, but in the courtroom. To address this lacuna, the following question was answered: To what extent was legalism in the Netherlands and the exegetical school in France really the dominant approach in legal practice and how can possible differences between both countries be explained? In order to know the practice of law and to assess whether judges, like legal theorists, were under the spell of exegetical thinking, judgments of courts were analysed. These can be found in case law journals that emerged in the nineteenth century. This study looked specifically at the judges' references to case law; the work of colleagues. The reference to case law is contrary to the doctrine of the exegetical school which accepts codification as the sole source of law. Referral to sources of law outside the codification by the courts, either implicit or explicit, imply a freer attitude towards the codification than legal scholars of the nineteenth century and current historiography would have us believe. Analysis of approximately two thousand Dutch and French judgments throughout the nineteenth century showed a difference in the quantity and nature of the references between both countries. In France, judges themselves referred explicitly to specific case law or to case law in general, whereas in the Netherlands judges did not refer to case law themselves, but relied on the arguments of the litigants and the Advocate-General, who did explicitly invoke case law. My research gives cause to adjust the image of nineteenth century legal history. The nineteenth-century judge was a child of his time, but not a puppet of legal theory. Lex semper dabit remedium: The law always provides a remedy; this was the starting point, but case law often supplemented it. The demonstrated difference between legal theory and legal practice fits within a broader development in current historiography, emphasising continuity of politics, culture, and in this case legal practices, in the wake of the French Revolution.Show less
With the adoption of the European Union Global Strategy in 2016 the EU renewed its quest for attaining strategic autonomy. However, the EU document did not specify what would constitute European...Show moreWith the adoption of the European Union Global Strategy in 2016 the EU renewed its quest for attaining strategic autonomy. However, the EU document did not specify what would constitute European strategic autonomy (ESA), so, as is the case with the EU’s external policies, the national perspectives of Member States are its obvious basis. Historically, the Netherlands has been an obstructionist when it came to European security and defence integration due to its Atlanticist position, begging the question: how is European strategic autonomy represented in Dutch politics? To understand the Dutch perspective and positioning regarding ESA, this thesis drew from the field of Critical Geopolitics, conducting an interpretive-explanatory research employing discourse analysis by analysing statements made by party representatives in the Tweede Kamer during the period of 2016-2021. Three distinct schools of thought underpinning the representations of ESA in the Dutch debate. The Sovereigntists are Eurosceptics who present ESA as an attempt to establish a European army and a threat to national sovereignty. The Europeanists actively champion ESA and envision it as an emancipatory project to make the EU able to act independently of the US because it is an increasingly unreliable ally. The Atlanticists present ESA as an opportunity to take responsibility within NATO and improve burden-sharing with the US. This thesis found that the Dutch debate regarding European security policy has substantially Europeanised. While the Atlanticists are still cautious, they no longer take an active obstructionist position, instead adopting Europeanist talking-points from the 90s. Considering this Europeanist momentum, there is potential for the Netherlands to become an active and serious promotor of ambitious European security commitments.Show less
A microhistorical approach to the history of New Netherland, which dives into the lives of several families and individuals that lived in the colony of New Netherland to, one, determine what their...Show moreA microhistorical approach to the history of New Netherland, which dives into the lives of several families and individuals that lived in the colony of New Netherland to, one, determine what their influence was on the development of the colony, and two, to show that a microhistory of New Netherland can shed new light on the existing historiography.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
2022-08-31T00:00:00Z
Research has shown that code-switching (CS) is morpho-syntactically constrained (e.g. Poplack, 1980; Myers-Scotton, 1993; MacSwan, 1999; Lipski, 2019). The fact that phonology and syntax interface...Show moreResearch has shown that code-switching (CS) is morpho-syntactically constrained (e.g. Poplack, 1980; Myers-Scotton, 1993; MacSwan, 1999; Lipski, 2019). The fact that phonology and syntax interface in bilingual performance (Bullock, 2009) has been largely neglected in CS research. It is likely that the interface between prosody and morphosyntax, and not merely morphosyntax alone, may play a role in constraining CS. However, the phonetic and phonological reflexes of CS remain relatively unexplored. This thesis aims to improve our understanding of prosodic constraints on CS by examining the speech from a Papiamento- Dutch conversation corpus (Gullberg, Indefrey & Muysken, 2004; 2009). This language pair is eminently suitable for a prosodic analysis because Papiamento has a tonal system with two level tones that interacts with lexical stress, and Dutch a different lexical system: with stress, without tone. I examined whether stress constrains CS in the nominal domain (Akinremi, 2016), and whether Papiamento tone constrains Dutch insertions (Zheng, 1997; Tuc, 2003). Furthermore, I examined whether speech rate in bilingual vs. unilingual utterances differ to add to the research on speech planning in CS (Johns & Steuck, 2021). My findings are that the stress of switched nouns does not constrain CS, but the stress of adjacent words might; Dutch insertions occur mostly in a context where the prosodic systems of Papiamento and Dutch coincide; and speech rate in bilingual vs. unilingual utterances does not significantly differ. I conclude that congruency in prosody facilitates CS and that CS does not inhibit speech planning. Taken together, my findings are compatible with the view that CS may be an opportunistic strategy that bilinguals use to aid speech planning as prosody in both languages openly contributes to production (Beatty-Martinez, Navarro-Torres & Dussias, 2020).Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
