(INTER)SUBJECTIVE USES OF THE DUTCH PROGRESSIVE CONSTRUCTIONS

Transcription

1 Lynn Anthonissen (University of Antwerp) Astrid De Wit (Université Libre de Bruxelles) Tanja Mortelmans (University of Antwerp) BKL Taaldag Journée Linguistique du CBL Université Catholique de Louvain (INTER)SUBJECTIVE USES OF THE DUTCH PROGRESSIVE CONSTRUCTIONS

2 Overview 1. Introduction 2. Research questions 3. Corpus and methodology 4. Contingency and the Dutch progressive 5. Special mirative cases 6. Conclusion

3 1. Introduction Progressives do more than indicate ongoingness Analyses of progressive constructions in different languages typically center around aspectotemporal notions: ONGOINGNESS, UNBOUNDEDNESS, DURATION, TEMPORAL FRAMING Analyses on English, German and French by, among others, De Wit & Brisard (2014), Anthonissen et al. (2016) and De Wit et al. (2013) show that there is more to the progressive than meets the eye

4 1. Introduction Progressives do more than indicate ongoingness Examples English Well, he says minorities. He s smart, he talks about minorities. But he s really talking about African Americans. (Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English) interpretative progressive (Ljung 1980)

5 1. Introduction Progressives do more than indicate ongoingness Examples (cont d) German Wir sind zur Zeit heftig am Berechnen, erklärt Steuerberater Günther Pöschl, (DeReKo) At the moment, we are calculating fiercely, tax consultant Günther Pöschl says, progressive for intensification

6 1. Introduction Progressives do more than indicate ongoingness Examples (cont d) French Il est en train de lire de travers. He is reading the wrong way. vs.? Il est en train de bien lire. He is reading well. (Franckel 1989: 78) atypicality

7 1. Introduction Progressives do more than indicate ongoingness In languages like English, German and French the progressive can be used for non-aspectotemporal reasons, i.e. to mark a situation as standing out in a way frequent attestation of senses of SURPRISE, INTENSIFICATION, TENTATIVENESS, IRRITATION (INTER)SUBJECTIVE uses that tie in with the contingent meaning of the progressive (stay tuned ) This talk: how about Dutch?

8 2. Research questions Research question 1 Do we find similar (inter)subjective uses for the Dutch progressive?

9 2. Research questions Research question 1 Do we find similar (inter)subjective uses for the Dutch progressive? or should we say: Dutch progressives?

10 2. Research questions Research question 1 * (inter)subjective use? Progressive aspect in Dutch aan het construction maar ik denk dat ze daar ergens aan 't broeden zijn. (CGN) but I think they re breeding somewhere over there.

11 2. Research questions Research question 1 * (inter)subjective use? Progressive aspect in Dutch aan het construction maar ik denk dat ze daar ergens aan 't broeden zijn. (CGN) but I think they re breeding somewhere over there. bezig te construction zijn we een dag bezig om 't allemaal te bedenken. (CGN) we re busy for a day to figure everything out.

12 2. Research questions Research question 1 * (inter)subjective use? Progressive aspect in Dutch (cont d) posture verb constructions with zitten ( sit ), staan ( stand ) and liggen ( lie ) ik zat te denken aan uh moeder Theresa. (CGN) lit. I sat thinking about Mother Theresa. ze liggen te roepen meer blauw op 't straat meer blauw op 't straat. (CGN) lit. They lie shouting more blue on the street more blue on the street.

13 2. Research questions Research question 1 * (inter)subjective use? Progressive aspect in Dutch (cont d) posture verb constructions with zitten ( sit ), staan ( stand ) and liggen ( lie ) stood cycling Metro 7/4/2016

14 2. Research questions Research question 1 * (inter)subjective use? Progressive aspect in Dutch (cont d) motion verb constructions lopen te ( run ) dan heb je altijd honger en dan loop je wel weer te zeuren. (CGN) then you re always hungry and then you run nagging again.

15 2. Research questions (inter)subjective uses vs construction types RQ1: Do we find similar (inter)subjective uses for the Dutch progressives, i.e. aan het (prepositional), bezig te, zitten/liggen/staan te (posture verbs), and lopen te (motion verb)? RQ2: Do we find any differences in this respect between the different Dutch progressive constructions?

