Linking elements in compounds: Regional variation in speech production and perception Published by LOT phone: +31 30 253 6006 Trans 10 3512 JK Utrecht e-mail: [email protected] The Netherlands http://www.lotschool.nl Cover illustration: The illustration on the cover refers to a notenkraker (‘nutcracker’) which illustrates the topic of this dissertation: Dutch compounds with a linking element en (noot+en+kraker). The word notenkraker was often used as experimental item in the studies reported here. The picture illustrates the finding of plural activation of the left part noten (‘nuts’) in notenkraker. ISBN: 978-94-6093-079-9 NUR 616 Copyright © 2011: Esther Hanssen. All rights reserved. Linking elements in compounds: Regional variation in speech production and perception Een wetenschappelijke proeve op het gebied van de Letteren Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen op gezag van de rector magnificus prof. mr. S.C.J.J. Kortmann, volgens besluit van het college van decanen in het openbaar te verdedigen op woensdag 29 februari 2012 om 13.30 uur precies door Esther Johanna Maria Hanssen geboren op 1 mei 1985 te Geleen Promotoren: Prof. dr. A. Neijt Prof. dr. R. Schreuder Manuscriptcommissie: Prof. dr. R. van Hout Prof. dr. G. Booij (Universiteit Leiden) Prof. dr. P. Zwitserlood (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster) The research reported in this dissertation was supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), Grant No. 360-70-361 awarded to prof. dr. A. Neijt and prof. dr. R. Schreuder. “According to Chomsky, a visiting Martian scientist would surely conclude that aside from their mutually unintelligible vocabularies, Earthlings speak a single language.” Steven Pinker (1994, p. 232) “The diversity of language is, from a biological point of view, its most remarkable property” Nicholas Evans and Stephan C. Levinson (2009, p. 446) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A few months ago, I had an inspiring workshop by a female American professor about writing a PhD thesis. One of her quotes was that there are two kinds of dissertations: “the perfect ones, and the finished ones”. Now my dissertation is finished, it is time to thank all those people who have supported me to succeed this mission. First of all, I am very grateful to my promotoren, Anneke Neijt and Robert Schreuder. Anneke, it is amazing to work with you. When I was a student, I was amazed by your inspiring and contagious enthusiasm about linguistics. You inspired me to do research in this field during my study in Nijmegen. You are a great supervisor, always offering me a helping hand, with excellent time- management skills. You are not only an inspiring researcher, but also an inspiring person: Your positive and optimistic attitude to life and creativity. Thank you for all the nice presents, your delicious hand-made chocolates during our meetings and our lovely dinners. Rob, where should I start? When I was a student, I can still remember my first impression of you as ‘the wise man’. You are one of the wisest and kindest men I have ever met. Moreover, it was fun to work with you. You kept me enthusiastic about the results of my data when I was sceptical and kept me on track ‘wanneer ik door de bomen het bos niet meer zag’. I learned so much from you as a researcher and a person. Thank you for sharing your knowledge about statistics and life as a researcher. I would like to thank Arina Banga for being my roommate and for working with me. Thank you for reading my dissertation, papers, abstracts, and for publishing articles together. Your comments were always very helpful. I also enjoyed going to conferences together. Thank you for being such a nice roommate, for your ‘listening ear’ and all your good advice. I wish you all the best for your dissertation, music career and I hope you will enjoy the rest of your PhD project. I am grateful to my paranimfen, Rosanne and Kimberley, for being my paranimf! Thank you so much for supporting me during my defense. I would like to thank Arjen Versloot and Eric Hoekstra from the Fryske Akademy for their wonderful cooperation. