Cover not available
Part of
Thetics and Categoricals
Edited by Werner Abraham, Elisabeth Leiss and Yasuhiro Fujinawa
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 262] 2020
► pp. 33–68

Are theticity and sentence-focus encoded grammatical categories of Dutch?

| Ghent University
This article examines whether theticity and sentence-focus can be considered to be encoded grammatical categories of Dutch. After providing some background about theticity and sentence-focus, the concept ‘encoded grammatical category’ is operationalized along the lines of Integral Linguistics or Coserian Structural Functionalism. In order for a functional category to qualify as an encoded grammatical category of a language, the language should have at least one construction that encodes the category as a non-defeasible semantic property. The article provides a qualitative investigation of both corpus-based and constructed examples of five Dutch constructions that have hitherto been recognized in the literature as thetic or sentence-focus constructions. It is shown that none of the previously identified Dutch thetic and sentence-focus constructions grammatically encode theticity and sentence-focus as their non-defeasible semantics. All Dutch constructions have uses that are categorically opposed to the categories theticity and sentence-focus. Theticity and sentence-focus are therefore no independently encoded grammatical categories of Dutch, but rather categories of discourse and (normal) language use.
Keywords: Dutch, encoded grammatical category, information structure, sentence-focus, theticity
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background: theticity, sentence-focus and encoded grammatical categories
    • 2.1Theticity and sentence-focus
      • 2.1.1The categories theticity and sentence-focus
      • 2.1.2Thetic and sentence-focus constructions
    • 2.2Encoded grammatical categories
      • 2.2.1Encoded grammatical categories and other linguistic categories
      • 2.2.2Identifying encoded grammatical categories of languages
    • 2.3Are theticity and sentence-focus encoded grammatical categories?
  • 3.Theticity and sentence-focus in Dutch
    • 3.1The Dutch thetic and sentence-focus constructions
    • 3.2The grammatically encoded status of theticity and sentence-focus in Dutch
  • 4.Assessing the status of theticity and sentence-focus in Dutch
    • 4.1Methodology
    • 4.2The Syntactic Inversion with Filler Insertion Construction
    • 4.3The Prosodic Inversion Construction
    • 4.4The existential construction
    • 4.5The non-prototypical cleft
    • 4.6The perception verb construction
    • 4.7Intermediate conclusion and possible objections
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 22 July 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.262.02bel
References (89)
References
Abraham, Werner. 2018. Valenzdiversifikationen: Was ist Thetikvalenz? Studia Germanica Gedanensia 39: 69–90. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2020. Zur Architektur von Informationsautonomie: Thetik und Kategorik. Wie sind sie linguistisch zu verorten und zu unterscheiden? In Zur übereinzelsprachlichen Architektur von Thetik und Kategorik [Studien zur deutschen Grammatik 97], Werner Abraham, Elisabeth Leiss, Shinichi Tanaka (eds), 88–148. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.Google Scholar
Apel, Viktoria. 2013. Theticity in Fulfulde. Paper presented at the Afrikalinguistisches Kolloquium, 7 May 2013, Berlin.