16 3. Corpus and methodology Corpus CGN: Corpus of Spoken Dutch component a: spontaneous conversations (face-to-face) size: 2,626,172 Northern Dutch (NL) 1,747,789 (67%) Belgian Dutch (VL) 878,383 (33%)

17 3. Corpus and methodology Frequency Cxn type Cxn token n % PREP aan het POS zitten POS staan MOTION lopen 80 3 POS liggen 50 2 BUSY bezig 39 2 POS hangen 2 <1 Total

18 3. Corpus and methodology Frequency Proportion of total (n=2504, 100%) AAN_HET ZITTEN STAAN LOPEN LIGGEN BEZIG HANGEN 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

19 3. Corpus and methodology Parameters CXN TYPE PREP BUSY POS MOTION CXN TOKEN aan het bezig zitten liggen staan hangen lopen ASPECTO-TEMP. USE ongoingness, habitual, iteration, temporary validity, limited duration, futurate (INTER)SUBJ. USE yes / no TYPE SUBJECTIVITY irritation, intensity, surprise, tentativeness, interpretative

20 3. Corpus and methodology Parameters (cont d) TENSE present, past, perfect, past perfect, future, etc. FINITENESS finite, infinitivus pro participio (IPP), non-finite CONGRUITY [for POS/MOTION] yes / no Other animacy, negation, verb,

21 4. Contingency & the Dutch Progressive Research question 1: (inter)subjective meanings Dutch progressives are frequently used for the expression of (inter)subjective meanings (inter)subjective use n % no yes

22 4. Contingency & the Dutch Progressive Research question 1: (inter)subjective meanings Dutch progressives are frequently used for the expression of (inter)subjective meanings (inter)subjective type n % irritation intensification surprise tentativeness interpretative Total

23 4. Contingency & the Dutch Progressive Research question 1: (inter)subjective meanings Examples irritation ja was d ook één jongen in 't team en z en dat vind ik nou wel een beetje irritant worden want die loopt altijd heel erg te roepen van uh als je iets fout doet. yes, there was one guy in the team and I find it getting a little irritating cause he always walks shouting fiercely when you do something wrong.

24 4. Contingency & the Dutch Progressive Research question 1: (inter)subjective meanings Examples intensification 'k zat naast Baak en uh heel zo s was me heel ggg de busreis aan 't uitsloven om te laten zien hoeve hoeveel dat 'k wel niet wist van geschiedenis I was sitting next to Baak and I was going out of my way the whole bus ride long to show how much I really knew about history.

25 4. Contingency & the Dutch Progressive Research question 1: (inter)subjective meanings Examples surprise maar 't was meer of dertig graden en dan zit je 's middags hutsepot te eten. but it was more than 30 degrees and then you sit eating stew for lunch.

26 4. Contingency & the Dutch Progressive Research question 1: (inter)subjective meanings Examples tentativeness misschien is dat eigenlijk ook wel xxx aan 't gebeuren nu. maybe that is actually also happening right now.

27 4. Contingency & the Dutch Progressive Epistemic contingency association of progressive aspect with (inter)subjective uses? progressive aspect expresses epistemic contingency in all of its uses, i.e. it construes situations as a non-structural part of reality important: progressives by definition select events

28 4. Contingency & the Dutch Progressive Epistemic contingency association of progressive aspect with (inter)subjective uses? progressive creates an internal perspective on an event (a bounded and typically heterogeneous situation)

29 4. Contingency & the Dutch Progressive Epistemic contingency association of progressive aspect with (inter)subjective uses? progressive creates an internal perspective on an event (a bounded and typically heterogeneous situation) scope imposed by progressive

30 4. Contingency & the Dutch Progressive Epistemic contingency association of progressive aspect with (inter)subjective uses? progressive creates an internal perspective on an event (a bounded and typically heterogeneous situation) scope imposed by progressive backgrounded boundaries by definition part of the meaning of the progressive

31 4. Contingency & the Dutch Progressive Epistemic contingency association of progressive aspect with (inter)subjective uses? backgrounded boundaries by definition part of the meaning of the progressive association of progressive with situations that are bounded and thus epistemically contingent: such events are more likely to be atypical in one way or another

32 4. Contingency & the Dutch Progressive Research question 2: constructional differences Differences between different progressive constructions in terms of contingency

33 4. Contingency & the Dutch Progressive Research question 2: constructional differences 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Y N AAN_HET BEZIG HANGEN STAAN LIGGEN ZITTEN LOPEN PREP BUSY POS MOTION

34 4. Contingency & the Dutch Progressive Research question 2: constructional differences 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Y N AAN_HET BEZIG HANGEN STAAN LIGGEN ZITTEN LOPEN PREP BUSY POS MOTION

35 4. Contingency & the Dutch Progressive Research question 2: constructional differences stronger association of posture verbs with contingency Lemmens (2015): aan het ~ processual profile = zooms in on the ongoing process itself posture verbs ~ situational profile (locative focus) = locates the ongoing process in a well-described temporal frame backgrounded boundaries more profiled with posture verbs

36 4. Contingency & the Dutch Progressive Research question 2: constructional differences stronger association of motion verb lopen with contingency Lemmens (2015): iterativity: uses of lopen te strongly imply multiple occurrences of the event over a given time span irritation hij loopt steeds te mekkeren Leonardo (CGN) he (i.e. Leonardo) is constantly nagging.