In Dutch, one can order a drink, denoted by a mass noun, using phrases such as: Ik will graag twee (glazen) rode wijn, "I would like two glasses of red wine". Interestingly, the usage of the...Show moreIn Dutch, one can order a drink, denoted by a mass noun, using phrases such as: Ik will graag twee (glazen) rode wijn, "I would like two glasses of red wine". Interestingly, the usage of the classifier, in this case glazen ‘glasses’, is not obligatory. Borer (2005) argues that such sentences, without classifiers, are possible in a register she calls Restaurantese. This construction, however, is not possible with all adjective-noun combinations. Therefore, this study proposes two main hypotheses, similar to van Erkel (2020). First, one could argue that the acceptability of these configurations depends on the syntactic classification of the adjective. Second, one could argue that it depends on the relation between the adjective and the noun, which I refer to with the term combinability. There are different approaches one could take to define combinability. This study takes three different approaches: the collocation of the adjective and the noun; the familiarity of the combination; the chance one could find a combination on a menu, which I call the Restaurantese reading. Through different surveys, this study has shown that the syntactic level of the adjectives does not influence the acceptability of sentences in which you order drinks in Dutch. The combinability of the adjective-noun pair, on the other hand, plays a large role in the acceptability. This effect is, remarkably, not restricted to Restaurantese expressions. By comparing adjective-noun pairs that were ranking differently amongst the three approaches for combinability, I show that the Restaurantese reading is the best indicator for the acceptability of different adjective-noun pairs. Then I discuss the connection between the sentences with and without the overt classifier. I argue that the configurations without the overt classifier contain a covert classifier that introduces countability and the portion needed to express such sentences. Lastly, I note that the acceptability of these configurations is not set in stone. It is hugely dependent on cultural history and the usage of language by all its language users on the one hand, and one’s personal background and world knowledge on the other hand.Show less
After the conquest of Banda in 1621, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) introduced the perkeniersstelsel to ensure a monopoly on nutmeg and mace. Due to the commercial nature of the spices and the...Show moreAfter the conquest of Banda in 1621, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) introduced the perkeniersstelsel to ensure a monopoly on nutmeg and mace. Due to the commercial nature of the spices and the use of slave production, the perkeniersstelsel is often compared to the Atlantic plantation system. This study traces the development of the perkeniersstelsel between 1621 and 1640 and compares it to the Atlantic plantation system. This study argues that although the VOC was attempting to develop the perkeniersstelsel in the direction of the Atlantic mode, Banda’s unique environment and the VOC’s weaknesses in accessing terrestrial resources led the system down its own path. Furthermore, it proposes that Banda slavery should be regarded as the first expansion of slavery into rural areas in Southeast Asia, rather than the first penetration of European slavery into Southeast Asia.Show less
When the Dutch East India Company (VOC) came to Asia, its presence was contingent on relations with Asian polities. Elephant gift-giving was one of the practices the VOC conducted and experienced...Show moreWhen the Dutch East India Company (VOC) came to Asia, its presence was contingent on relations with Asian polities. Elephant gift-giving was one of the practices the VOC conducted and experienced with Asian rulers alongside trade. The VOC acted as a giver and a receiver; it received gift-elephants from Southeast Asian polities plus Kandy and transferred them westward. This study examines the Dutch-Asian elephant diplomacy and sociocultural foundations behind the diplomatic scene during the seventeenth century. It argues that the existing Dutch acknowledgment of elephant gift-giving traditions and imaginations and perceptions of the emblematic elephant facilitated the elephant diplomacy between the VOC and Asian polities. In other words, these mentalities were integral to the commensurability in the Dutch-Asian elephant gift-giving. Furthermore, the case of the emblematic elephant imagined and perceived by the Dutch shows that the seventeenth-century historical change in worldview from emblematic to empirical was more nuanced and not linear.Show less
This thesis questions the representation of the Dutch West- and East-Indies slavery pasts in current museum exhibitions. What is on display? Whose stories are told? Whose voices are silenced? Which...Show moreThis thesis questions the representation of the Dutch West- and East-Indies slavery pasts in current museum exhibitions. What is on display? Whose stories are told? Whose voices are silenced? Which sources could be added to create more critical and multi-perspective museum narratives?Show less
