Recipes belong to the abbreviated register, a categorisation of varieties of non-standard language use which displays an abbreviated or simplified form of the standard language use, like newspaper...Show moreRecipes belong to the abbreviated register, a categorisation of varieties of non-standard language use which displays an abbreviated or simplified form of the standard language use, like newspaper headlines and instructions. Recipes fall under the practical text type within abbreviated registers, which have the function of describing a method of preparation of a dish. To be most functional, they need to be as easy to follow as possible. One of the most striking differences between the normative language and the language used in recipes is the omission of objects. Object omission is able to take place in recipes because the reader is aware of the missing object from the context. The omitted direct object maintains its status as a topic even though it is not explicitly mentioned. The verb type can determine whether a direct object is required: if the verb is transitive, it can prove the existence of a direct object. In order to give a more detailed description of object omission in relation to the verb type, this thesis provides an in-depth analysis of the relation between transitive verbs and their direct objects in fifty English language recipes.Show less
This paper presents a study of article omission in two types of headlines, focusing on the differences between article omission in printed headlines and article omission in digital headlines. The...Show moreThis paper presents a study of article omission in two types of headlines, focusing on the differences between article omission in printed headlines and article omission in digital headlines. The study is carried out on a corpus of 120 news items collected from ‘De Volkskrant’, with half of the material from the physical paper and the other half from the corresponding digital news items. The research reflects on earlier findings in the field of article omission and presents new findings regarding the differences between article omission in physical and digital headlines and regarding other determiners that can be omitted as well. A theory about shifting the focus of investigation to the realization of articles instead of the omission thereof, initiated by Oosterhof and Rawoens (2017), is further elaborated.Show less
A comparative study attempting to explain the occurrence of non-V2 in Dutch comparative correlatives ("Hoe A-er, hoe B-er"). The presented theories (from previous studies) described in the thesis...Show moreA comparative study attempting to explain the occurrence of non-V2 in Dutch comparative correlatives ("Hoe A-er, hoe B-er"). The presented theories (from previous studies) described in the thesis are based on non-V2 phenomena in Dutch and Northern Norwegian. The research question ("Can theories about non-V2 in the Tromsø Norwegian wh-questions be applied to the Dutch non-V2 comparative correlative constructions with wh-elements?") is answered by using analyses in comparative syntax, phonology, information structure and psycholinguistics.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
This thesis investigates the structure keep V-ing in English and the grammaticalization process of keep in this construction from a diachronic perspective. In Present-Day-English, this structure...Show moreThis thesis investigates the structure keep V-ing in English and the grammaticalization process of keep in this construction from a diachronic perspective. In Present-Day-English, this structure conveys a continuative aspectual meaning when the V-ing is characterized by an atelic Aktionsart (activities and states) and an iterative aspectual meaning when the V-ing is telic (accomplishments and achievements). This thesis was written from a Functional Discourse Grammar perspective (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008). Within this framework, grammaticalization is seen as the combination of contentive and formal change. Using corpus data from two historical English corpora, COLMOBAENG and COHA, comprising the Late Modern English and Present Day English periods, two stages of the grammaticalization process were observed: i. Location → Continuation, ii. Continuation → Iteration. On the contentive side, the second phase shows an increase in scope from an operator expressing phasal aspect at the layer of the Configurational property to an operator of event quantification at the layer of the States-of-Affairs. On the formal side, it has been observed that it has a very high degree of grammaticaliy based on Keizer’s criteria (Keizer 2007). Diachronically, the most relevant formal change is the combination with -ing verbs.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
The aim of this thesis is to provide a novel account for the linguistic phenomenon that is commonly referred to as ‘fragments’. I will provide a novel account, utilising the syntax-prosody...Show moreThe aim of this thesis is to provide a novel account for the linguistic phenomenon that is commonly referred to as ‘fragments’. I will provide a novel account, utilising the syntax-prosody interface, to account for the fact that fragments appear to be derived from a larger structure. I aim to deal with some of the inadequacies of previous syntactic analyses, and to provide an account that may be better reflected in the data. The analysis that I will detail in this thesis will treat the deletion we find in fragments as prosodic deletion: such an approach has not been attempted so far. Importantly, whilst the main focus of this thesis is investigating the deletion in fragments, we will see that we may also be able to account for further cases of ellipsis, such as sluicing, right node raising and gapping.Show less