Belligh, Thomas. 2018. The role of referential givenness in Dutch alternating presentational constructions. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 32: 21–52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Belligh, Thomas & Willems, Klaas. In revision. What’s in a code? The code-inference distinction in Neo-Gricean Pragmatics, Relevance Theory, and Integral Linguistics. DOI logo
Bentley, Delia, Ciconte, Francesco Maria & Cruschina, Silvio. 2015. Existentials and Locatives in Romance Dialects of Italy. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carlin, Eithne. 2011. Theticity in Trio (Cariban). International Journal of American Linguistics 77(1): 1–31. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chafe, Wallace. 1976. Givenness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view. In Subject and Topic, Charles N. Li (ed.), 25–55. New York NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
. 1994. Discourse, Consciousness, and Time: The Flow and Displacement of Conscious Experience in Speaking and Writing. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Coene, Ann. 2006. Lexikalische Bedeutung, Valenz und Koerzion. Hildesheim: Olms.Google Scholar
Coseriu, Eugenio. 1974[1958]. Synchronie, Diachronie und Geschichte. Das Problem des Sprachwandels. München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag.Google Scholar
. 1975[1962]. Sprachtheorie und allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft. 5 Studien. München: Wilhelm Fink.Google Scholar
. 1985. Linguistic competence: What is it really?” The Modern Language Review 80: xxv–xxxv. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1987. Formen und Funktionen. Studien zur Grammatik. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar
. 1989. Principes de syntaxe fonctionelle. Travaux de Linguistique et de Philologie 27: 5–46.Google Scholar
. 1992. Einführung in die Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft. Tübingen: Francke.Google Scholar
. 2000[1990]. Structural semantics and ‘cognitive’ semantics. Logos and Language I(1): 19–42.Google Scholar
. 2007. Sprachkompetenz. Grundzüge der Theorie des Sprechens. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.Google Scholar
De Cuypere, Ludovic. 2013. Debiasing semantic analysis: The English preposition to. Language Sciences 37: 122–135. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Deguchi, Masanori. 2012. Revisiting the thetic/categorical distinction in Japanese. Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 48(2): 223–237.Google Scholar
Dery, Jeruen. 2007. Pragmatic focus and word order variation in Tagalog. Language and Linguistics 8(1): 373–404.Google Scholar
Elffers, Els. 1977. Er-verkenningen. Spektator 6: 417–422.Google Scholar
El Zarka, Dina. 2011. Prosodic encoding of the thetic/categorical distinction in Egyptian Arabic: A preliminary investigation. Grazer Linguistische Studien 76: 91–111Google Scholar
Fiedler, Ines. 2013. Event-central and entity-central subtypes of thetic utterances and their relation to focus constructions. Paper presented at LAGB, 30 August 2013, London.
Francez, Itamar. 2007. Existential Propositions. PhD dissertation, Stanford University.Google Scholar
Fujinawa, Yasuhiro. 2020. Kategorik und Thetik als Basis für Sprachvergleiche – dargestellt am Beispiel einer kontrastiven Linguistik des Deutschen und des Japanischen. In Zur über-ein-zel-sprach-li-chen Architekturvon Thetik und Kategorik [Studien zur deutschen Grammatik 97], Werner Abraham, Elisabeth Leiss & Shinichi Tanaka (eds), 169–242. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.Google Scholar
Grondelaers, Stefan. 2000. De distributie van niet-anaforisch er buiten de eerste zinplaats. PhD dissertation, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.Google Scholar
Gundel, Jeanette K. 1988[1974]. The Role of Topic and Comment in Linguistic Theory. New York NY: Garland.Google Scholar
1999. Topic, Focus, and the Grammar-Pragmatics Interface. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 6: 1–16.Google Scholar
Gundel, Jeanette K. & Fretheim, Thorstein. 2004. Topic and Focus. In The Handbook of Pragmatics, Lawrence Horn & Gregory Ward (eds), 175–196. Malden MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Haberland, Hartmut. 1994. Thetic/categorical distinction. In The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Vol. 9, Ronald Asher & James Simpson (eds), 4605–4606. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Haeseryn, Walter, Romijn, Kirstin, Geerts, Guido, de Rooij, Jaap & van den Toorn, Maarten Cornelis. 1997. Algemene Nederlandse Spraakkunst. Groningen & Deurne: Martinus Nijhoff & Wolters Plantyn.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 2010. Comparative concepts and descriptive categories in crosslinguistic studies. Language 86(3): 663–687. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Karssenberg, Lena. 2016. French Il y a clefts, existential sentences and the Focus-Marking Hypothesis. Journal of French Language Studies 27: 405–430. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Karssenberg, Lena, Marzo, Stefania, Lahousse, Karen & Gugliemo, Daniela. 2018. There’s more to Italian c’è clefts than expressing all-focus. Italian Journal of Linguistics 29(2): 57–85.Google Scholar