Dutch uses cardinal posture verbs (/zitten/ ‘to sit’, /staan/ ‘to stand’, and /liggen/ ‘to lie’) for all sorts of purposes, many of which have received considerable research attention — like the...Show moreDutch uses cardinal posture verbs (/zitten/ ‘to sit’, /staan/ ‘to stand’, and /liggen/ ‘to lie’) for all sorts of purposes, many of which have received considerable research attention — like the posture progressive, e.g. /zitten te lezen/ ‘lit. sit to read: to be reading’. This thesis investigates an understudied posture verb pattern in which a posture verb is combined with a complementive past participle, e.g. /zitten vastgeplakt/ 'lit. sit stuck: to be stuck' and /staan volgepriegeld/ 'lit. stand scribbled full: to be scribbled full'. Previous analyses disagree on the status of this pattern in terms of its productivity (is it fixed or are new combinations possible?), meaning (what does the pattern as a whole express?), and structure (is the complementive participle verbal or adjectival?). By examining over 6,000 attestations of the pattern in a corpus of written Dutch, this thesis evaluates these competing accounts, concluding that (i) the patterns are indeed productive; (ii) constraints on that productivity can be accounted for in terms of the meaning of the pattern as a whole, i.e. 'locativity' and 'resultativity'; and (iii) the pattern's syntax appears highly heterogeneous: some past participles behave like adjectives, others like verbs. Finally, I show that this heterogeneity is compatible with the semantic properties of past participles in general, and of the posture verb-participle pattern in particular.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
This thesis is about Dutch prepositional phrases (PPs) headed by the preposition aan ‘on, at, to’, which generally denote locations, but are also regularly used in a ‘non-locational’ sense....Show moreThis thesis is about Dutch prepositional phrases (PPs) headed by the preposition aan ‘on, at, to’, which generally denote locations, but are also regularly used in a ‘non-locational’ sense. Specifically, this thesis concerns the second, ‘non-locational’ group, which is termed ‘situational’ because on closer inspection, they do denote not locations but situations. These 'situational aan-PPs' have a fixed structure: the preposition aan, followed by a definite article, and finally either an infinitive, verb stem or a noun as aan's complement. The first pattern, paired with the verb zijn 'to be', has been characterized in previous work as a ‘progressive construction’. This raises two questions: what exactly is progressive aspect, and how do the different verbs and complements that occur in the situational aan-PPs differ conceptually from that analysis? To answer these questions, an attempt is made at teasing apart the concepts constitutive of ‘progressivity’. There turn out to be four core components: temporal decomposability, dynamicity, boundary effectuation by the subject, and non-gnomicity. Next, the possible verbs (e.g. zijn 'to be', gaan 'to go', krijgen 'to obtain') and complements (i.e. infinitive, stem and noun) are analyzed in terms of these four components. For the complements, the four components turn out to be sufficient to distinguish them semantically: all three of them may exhibit the full, quadripartite 'progressive cluster', but infinitives do not require the effectuation of boundaries, verb stems do not exclude gnomic interpretations, and nouns strictly impose neither of these restrictions. The three complements do impose, by definition, temporal decomposability and dynamicity, which can therefore be seen as situational aan-PPs’ conceptual core. Regarding the verbs, at least eight features are relevant, including decomposability and boundary effectuation, but also (among others) causativity, continuativity and modality. These properties are contributed by the verbs, which are thus to a greater or lesser degree compatible with the conceptual structure of each of the complements. The main outcome of this thesis is a more integrated and precise account of situational aan-PPs, making it possible to gain a broader understanding of the well-known progressive construction 'zijn aan het + infinitive'. That broader understanding also sheds some light on the way that the expression of aspect is organized in Dutch. This thesis adds to the impression that this organization may be more systematic than is generally assumed.Show less
Secondary schools in the Netherlands have been offering Chinese Language and Culture as an official exam subject for three years now. Studies on Dutch students SLA of Mandarin are very limited in...Show moreSecondary schools in the Netherlands have been offering Chinese Language and Culture as an official exam subject for three years now. Studies on Dutch students SLA of Mandarin are very limited in number, and established literature often studies participants in their twenties with English as their L1. This study aims to look at improvement shown in tonal production by Dutch teenagers aged 13-17 who follow the relatively new Mandarin course in secondary school, to provide deeper insight into SLA of Mandarin by Dutch teenagers, and into the effectiveness of the course. There were two groups of participants: students with four months of experience in Mandarin, and students from the same school with three and a half years of experience. They were asked to produce a selection of both monosyllabic and disyllabic words. Their tones were visualized using Praat, and compared to both the tonal production of native speakers to identify errors. The production of the two different grades was then compared to one another to identify points of improvement. The results showed that female students showed improvement mainly in pitch contour, and to some extent even acquired tonal coarticulation. The male students showed improvement in pitch height, and very little improvement in pitch contour. For both genders the production of tone 3 appeared most difficult, followed by tone 4, then tone 2. Tone 1 was the easiest to produce.Show less