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to work together with you and for conducting a new experimental study. Your comments were very helpful for me. Thank you for sharing your knowledge about Frisian and for publishing our research in a scientific paper. Especially, I would like to thank Joop Kerkhoff. My experimental studies would never have been possible without your help. Thank you for all your support, advice, and for the possibility to use recording equipment and E-prime to set up my experiments. This dissertation could not have been completed without the support of various schools and universities. Therefore, I am very grateful to all participants, directors, teachers, and individuals from the following schools and universities: AOC Noord in Heerenveen (Aad van der Burg), AOC Oost in Doetinchem (Ben Kupers), Bornego College in Heerenveen (Gerard van den Berg and Sjoerd de Jong), Citaverde College in Roermond (Wim Boonen), Groenhorst College in Barneveld (Teus Korevaar), Wellant College in Rijnsburg (Lenie van Brakel), University of Groningen (Bert Gernaat, Maaike Moltzer, and André Rosendaal), and the Radboud University Nijmegen (Sara Houweling, Klaas Landsman, Sander Lestrade, Ben Polman, Richard Schonenberg, Mireille Vaal, Klaar Vernaillen, and Jeroen de Winther). Thank you for participating in my research and for your kind cooperation. Thanks to all my student-assistants who helped me with my experiments: Marloes van den Akker, Sebastiaan Andeweg, Christine van Asselt, Martijn Bentum, Marije Boer, Tsjomme Dijkstra, Anouk Doornbos, Liuwkje Everts, Kobie van Krieken, Stefan Meeuws, Daniëlle Muis, Juliane Palm, Mientje Pigmans, Nika Stefan, Lotte Terwoert, Dagmar van Trooijen and Ilse Wagemakers. Also thanks to Monique van den Broeck for carrying out one of the studies in Chapter 6. I owe many thanks to my colleagues at the CLSM research group, my colleagues at the Max Planck Institute, and my colleagues at the Dutch department. Thanks to David, Esther, Francisco, Helen, Iris, Jessamyn, Karen, Kim, Laura, Loes, Lucie, Malte, Marco, Merel, Mirjam, Mybeth, Nicole, Nienke, Sho, Thordis, Viktor, Wieke and all others who have been there over the years. Also thanks to Judith Hanssen, Barbara Schuppler, Loes Oldenkamp, and Martine Zwets for their support in writing. Ten slotte wil ik mijn ouders, mijn zus, mijn familie en vrienden bedanken voor hun onvoorwaardelijke steun. Bedankt dat jullie zo trots op mij zijn. Patty, bedankt voor jouw steun, vertrouwen en positivisme. De minder leuke momenten heb ik altijd met jou kunnen delen. En tot slot wil ik Maurice bedanken. Bedankt voor al je liefde en steun in de laatste periode van mijn onderzoek. Ik hoop nog heel veel mooie momenten met jou te mogen delen. Esther Hanssen CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION 15 1.1 Topic of the thesis . 15 1.2 Aims and outline of the thesis . 19 1.3 References . 21 2 THE SIMILARITY OF PLURAL ENDINGS AND LINKING ELEMENTS IN REGIONAL SPEECH VARIANTS OF DUTCH 27 2.1 Introduction . 28 2.2 Methods . 35 2.2.1 Participants . 35 2.2.2 Stimuli and design . 37 2.2.3 Procedure . 39 2.3 Results . 40 2.4 Discussion . 46 2.5 References . 52 2.6 Appendix A . 57 2.7 Appendix B . 59 2.8 Appendix C . 64 3 MORPHOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES IN FRISIAN-DUTCH BILINGUALS: (DIS)SIMILARITY OF LINKING ELEMENTS AND PLURAL ENDINGS 67 3.1 Introduction . 68 3.1.1 Frisian-Dutch bilingualism . 70 3.1.2 Regular inflection and word formation . 71 3.2 Methods . 72 3.2.1 Participants . 72 3.2.2 Stimuli and design . 74 3.2.3 Procedure . 75 3.3 Results . 76 3.3.1 Phrases versus Compounds . 77 3.3.2 Influence of mother tongue . 79 3.3.2.1 Distribution of individual pronunciation scores . 79 3.3.2.2 Associations of pronunciation types with mother tongue . 81 3.3.2.3 Geographical contrast . 82 3.4 General Discussion . 84 3.5 References . 87 3.6 Appendix A . 92 3.7 Appendix B . 94 4 REGULAR NOUN PLURALS AS MODIFIERS IN SPOKEN DUTCH COMPOUNDS 97 4.1 Introduction . 98 4.2 Method . 102 4.2.1 Participants . 102 4.2.2 Stimuli and design . 102 4.2.3 Procedure . 103 4.3 Results and Discussion . 104 4.4 References . 108 4.5 Appendix A . 112 5 REGIONAL ORIGIN AFFECTS THE INTERPRETATION OF LINKING ELEMENTS IN SPOKEN DUTCH COMPOUNDS 115 5.1 Introduction . 116 5.2 Method . 119 5.2.1 Participants . 119 5.2.2 Stimuli and Design . 121 5.2.3 Procedure . 122 5.3 Results . 123 5.4 General Discussion . 126 5.5 References . 129 6 SEMANTIC AND PROSODIC EFFECTS OF DUTCH LINKING ELEMENTS 133 6.1 Introduction . 134 6.2 Study 1: The role of rhythm in pseudo-compounds . 139 6.2.1 Method . 140 6.2.1.1 Participants . 140 6.2.1.2 Materials . 140 6.2.1.3 Procedure . 141 6.2.2 Results and discussion . 142 6.3 Study 2: The role of plural semantics and rhythm in written existing compounds . 146 6.3.1 Method . 147 6.3.1.1 Participants . 147 6.3.1.2 Stimuli and Design . 147 6.3.1.3 Procedure . 148 6.3.2 Results and discussion . 148 6.4 Study 3: The role of plural semantics and rhythm in spoken existing compounds . 152 6.4.1 Method . 152 6.4.1.1 Participants . 152 6.4.1.2 Stimuli and Design . 152 6.4.1.3 Procedure . 152 6.4.2 Results and discussion . 153 6.5 General discussion . 154 6.5.1 Plural semantics .