Why Dutch 'men' need to get high

This paper focuses on overt impersonal pronouns such as English 'one' and Dutch 'men' in eight Germanic languages (English, Frisian, Icelandic, Danish, Dutch, German, Norwegian and Swedish). Cinque (1988), Egerland (2003), a.o, assumed that there are two types of impersonal pronouns, one type that can occur in multiple syntactic positions but can only have a generic reading and a type that can have generic and existential readings but can only occur as an external argument. I show based on novel data from ECM constructions and passives and unaccusatives, that it is not the syntactic position which restricts the distribution of men-type pronouns, but it is case. English type pronouns can occur with multiple cases, but can only have a generic inclusive reading. All Dutch type pronouns can only occur with nominative case and can have multiple impersonal readings. Moreover, I show that Dutch and Swedish allow an existential reading when the pronoun is a derived subject (contra Cinque (1988), Egerland (2003)) I will account for this correlation between the different readings and case by assuming different feature make-ups for the pronouns, following Egerland (2003), Hoekstra (2010), Ackema and Neeleman (2016): 'one' has phi features and therefore always needs to be obligatorily inclusive; 'men' lacks this functional layer too and therefore has no restriction on its readings. Moreover, I propose that since men lacks a phi-layer, it is too deficient to project a KP, and therefore it can only occur with unmarked nominative case.

Geeraerts, Dirk, Gitte Kristiansen & Yves Peirsman (eds.). Advances in cognitive sociolinguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2010

Studies on developments in pronominal gender agreement often focus on the semantic guidelines that are used to replace grammatical agreement with. However, pragmatic factors contribute to the competition between syntactic and semantic agreement as well. This paper analyzes two prominence factors contributing to the overall discourse salience of the antecedent noun and their impact on grammatical agreement in personal pronouns. First, the results will reveal that the antecedent’s referential status i.e. the assumed cognitive status the antecedent has in the mind of the addressee (cf. the Givenness Hierarchy) exerts influence on the use of gender-marked pronouns. Secondly, this study will indicate that antecedents in subject position trigger more syntactic agreement than antecedents with other grammatical functions.

Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 2013

The 2 nd person singular pronoun du 'thou' has been replaced by new pronouns gij/jij/jii 'you' in many Dutch dialects. The standard explanation attributes du's decline to the emerging honorific plural pronouns such as gij 'you' in singular use. In this study we trace a purely syntactic trigger for this change, thus replacing sociolinguistic and paradigmatic explanations (deflection). Using dialect geographic tools of the GTRP dialect database, we found a significant correlation between the loss of du and the rise of double present tense paradigms (direct and inverse). By defining two types of Verb Second, C-type V2 (Den Besten) and C/T-type V2 (Zwart), we show that a transition between those types predicts the loss of positiondependent spelled out pronouns such as du. The factor that blocks Den Besten-type V2 structures in clauses with [2] in Dutch dialects is the clausetyping property of the feature [2], which generate a violation that is similar to the that-trace violations with the [WH] feature.

This article argues for a radical morphosyntactic analysis of Dutch articles and pronouns.

German and Dutch in Contrast, 2020

Dutch is currently undergoing a 'resemanticisation' of its pronominal gender, in which syntactic agreement is replaced with a system in which pronouns are chosen in accordance with the degree of individuation of the antecedent. Current accounts of resemanticisation link the process to the extent to which the three-way nominal gender distinctions are still entrenched. Using experimental data gathered with speeded grammaticality judgements from speakers of both Netherlandic and Belgian varieties of Dutch, of German, and of German learners of Dutch, we unambiguously relate the rise of semantic agreement in Dutch to an increased uncertainty with respect to grammatical gender. In addition, reaction time measurements suggest that an agreement system with a strong propensity towards grammatical agreement allows for faster processing of agreement relations than systems in which semantic agreement plays a larger role. Zusammenfassung: Im Niederländischen findet zurzeit eine 'Resemantisierung' des pronominalen Genus statt, durch die syntaktische Kongruenz zunehmend durch ein System ersetzt wird, in dem die Wahl pronominaler Formen vom Grad der Individuierung des Antezedenten abhängt. Es wurde vermutet, dass der Prozess mit dem Grad der Verankerung (entrenchment) des Drei-Genera-Systems zusammenhängt. Anhand von Grammatikalitätsurteilen unter Zeitdruck (speeded grammaticality judgements) mit Sprechern niederländischer und belgischer Varietäten und mit Sprechern des Deutschen durchgeführt, sowie auch mit deutschen Niederländischlernern, demonstrieren wir eindeutig den Zusammenhang zwischen der Zunahme semantischer Kongruenz und einer Unsicherheit in Bezug auf das grammatische Genus. Darüber hinaus sprechen die Analysen der Reaktionszeiten dafür, dass sein stark grammatisch basiertes Genussystem eine schnellere Verarbeitung von Kongruenzbeziehungen erlaubt als ein System, in dem semantische Kongruenz eine größere Rolle spielt.

Bergs, Alexander & Gabriele Diewald (eds.). Constructions and Language Change. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. p.229-257. , 2008

While the alleged unidirectionality of grammaticalisation is a matter of ongoing debate, most grammaticalisationists still claim that ‘true’ counterexamples are rare. For instance, Haspelmath (2004) discusses some critical voices on unidirectionality, most notably those expressed in the papers in Campbell and Janda (2001), and concludes that only eight examples of ‘antigrammaticalisation’ can be distinguished. Similarly, Hopper and Traugott (2003: 137) provide only one instance of a “mirror-image reversal” of grammaticalisation. In this paper, data will be presented from southern Dutch dialects showing the rise of a construction with two strong subject pronouns out of a former combination of a subject clitic and a strong pronoun. This development will be argued to be indicative of a degrammaticalisation process that is observed in some of the dialects under investigation. In addition, the rise of this new construction has lead to a remapping of the ‘conceptual space’ of subject marking.

Second Language Research, 2008

Linguistics in the Netherlands, 2005