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
In this thesis, I will research the frequency of English loan words in K-pop songs that were released between 2010 and 2021. With this research I will attempt to answer three questions. Firstly:...Show moreIn this thesis, I will research the frequency of English loan words in K-pop songs that were released between 2010 and 2021. With this research I will attempt to answer three questions. Firstly: Has the average amount of English words in K-pop songs increased between 2010-2021? Secondly: How can English loans in Korean be linguistically classified? Thirdly: Why has the use of English words in Korean increased, if it is the case that it did? The found loan words will be distributed into five different categories laid out in Grant (2019) and Kim (2012), based on the identifying linguistic features. Furthermore, I will attempt to provide a sociolinguistic explanation for the reasons for the use of English words in Korean. Both broad societal factors, as well as factors specific to the K-pop industry will be taken into account to arrive at a conclusion.Show less
Slur reclamation is a linguistic process wherein a community reclaims words intended to hurt them. This paper focuses on the sociolinguistic factors behind LGBTQ+ slur reclamation in French. Hence...Show moreSlur reclamation is a linguistic process wherein a community reclaims words intended to hurt them. This paper focuses on the sociolinguistic factors behind LGBTQ+ slur reclamation in French. Hence the research question: What are the sociolinguistics factors behind the reclamation process of anti-LGBTQ+ slurs in French? The research was conducted under the hypothesis that French reclamation would only differ from English in people’s objections which would be based on a prestige-appealing ideology. An online questionnaire was used, which participants completed on a voluntary basis. From the results, it appears that LGBTQ+ slur reclamation in French operates in a similar manner as in English. Prestige, however, was less often a factor in French than the hypothesis assumed. Instead, those against reclamation cited the following reasons: derogation too deeply encoded in the slur (always has the potential to hurt anyone, could contribute to internalised oppression), refusal to be defined by your label, pointlessness of the reclamation process. Those in favour of slur reclamation stated the following reasons in the questionnaire: reinforcement of an ingroup feeling, erosion the derogation, humour, unintentionally (part of their lexicon), provocation, secret queer language, ignorance of the insulting nature.Show less
Es ist kein reiner Zufall, dass das Deutsche und Niederländische sich in vielerlei Hinsicht ähnlich Verhalten, denn sie sind schließlich Schwestersprachen. Reflexive Verben scheinen ein gutes...Show moreEs ist kein reiner Zufall, dass das Deutsche und Niederländische sich in vielerlei Hinsicht ähnlich Verhalten, denn sie sind schließlich Schwestersprachen. Reflexive Verben scheinen ein gutes Beispiel dieser Ähnlichkeit. In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden reflexive Verben im Deutschen und Niederländischen miteinander verglichen. Reflexive Verben werden mittels einer Wortliste, in der deutsche und niederländische Verben analysiert werden, in verschiedene Klassen unterteilt, die anschließend miteinander verglichen werden können. Es ist das Ziel dieser Arbeit um herauszufinden, ob deutsche und niederländische reflexive Verben sich systematisch voneinander unterscheiden. Ist es nur Zufall, dass verkouden worden ‘sich erkälten’ auf Deutsch reflexiv verwendet wird und im Niederländischen nicht, oder gehört das Verb zu einer größeren Gruppe der reflexiven Verben, die im Niederländischen nie reflexiv ist? Es hat sich ergeben, dass es tatsächlich systematische Unterschiede zu entdecken sind. Einige Klassen der Reflexiva, die im Deutschen reflexiv sind, sind das im Niederländischen nicht: die Klassen der Positions-, benefaktiven & malefaktiven Verben und die dekausativen inhärent reflexiven Verben mit belebtem Subjekt. Dekausative Reflexiva werden im Niederländischen überhaupt beschränkter als im Deutschen verwendet. Auch ist es bei manchen dekausativen Verben und agentiven Verben, die eine Körperbewegung ausdrücken, im Niederländischen möglich, das Reflexivpronomen weglassen. Im Deutschen ist das nicht der Fall. Wenn ein Verb für reflexiv markiert wird, wird die Betroffenheit des Subjekts betont. Das Deutsche betont diese Betroffenheit am meisten. Das Deutsche markiert semantische Rollen generell mehr als das Niederländische. Das sollte erklären, wieso das Deutsche die meisten Reflexiva aufweist und die Markierung auch nicht einfach weglassen will. Das Niederländische markiert semantische Rollen wiederum mehr als das Englische. Im Niederländischen werden Reflexiva auch mehr als im Englischen verwendet. Das Niederländische befindet sich daher zwischen dem Deutschen und Englischen. Sprecher des Niederländischen scheinen es einfach manchmal unnötig zu finden, die Betroffenheit des Subjekts zu betonen, deswegen kann das Reflexivpronomen bei manchen Verben weggelassen werden. Verben, deren Reflexivpronomina auch weggelassen werden können, gehören zu reflexiven Klassen, die dem Englischen fehlen. Das Niederländische scheint daher momentan dem englischen Weg zu folgen.Show less
