Translating English non-human subjects in agentive contexts : a closer look at Dutch

While subjects of transitive action verbs in English and Dutch are typically realized as human agents (see Comrie 1989), both languages also feature instances of nonhuman agents in subject position. However, Vandepitte and Hartsuiker (2011) have shown that there are fewer options in Dutch and that translation issues present themselves in cases where both languages do not overlap. This paper wants to document overlap and differences in terms of non-prototypical subject realization by focussing on the strategies that are used in Dutch translations of six actions verbs (give, demonstrate, show, suggest, offer and tell) in combination with non-human subjects. Results reveal that a fair share of non-human subjects are also translated as such in the target language. Other strategies include occasional humanization of the non-human source text subjects, reduction of valency patterns with reduced agentivity vis-a-vis the English source-text sentences and shifts in the mapping of semantic roles onto syntactic functions

On the perspectivization of a recipient role - cross-linguistic results from a speech production experiment on GET-passives in German, Dutch and Luxembourgish

The focus of this paper is the perspectivization of thematic roles generally and the recipient role specifically. Whereas perspective is defined here as the representation of something for someone from a given position (Sandig 1996: 37), perspectivization refers to the verbalization of a situation in the speech generation process (Storrer 1996: 233). In a prototypical act of giving, for example, the focus of perception (the attention of the external observer) may be on the person who gives (agent), the transferred object (patient) or the person who receives the transferred object (recipient). The languages of the world provide differing linguistic means to perspectivize such an act of giving, or better: to perspectivize the participants of such an action. In this article, the linguistic means of three selected continental West Germanic languages –German, Dutch and Luxembourgish– will be taken into consideration, with an emphasis on the perspectivization of the recipient role

Ditransitive verbs and the ditransitive construction: a diachronic perspective

This paper argues for the adoption of a construction-based perspective to the investigation of diachronic shifts in valency, which is a hitherto largely neglected topic in the framework of valency grammar. On the basis of a comparison of the set of verbs attested in the double object argument structure pattern in a corpus of 18th-century British English with the construction's present-day semantic range, I will distinguish between three kinds of valency shifts. It will be shown that the semantic ranges of schematic argument structure constructions are subject to diachronic change, and that the shifts in valency observed in individual verbs are often part of more general changes at the level of the associated argument structure constructions. The latter part of the paper explores frequency shifts in valency and constructional semantics

Developments in Dutch Environmental Policy: Target Rationality or Cultural Shift?

In this article we have discussed developments in Dutch environmental policy from a certain 'rational' and a certain 'cultural' perspective. Both perspectives appear to be satisfactory only to a certain degree. The interpretation of the development of policy as a consequence\ud of a learning process leaves important questions unanswered. The changes towards a consensual approach and standards that are based more on group ties can only be understood on the basis of cultural theory if a shift in orientation within the various subcultures is assumed. This is contrary to theory, however. After all, according to theory such situations are not 'viable'

Acquiring a new second language contrast: an analysis of the English laryngeal system of native speakers of Dutch

This study examines the acquisition of the English laryngeal system by native speakers of (Belgian) Dutch. Both languages have a two-way laryngeal system, but while Dutch contrasts prevoiced with short-lag stops, English has a contrast between short-lag and long-lag stops. The primary aim of the article is to test two hypotheses on the acquisition process based on first language acquisition research: (1) native speakers of a voicing language will succeed in producing short-lag stops in the target aspirating language, since short-lag stops occur early in first language acquisition and can be considered unmarked and since one member of the contrast is formed by short-lag stops in both voicing and aspirating languages, and (2) native speakers of a voicing language will succeed in acquiring long-lag stops in the target language, because aspiration is an acoustically salient realization. The analysis is based on an examination of natural speech data (conversations between dyads of informants), combined with the results of a controlled reading task. Both types of data were gathered in Dutch as well as in Eng(Dutch) (i.e. the English speech of native speakers of Dutch). The analysis revealed an interesting pattern: while the first language (L1) Dutch speakers were successful in acquiring long-lag aspirated stops (confirming hypothesis 2), they did not acquire English short-lag stops (rejecting hypothesis 1). Instead of the target short-lag stops, the L1 Dutch speakers produced prevoiced stops and frequently transferred regressive voice assimilation with voiced stops as triggers from Dutch into English. Various explanations for this pattern in terms of acoustic salience, perceptual cues and training will be considered

Expressing possession with HAVE and BE: affected possession structures in Flemish

This paper concerns a cartographic account of Flemish Event Possessives (FEVPs) which alternate between a variety with HAVE and one with BE. The FEVP matrix subjects have the interpretation of both being the Possessor (in its broadest meaning) of the event expressed in the embedded clause and being affected by it, the latter shown by among others the ‘ban on dead arguments’ diagnostic (Hole 2006, 387-388). Cross-linguistically the alternation between possessive HAVE and BE appears with a nominative subject in the HAVE-variety, but a dative subject in the BE-variety. In line with the analysis of HAVE as the spell-out of BE with a preposition or a case (cf. Benveniste 1966; Freeze 1992; Kayne 1993; Hoekstra 1994, 1995; Belvin and den Dikken 1997; den Dikken 1997), Broekhuis and Cornips (1994) argue that HAVE and BE respectively assign accusative and dative case to their complements in Heerlen Dutch possessives. As expected, the matrix subject in the Flemish HAVE-FEVP is nominative. The availability of a pronominal direct object het (‘it’) in HAVE-FEVPs, but not in BE-FEVPs, follows from the above mentioned traditional analyses of possessive HAVE and BE as well. What is unexpected, however, is that the matrix subject of the Flemish BE-FEVP does not surface with dative case but instead with nominative. I argue that the nominative matrix subject of the FEVP in both its varieties occupies a similar (applicative) relation to the clausal domain as that observed for the Possessor of the subject-related Flemish External Possessor pattern (FEP) (Haegeman 2011; Haegeman and van Koppen 2012; Haegeman and Danckaert 2013; Buelens and D’Hulster 2014). For the subject-related FEP-pattern, Haegeman and Danckaert (2013) argue that the Possessor occupies a position higher in the clause than its unmarked DP-internal position (cf. Landau 1999; Payne and Barshi 1999; Hole 2004, 2006; Lee-Schoenfeld 2006; Deal 2010, 2013, forthc.). Along those lines, I argue that in the FEVP an Affectee feature [+AFF] on an applicative light verb attracts the Possessor subject to its specifier (for Affectee and applicative structures cf. Marantz 1993; Pylkkänen 2000, 2002, 2008; McFadden 2004; Hole 2004, 2006; Rivero 2009; Kim 2011, 2012; Rivero and Arregui 2010, 2012). It is in this high applicative position that it receives the (default) nominative case. Specifically, the FEVP is analyzed, following Belvin and den Dikken’s (1997) analysis of possessive HAVE and BE in Dutch, as a small clause headed by Agr. I take the event being encoded by the full clause CP to be in the specifier of Agr and the Possessor as the complement of Agr: (a) BE-FEVP: [vP wej [v' v [IP tj [I' I+Agri] [AgrP [CP dat...] [Agr' ti tj]]]] (b) HAVE-FEVP: [vP wej [v' v [IP tj [I' I+Agri+Pe [hetk]] [AgrP [CP dat...k] [Agr' ti tj]]]]] The verb BE, then, in Flemish alternates freely with HAVE in the FEVP and can be said to be a dummy verb used not only to encode possessive structures, but also affected possessive structures