37 5. Special mirative cases two contexts particularly prone to (inter)subjective readings 1. present perfect of POS/MOTION progressive 2. gaan ( go ) + POS/MOTION progressive

38 5. Special mirative cases 1. Present perfect of POS/MOTION progressive Examples heb ik die hele kaart lopen verneuken. have I been running fucking up the whole map. 'k bedoel daar heb ik dus uit mijn duim zitten zuigen van 't kan niet meer. I mean, there I have been sitting faking it all (lit. sucking out of my thumb).

39 5. Special mirative cases 1. Present perfect of POS/MOTION progressive (inter)subjective use n % no yes

40 5. Special mirative cases 2. Gaan ( go ) + POS/MOTION progressive Examples dat ga je toch niet zitten prakken. you don t go sitting mashing that. als ik gebeld word ik ga nooit echt in 't onwijs in 't openbaar staan bellen zo van op straat van kijk mij 'ns. when I m called I never really go standing calling in public like look at me.

41 5. Special mirative cases 2.Gaan ( go ) + POS/MOTION progressive (inter)subjective use n % no yes

42 5. Special mirative cases Mirativity two contexts particularly prone to modal readings 1. present perfect of POS/MOTION progressive 2. gaan ( go ) + progressive Mirative extensions of the Dutch progressive?

43 5. Special mirative cases Mirativity mirativity = the linguistic marking of an utterance as conveying information which is new or unexpected to the speaker (DeLancey 2001: ), usually with overtones of surprise. progressive constructions are already mirative-like in combination with the perfect or gaan, this is reinforced

44 5. Special mirative cases Mirativity present perfect & mirativity many mirative constructions across languages have evolved out of perfect markers (e.g. DeLancey 2001) connection secondary evidence and unexpectedness cf. also explanatory-resultative present perfect progressive in English (e.g. Have you been drinking again?)

45 5. Special mirative cases Mirativity gaan ( go ) + POS/MOTION progressive go-constructions used for mirative meanings in French and English (Celle & Lansari forthcoming) extra highlighting of initial boundary

46 6. Conclusions Dutch progressives express (inter)subjective meanings (just like progressive constructions in English, German, French, ) Posture progressives (zitten, staan, liggen te) and the motion progressive (lopen te) are more often used with (inter)subjective meanings backgrounded boundaries are highlighted or sense of iteration is emphasized Mirative extensions 1. present perfect of POS/MOT progressive 2. gaan + POS/MOT progressive

47 References Anthonissen, Lynn, Astrid De Wit & Tanja Mortelmans (2016), Aspect Meets Modality: A Semantic Analysis of the German Am-Progressive, Journal of Germanic Linguistics 28(1): Celle, Agnès & Laure Lansari. forthcoming. On the mirative meaning of aller + infinitive compared with its equivalents in English. Cahiers Chronos. De Wit, Astrid, Adeline Patard & Frank Brisard (2013), A Contrastive Analysis of the Present Progressive in French and English, Studies in Language 37 (4): De Wit, Astrid & Frank Brisard (2014a), A Cognitive Grammar Account of the Semantics of the English Present Progressive, Journal of Linguistics 50 (1): DeLancey, Scott (2001), The Mirative and Evidentiality, Journal of Pragmatics 3: Franckel, Jean-Jacques (1989). Etude de Quelques Marqueurs Aspectuels du Français. Genève: Droz. Lemmens, Maarten (2015), Zit je te denken of ben je aan het piekeren? Nederlandse Taalkunde Ljung, Magnus (1980). Reflections on the English Progressive. Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis.

48 REGION observed frequency vs. expected frequency 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% expected frequency NL: 67% VL: 33% VL NL 20% 10% 0%

49 REGION (Inter)subjective use 100% 90% 80% N Y 70% 60% 50% average 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% NL VL

50 Multifactorial analysis: conditional inference tree