For decades an objective for linguistics as a study field has been to assess the existence and/or strength of a link between language and thought. The present study focuses on crosslinguistic...Show moreFor decades an objective for linguistics as a study field has been to assess the existence and/or strength of a link between language and thought. The present study focuses on crosslinguistic differences in observed intrusion of the spatial domain on the temporal domain by comparing English monolinguals toMan darin-English bilinguals. The main question in this study is whether the observed linguistic differences in the temporal domain between Mandarin and English bear influence on the conceptualization of this domain by the human mind. The present study comprises of two replicated experiments. When the two presently replicated experiments were conducted originally they drew deviating conclusions from one another regarding a similar question. While the results of the present study remain inconclusive, results hint at a global difference between Mandarin-English bilinguals’ conception of time and English native speakers’ conception of time based on language. This hint implicates that there might be an underlying effect of language on the mental representation of time. The second experiment has not revealed any implication on linguistic processing due to observed crosslinguistic differences.Show less
De invloed van de factor tijd op het gebruik van anglicismen door Franse jongeren is tweeledig, zowel op kwantitatief als taalkundig vlak. De analyse van twee vergelijkbare steekproeven uit het...Show moreDe invloed van de factor tijd op het gebruik van anglicismen door Franse jongeren is tweeledig, zowel op kwantitatief als taalkundig vlak. De analyse van twee vergelijkbare steekproeven uit het ESLO-corpus ondersteunt deze conclusie. Uit het onderzoek blijkt dat Franse jongeren relatief veel meer Engelse termen gebruiken, de corpora uit 2010 en 1969 met elkaar vergeleken. Het grote verschil is te wijten aan de verbetering van communicatietechnologie door de verengelsing en het vreemdetalenonderwijs. Hierdoor hebben jongeren een meer technische woordenschat ontwikkeld. Daarnaast toont het gebruik van ‘foute anglicismen’ aan dat Engelse leenwoorden vaak worden aangepast aan de Franse grammatica.Show less
Dutch has a caused posture system that distinguishes two placement verbs, zetten 'to set' and leggen 'lay’. This study explores this semantic distinction from a descriptive viewpoint and uses this...Show moreDutch has a caused posture system that distinguishes two placement verbs, zetten 'to set' and leggen 'lay’. This study explores this semantic distinction from a descriptive viewpoint and uses this analysis to investigates the psycholinguistic effects of it on memory for placement events in native Dutch speakers. This study questions a) what factors determine the semantic distinction between zetten and leggen, b) whether linguistic encoding in general affects memory, c) whether specific linguistic encoding affects memory (i.e. does verbalizing placement events enhance memory for these events in Dutch speakers) and d) whether the fact that a language makes its speakers think about specific features i.e. encoding specific features of placement events vs. not encoding specific features of other motion events) enhances memory for these features in general. Descriptive results show that participants use leggen ‘to lay’ for horizontal scenes and zetten ‘to set’ for vertical scenes. Contrary to earlier findings, the results show that the placement of a round symmetrical object is approached differently than those of cubic symmetrical objects. Psycholinguistic results show that linguistic encoding has a positive effect on memory in general. However, specific linguistic encoding does not result in a significant enhancement of memory for placement events. At last, the results show that the fact Dutch makes her speakers think about specific features of placement event does not affect memory for these: memory for placement events in general was not enhanced compared to memory for other motion events.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
closed access
The thesis argues that the language of Aeneas Tacticus, writer of the earliest Greek manual on warfare, can be better understood when studying it as a 'technical treatise', accordingly written in a...Show moreThe thesis argues that the language of Aeneas Tacticus, writer of the earliest Greek manual on warfare, can be better understood when studying it as a 'technical treatise', accordingly written in a technical register.Show less
Rotinese parallelism is an extensively researched feature from an anthropological perspective. This thesis, however, is a research from a linguistic perspective. Linguistic features of Rotinese...Show moreRotinese parallelism is an extensively researched feature from an anthropological perspective. This thesis, however, is a research from a linguistic perspective. Linguistic features of Rotinese parallelism are described on multiple levels. The structure of the parallels is described by means of analysis of the parallels, and statistical data gained from it. The grammatical, semantic and lexical parallelism is described by means of analysis of the relation between the words in a word pair, or the lines in a parallel. Most features of Rotinese parallelism agree with the parallelism in other Central-Eastern Indonesian languages. In contrary to these languages, Rotinese parallelism shows no strict order in lexical parallel pairs. Some parallel pairs do show a strict order, they seem to be pairs denoting strong cultural constructs. In conclusion, this thesis has been the first linguistic exploration of Rotinese parallelism. First steps are taken into understanding its extensive use and richness of features.Show less
