Syntax of Dutch: Verbs and Verb Phrases. Volume 1

Syntax of Dutch: Verbs and Verb Phrases consists of three volumes. Volume 1 opens with a general introduction to verbs, including a review of various verb classifications and discussions on inflection, tense, mood, modality and aspect. This is followed by a comprehensive discussion of complementation (argument structure and verb frame alternations). Volume 2 continues the discussion of complementation, but is more specifically focused on clausal complements: the reader will find detailed discussions of finite and infinitival argument clauses, complex verb constructions and verb clustering. Volume 3 concludes with a description of adverbial modification and the overall structure of clauses in relation to, e.g., word order (verb placement, wh-movement. extraposition phenomena, scrambling, etc.)

Adverbial '-s' as last resort: n and a get their support

This article examines the grammatical behavior of Dutch adverbs featuring so-called adverbial -s. This will be done on the basis of three questions: Firstly, what is the grammatical nature of adverbial -s? Secondly, in which structural configurations does it appear? Thirdly, what does adverbial -s tell us about the existence of adverbs as a separate part of speech? The article provides the following three answers to these questions: Firstly, adverbial -s is an affixal manifestation of the categorizing heads n and a (so-called -s-Support). Secondly, n and a externalize as -s when the raised root that forms an amalgam with the categorizing head is silent or a bound root. Thirdly, “adverbs” featuring adverbial -s are nominal, adjectival or adpositional expressions with an articulated syntactic structure. Some of these syntactic structures correspond to the so-called construct state. In short, linguistic expressions featuring adverbial -s do not support the idea that adverbs form a separate part of speech

Double comparatives and the comparative criterion

In this paper, I (re)consider a number of facets of adjectival comparative (and related) constructions as discussed in Corver (1997a,b). Rather than taking comparative words like more and less to be functional heads that head some Degree Projection, I claim that they are phrases (i.e. XPs) that undergo displacement within the adjective phrase to a Spec-position of a functional head that encodes ‘comparison’. In the spirit of Rizzi (1991), this Spec position is characterized as a criterial position. The empirical basis for my proposal is the phenomenon of Comparative Doubling, i.e. the co-occurrence of the bound comparative morpheme (-er) and the comparative word more in expressions like more safer

The Noun Phrase: Diversity in Dutch DP Design (DiDDD)

In this paper we discuss our project: Diversity in Dutch DP Design. This project investigates the variation found in the Dutch DP. Not only the variation concerning contemporary dialects is taken into account, also the variation between contemorary Dutch and older variants of the language are investigated. By looking into variation, the project aims to provide an answer to two questions: (i) what is the locus of variation, (ii) what is the structure of the DP-domain

Specific language impairment as a syntax-phonology (PF) interface problem : evidence from Afrikaans

CITATION: Corver, N., Southwood, F. & Van Hout, R. 2012. Specific language impairment as a syntax-phonology (PF) interface problem : evidence from Afrikaans. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics, 41:71-89, doi:10.5774/41-0-134.The original publication is available at http://spil.journals.ac.zaA theoretical account of specific language impairment (SLI) – one which places the locus of the impairment at Spell-Out at the syntax-phonology interface – is proposed and then tested against utterances from Afrikaans-speaking children with SLI. Drawing on Minimalism, our account offers a unified explanation for the seemingly diverse phenomena found in the Afrikaans data: omission of certain lexical material, double articulation of other lexical material and word order deviations. Based on our data, we conclude that the language problem of children with SLI appears to lie neither in the mapping from lexicon to syntax (thus in the selection of a lexical item as a member of the numeration) nor in the computational system, but in the mapping of an adult-like syntactic representation onto a proper sound representation.http://spil.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/134Publisher's versio