A corpus-based contrastive analysis of the Dutch adjectival -s ending. Deflexion or refunctionalization

peer reviewedIn this study, we contrast the Moroccan-Dutch ethnolect with the language use of full native speakers within the framework of Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis (Granger 1996). Our focus will be on their realization of Dutch adjectival morphology. Language users of the Moroccan-Dutch ethnolect may be creatively restructuring Dutch morphology in a number of novel ways. In particular, the adjectival -e inflection has drawn scholarly attention (Van de Velde and Weerman 2014). Here, it is argued that these language users are revitalizing a seemingly defunct inflection system by discarding a number of synchronically unmotivated exceptions. The -e ending may then acquire new functions as (i) a marker of attributive modification and (ii) a boundary marker between the modification and determination zones in the noun phrase. The -e ending is not the only remnant of the once elaborate Dutch adjectival inflection system, however. The so-called partitive genitive construction also harbors an adjectival -s ending, that, like the -e, alternates with a zero ending, as in (1) versus (2) (Haeseryn et al. 1997: 421, for the contexts in which either form is used in Present-day Dutch, see Pijpops and Van de Velde 2014). (1) de hijab is iets moois wat door Marokkaanse wijven helemaal verpest is the hijab is something beautiful-GEN that by Moroccan women totally ruined is ‘The hijab is something beautiful that is totally ruined by Moroccan women.’ (2) Is dat iets verkeerd is that something wrong-∅ ‘Is that something wrong?’ This -s ending is one of the few surviving remnants of the Dutch genitive case, more specifically the partitive genitive: hence the name of the construction. The partitive genitive construction is a combination of an indefinite pronoun or numeral with a postmodifying adjectival phrase, although the exact theoretical architecture of the construction is still very much up for debate (Schultink 1962: 62; Kester 1996; van Marle 1996; Broekhuis and Strang 1996; Hoeksema 1998; Booij 2010: 223–228; Broekhuis 2013: 419–461). We then ask whether and, if so, how the language users of the Moroccan-Dutch ethnolect differs from full native language use in the utilization of this adjectival -s ending. This may be a difference in absolute numbers, but may also pertain to the number and choice of the factors that determine the appearance of the -s ending. There are four possible options: (i) Like the -e ending, the users of Moroccan Dutch generalize the -s ending to all instances of the partitive genitive, thereby refunctionalizating this remnant of the Dutch case system as a transparent and reliable construction marker (cf. Booij 2010: 223–228). (ii) The users of Moroccan Dutch generalize the zero ending, thereby ridding their language of an obsolete fossil from bygone times. This would be a continuation of the deflexion trend apparent in the development of Dutch (van der Horst 2013). The resulting state would be akin to English, where only the zero ending is used. (iii) The users of Moroccan Dutch employ both the -s and zero ending in exactly the same way as other language users of Dutch, implementing the same factors to determine the choice between both variants. This would indicate that these factors are of a qualitatively different nature than the factors determining the use of the -e ending, as the users of Moroccan Dutch apparently do not or cannot dispose of them. (iv) The users of Moroccan Dutch employ both the -s and zero ending in the partitive genitive construction, but in a different way than other language users of Dutch. This would indicate that these language users are creatively adapting their language to cater to new or other needs. To investigate this, we will apply regression modelling to corpus data, as proposed by Gries and Deshors (2014). Gries Deshors advocate this methodology as a way to fully exploit the potential of Granger's (1996) model of Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis (CIA). As a source of data, we turn to the Moroccorp corpus, which contains chat conversations in the Moroccan-Dutch etnolect and has already proven its value in studies on Dutch adjectival inflection (Ruette and Van de Velde 2013; Van de Velde and Weerman 2014). We extracted a number of possible partitive genitives which we manually filtered, and finally retained 1613 genuine partitive genitive instances. These partitive genitives are contrasted with 765 observations of partitive genitives taken from Netherlandic chat conversations in the ConDiv corpus (Grondelaers et al. 2000), adopted from an earlier study by Pijpops and Van de Velde (2014). The Moroccorp corpus was specifically designed to be commensurable to this subsection of ConDiv (Ruette and Van de Velde 2013: 467–470). Finally, we employed mixed logistic regression modelling to investigate how the realization of partitive genitives differs in both corpora. This study will shed light on how early L2/2L1 speakers deal with seemingly defunct morphology in Dutch, and hopes to answer the call of Gries and Deshors (2014) for more elaborate statistical methods in CIA research