This study aimed to provide a clearer understanding of the phonetic influence a native speaker of Arabic can experience during the acquisition of English as a second language (ESL), specifically...Show moreThis study aimed to provide a clearer understanding of the phonetic influence a native speaker of Arabic can experience during the acquisition of English as a second language (ESL), specifically for the consonants /p/ and /v/ in spelling and pronunciation. In a small-scale experiment, Arabic speakers of English were asked to translate an Arabic story to English by hand to create an authentic product of their spelling abilities. Afterwards, the same participants read a short story in English, which was recorded with audio equipment to later evaluate their pronunciation through the program PRAAT. Contrary to existing literature, the small-scale experiment conducted for this study found no significant effect for the influence of Arabic on English spelling despite this being hypothesised and proven in previous research. Along with this, no effect was found for the experiment based on the pronunciation of /p/ and /v/. Whereas the results did show that Arabic speakers of English had a Voice Onset Time (VOT) of /p/ that was considerably lower, they did not realise a [b] instead of the target [ph] as hypothesised. Speakers did not significantly devoice their /v/ to an [f], which does not directly coincide with the literature that has hypothesised the influence of native language phonology on the pronunciation of English as a second language. When evaluating the results as a whole, two things are implied: (1) there is a possible focus in ESL learning on spelling and therefore no issues were found, and (2) pronunciation is a difficult aspect of ESL learning due to the unfamiliar articulatory processes involved and Arabic learners experience difficulties when faced with the unfamiliar /p/ and to a lesser degree also /v/. However, they are able to make the distinction between the phoneme pairs. These implications may help ESL learners in the future to focus on problem areas, further improve their skills, while simultaneously providing the research niche of phonology with new material to investigate.Show less
Pitch accent is an important but undertaught part of the Japanese language. Differing much from the stress accent found in most Indo-European languages, even learners well into the advanced stage...Show morePitch accent is an important but undertaught part of the Japanese language. Differing much from the stress accent found in most Indo-European languages, even learners well into the advanced stage struggle to utter sentences in a fully native-like manner. Therefore, in this thesis, I tackle the issue of What teaching methods are best suited for pitch accent acquisition (PAA) in the long-term for adult foreign learners of Japanese? I discuss several methods for acquiring pitch accent, and directly compare two of them: Practising with audio-visual stimuli and explaining the rules governing pitch accent. I examined 3 groups of foreign Japanese language learners (n=9) and gave each of them a different set of instructions (or no instruction, in case of thecontrolgroup).Inapretest, posttest, anddelayedposttest, theyweremadeto judge the pitch accent pattern of, and reproduce semi-randomly chosen, common Japanese words. The results suggest that explaining the rules is just as viable an option as compared to traditional training, and that textbook producers and teachers should not be afraid to expose students to the details pitch accent, even in the early stages of their learning. Further study is needed to support these conclusions, and explain what causes some students to respond better to one method over the other.Show less
In this bachelor thesis the usage of "you" in Taiwanese Mandarin and how it differs from Standard Mandarin is researched. This thesis focuses on the difference and meaning of using "you" in...Show moreIn this bachelor thesis the usage of "you" in Taiwanese Mandarin and how it differs from Standard Mandarin is researched. This thesis focuses on the difference and meaning of using "you" in Taiwanese Mandarin. Included is literature research, corpus research and informant survey.Show less
Due to the neglect of linguistics proper to address the social component in linguistics, and sociolinguistics extensive focus on language variation and change during the 1970s, Critical Discourse...Show moreDue to the neglect of linguistics proper to address the social component in linguistics, and sociolinguistics extensive focus on language variation and change during the 1970s, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) emerged as an approach focusing on the relations between discourse and society, and how these are reproduced through text and music. As language is a powerful tool for identity construction, and its nature of being redefined within specific contexts, allows for CDA to observe how identities are constructed within discourses. Hence, by using Critical Discourse Analysis as an approach to analyzing music excerpts, this research will argue that the album Sobrevivendo no Inferno, by the Brazilian rap group Racionais MCs, uses specific structural and stylistic religious features as a semantic tool for Afro-Brazilian identity reconstruction. After presenting the Brazilian context of inequality and marginalization of peripheries, this research will apply the three stage model of analysis presented by Fairclough (1984): description, interpretation, and explanation of text. Although the primary focus of CDA has been on analyses of texts containing discourses produced by controlling groups, this research will apply the CDA approach to analyze discourse of resistance against dominating groups.Show less
