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Labile Relational Verbs in English and Their Dutch Counterparts a Contrastive, Corpus-Based Study of Bureaucratic Language

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Labile Relational Verbs in English and Their Dutch Counterparts a Contrastive, Corpus-Based Study of Bureaucratic Language LABILE RELATIONAL VERBS IN ENGLISH AND THEIR DUTCH COUNTERPARTS A CONTRASTIVE, CORPUS-BASED STUDY OF BUREAUCRATIC LANGUAGE Marthe Lemeire Studentennummer: 01404739 Promotor: Prof. dr. Miriam Taverniers Masterproef voorgelegd voor het behalen van de graad van Master in de richting Taal- en Letterkunde: Nederlands – Engels Academiejaar: 2017 – 2018 Acknowledgements First of all I would like to thank my supervisor Prof. Dr. Miriam Taverniers for her guidance throughout my writing process and for answering my countless e-mails. Even when everything got very busy, she still helped me when I needed it. I also want to thank her for the faith she had in me when she asked me to continue research in this very complex domain of grammar. Secondly, I would like to thank three of my university friends. To begin with, Ellis Oosterlinck and Marlien Ruysschaert, who were always there to support me with their pep talks. Also, I would like to thank Kimberley Hellenbrand, who was equally struggling with writing a paper and with whom I could always share my thoughts. These friends helped me find the courage not to give up. Without everyone’s support I truly do not think I could have finished this thesis. 2 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 5 2. Literature overview ........................................................................................................................... 7 2.1. Lability in English ...................................................................................................................... 7 2.1.1. Concept of lability ............................................................................................................ 7 2.1.2. Terminology ..................................................................................................................... 8 2.1.3. Previous approaches ....................................................................................................... 9 2.1.4. Diagnostics .................................................................................................................... 13 2.1.5. Ergativization ................................................................................................................. 14 2.1.6. Lability in relational processes ....................................................................................... 15 2.2. Ergativity in Dutch ................................................................................................................... 24 2.2.1. Periphrastic constructions ............................................................................................. 24 2.2.2. Verbs with prefix ver- ..................................................................................................... 25 2.2.3. Reflexives ...................................................................................................................... 26 2.3. Contrastive research ............................................................................................................... 29 3. Methodology ................................................................................................................................... 31 4. Corpus Research ........................................................................................................................... 35 4.1. Analysis ................................................................................................................................... 35 4.1.1. Identify ........................................................................................................................... 35 4.1.2. Turn ............................................................................................................................... 37 4.1.3. Divide ............................................................................................................................. 39 4.1.4. Develop .......................................................................................................................... 41 4.1.5. Separate ........................................................................................................................ 43 4.1.6. Associate ....................................................................................................................... 45 4.1.7. Relate ............................................................................................................................ 46 4.1.8. Link ................................................................................................................................ 47 4.1.9. Compare ........................................................................................................................ 49 4.2. Discussion ............................................................................................................................... 51 4.2.1. English labile relational verbs in language use ............................................................. 51 4.2.2. Correspondence with Dutch .......................................................................................... 52 4.2.3. Dutch equivalents .......................................................................................................... 52 4.2.3.1. Nouns ........................................................................................................................ 53 4.2.3.2. Expressions ............................................................................................................... 53 4.2.3.3. Verbs ......................................................................................................................... 53 4.2.4. Categorization ................................................................................................................ 59 4.2.5. Final remarks ................................................................................................................. 60 4.2.6. Overview ........................................................................................................................ 61 5. Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 67 6. References ..................................................................................................................................... 69 3 List of tables Table 1 Middle, effective and pseudo-effective constructions (Davidse 1992b) ................................... 12 Table 2 Roles in an identifying relation (Halliday 1985: 125) ................................................................ 17 Table 3 Types of assignment according to Matthiessen (1995: 318) ................................................... 18 Table 4 Overview of alternations according to Haspelmath (1993) ...................................................... 22 Table 5 Overview of labile relational verbs (Lemeire 2017) .................................................................. 23 Table 6 Number of hits in the Europarl V7 corpus. ............................................................................... 34 Table 7 Link compared to an alternation with argument reduction ....................................................... 48 Table 8 Types and stems of ver-verbs according to Van de Beld (2010). ............................................ 59 Table 9 English labile relational verbs and their equivalents in Dutch .................................................. 66 List of figures Figure 1 Dixon's representation of nominative/ergative typology (1994: 9) ............................................ 8 Figure 2 Canonical event model (Lemmens 1998: 32) ......................................................................... 12 Figure 3 Transitive and ergative action chain model (Lemmens 1998: 33) .......................................... 13 Figure 4 Model of process types (Halliday 1985) .................................................................................. 16 Figure 5 Representation of Dutch translations (De Groote 2013: 50) ................................................... 30 4 1. Introduction Ergativity is a well-known concept within English linguistics. The term refers to a phenomenon that allows certain verbs to occur in both a transitive and an intransitive construction. These constructions respectively have a causative and an inchoative sense. With respect to this, labile verbs are verbs that allow this alternation without any change in form. A prototypical example of such verbs is break, which can be illustrated by the example John broke the vase – The vase broke. This prototypical example, alongside others such as open, begin and change suggests that the phenomenon applies to the domain of material verbs, i.e. processes of doing (Halliday 1985:109). It has indeed long been assumed that the set of labile verbs in English is fairly stable, including verbs concerned with change, with movement and action and with starting something (Francis, Hunston, Manning 1996). However, recent research has suggested that the scope of lability is expanding, not only within material processes, but also beyond its borders towards the domain of relational verbs (Lemeire 2017). These are processes of being; something is said to ‘be’ something else (Halliday 1985: 119). An example of such a labile relational verb is turn in the following
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