This thesis studies evidentiality in Linguistic Melanesia. The thesis focuses on the differences and similarities of evidential strategies in a sample of languages spoken throughout the area while...Show moreThis thesis studies evidentiality in Linguistic Melanesia. The thesis focuses on the differences and similarities of evidential strategies in a sample of languages spoken throughout the area while trying to refrain from using a rigid framework in which to place the strategies. This leads to a broad, adjusted definition of evidentiality that allows evidentiality to be seen as a more general strategy for expressing a speaker’s access to certain information, rather than only the grammatical encoding of this. The thesis studies languages from both the Austronesian and Papuan language families and compares each language’s strategy both individually and in context of linguistic and geographical proximity. As this is a typological overview, it is the goal to give an impression of the situation that is as objective as possible. Therefore, generalizations were minimalized and conclusions given or tendencies highlighted only based on the data within this study. Hopefully, this thesis shows that rigid (typological) demarcations of features is not always helpful but can often hamper a deeper understanding and skew typological overviews.Show less
In August 2017, The Guardian announced the display of the Yeats family collection, which took place in London from 22 to 26 September. This thesis will discuss William Butler Yeats’ (1865 – 1939)...Show moreIn August 2017, The Guardian announced the display of the Yeats family collection, which took place in London from 22 to 26 September. This thesis will discuss William Butler Yeats’ (1865 – 1939) relationship with his wife, George Yeats “Georgie” (born Bertha Hyde-Lees, 1892 – 1968), his sister, Susan Mary ('Lilly') Yeats (1866-1949), and his business partner, Lady Gregory (1852 – 1932) from the perspective of his language use. The focus will be on the degree of linguistic involvement between Yeats and the women in his life revealed from the letters written by Yeats, during 1917– 1932. This paper will discuss possible style variation in these letters of W.B. Yeats (1865 – 1939). Also, I shall asses the relationships between Yeats and the three different women in his life by analysing the opening and closing formulas. The hypothesis is that the linguistic variation shows the degree of involvement between the man behind the poet and his correspondent. I shall look at the involvement by taking into consideration the usage of markers such as evidential verbs, degree adverbs, and second-person pronouns, while working with Wordsworth Tools 7.0, drawing on previous research, and linking it back to my findings (see e.g. Milroy 1980, Sairio 2005, Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2014, and Bax 2000).Show less
Throughout the years populism has managed to take many forms. While not entirely a western phenomenon, with many prominent examples existing in Latin America and some in Africa, many of the most...Show moreThroughout the years populism has managed to take many forms. While not entirely a western phenomenon, with many prominent examples existing in Latin America and some in Africa, many of the most noteworthy examples were established in Western Europe. In more recent years this has taken shape in the form of parties led by people such as Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, Nigel Farage, and Pablo Iglesias. This resurgence is a relatively long time coming. Cas Mudde has warned for years that “populist discourse has become mainstream in the politics of western democracies” calling it a “populist zeitgeist” (2004). Recently, Donald Trump has become one of the most successful and most of all surprising examples of mainstream populism, but how does his language use differ from those before him? Many of populism’s core principles have managed to stay the same, while others have changed and adapted throughout the years depending on its leaders, the people it is directed to, and the political climate it is being implemented in. This paper will analyse the language aspect of two major populist figures of our time, namely Donald J. Trump and Nigel Farage. It will compare and contrast their use of language using rhetorical and register analysis, based on parameters founded in political discourse analysis. This paper will provide clear examples to illustrate these similarities and differences in rhetoric and style, and aims to establish a relationship between linguistic features and populist rhetoric.Show less
In this study, conceptual transfer among the conceptualization of liquid containers of Dutch/Japanese bilingual users when using their first language (L1) has been examined. A naming task was...Show moreIn this study, conceptual transfer among the conceptualization of liquid containers of Dutch/Japanese bilingual users when using their first language (L1) has been examined. A naming task was performed with adult Dutch monolingual users, Japanese monolingual users and Dutch/Japanese bilingual users. No statistical evidence could be found of bilingual users to significantly differ from their monolingual counterparts during a naming task in their L1. Therefore, according to this study, it seems unlikely that bilingual participants undergo strong effects of backwards transfer. Nevertheless, there were indications of small-scale effects of conceptual transfer which could provide an interesting starting point for future research on conceptual transfer among Dutch/Japanese bilinguals.Show less