Karttunen, Lauri. 1974. Presuppositions and linguistic context. Theoretical Linguistics 1: 3–44. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kirsner, Robert S. 1979. The Problem of Presentative Sentences In Modern Dutch. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Krifka, Manfred. 2008. Basic notions of information structure. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 55: 243–276. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kuno, Susumu. 1972. Functional sentence perspective: A case study from Japanese and English. Linguistic Inquiry 3: 269–320.Google Scholar
Kuroda, Sige-Yuki. 1971. Anton Marty et la théorie transformationelle. Langages 6(24): 48–66. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1972. The categorical and the thetic judgment. Evidence from Japanese syntax. Foundations of Language 9: 153–185.Google Scholar
Lambrecht, Knud. 1987. Sentence focus, information structure, and the thetic-categorical distinction. Berkeley Linguistics Society 13: 366–382. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1994. Information Structure and Sentence Form. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2000. When subjects behave like objects. Studies in Language 24: 611–682. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lambrecht, Knud & Polinsky, Maria. 1997. Typological variation in sentence-focus constructions. CLS 33: 189–206.Google Scholar
Leiss, Elisabeth 2020. Thetik, Kategorik und die Theorie der Kopula in der Universalgrammatik des Realismus. In Zur übereinzelsprachlichen Architektur von Thetik und Kategorik [Studien zur deutschen Grammatik 97], Werner Abraham, Elisabeth Leiss & Shinichi Tanaka (eds), 15–42. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C. 1997. From outer to inner space: Linguistic categories and non-linguistic thinking. In Language and Conceptualization, Jan Nuyts & Eric Pederson (eds), 13–45. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2000. Presumptive Meanings: The Theory of Generalized Conversational Implicature. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2003. Language and mind: Let’s get the issues straight. In Language in Mind: Advances in the Study of Language and Thought, Dedre Genter & Susan Goldin-Meadow (eds), 25–46. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lyons, John. 1977. Semantics. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Marty, Anton. 1918. Gesammelte Schriften. Halle an der Saale: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Mathesius, Vilém. 1929[1983]. Functional linguistics. In Praguiana. Some Basic and Less Known Aspects of the Prague Linguistic School, with an introduction by Philip A. Luelsdorff [Linguistic and Literary Studies in Eastern Europe 12], Josef Vachek (ed.), 121–142. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Matić, Dejan. 2003. Topics, Presuppositions, and Theticity: An Empirical Study of Verb-Subject Clauses. PhD dissertation, University of Cologne.Google Scholar
. 2015. Information structure in linguistics. In The International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2nd ed., Vol. 12, James D. Wright (ed.), 95–99, Amsterdam: Elsevier. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matić, Dejan & Wedgwood, Daniel. 2013. The meanings of focus: The significance of an interpretation-based category in cross-linguistic analysis. Journal of Linguistics 49: 127–163. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McNally, Louise. 2011. Existential sentences. In Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning, Claudia Maienborn, Klaus von Heusinger & Paul Portner (eds), 1829–184. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Meulleman, Machteld. 2012. Les localisateurs dans les constructions existentielles: Approche comparée en espagnol, en français et en italien. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Molnár, Valéria. 1993. Zur Pragmatik und Grammatik des TOPIK-Begriffes. In Wortstellung und Informationsstruktur, Marga Reis (ed.), 155–202. Tubingen: Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Oostdijk, Nelleke, Reynaert, Martin, Hoste, Véronique & Schuurman, Ineke. 2013. The construction of a 500-million-word reference corpus of contemporary written Dutch. In Essential Speech and Language Technology for Dutch: Results by the STEVIN Programme, Peter Spyns & Jan Odijk, 219–247. Heidelberg: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pardoen, Justine. 1998. Interpretatiestructuur: Een onderzoek naar de relatie tussen woordvolgorde en zinsbetekenis in het Nederlands. Amsterdam: Stichting Neerlandistiek VU.Google Scholar
Prince, Ellen. 1992. The ZPG letter: Subjects, definiteness, and information-status. In Discourse Description: Diverse Analyses of a Fund Raising Text [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 16], William Mann & Sandra Thompson (eds), 295–325. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rosengren, Inger. 1997. The thetic/categorical distinction revisited once more. Linguistics 35: 439–479. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rooth, Mats. 1992. A theory of focus interpretation. Natural Language Semantics 1(1): 75–116. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Queixalós, Francesc. 2016. The role of nominalisation in theticity: A Sikuani contribution. In Finiteness and Nominalization [Typological Studies in Language 113], Claudine Chamoreau & Zarina Estrada-Fernandez (eds), 205–242. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Sasse, Hans-Jürgen. 1987. The thetic/categorical distinction revisited. Linguistics 25: 511–580. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1995. ‘Theticity’ and VS order: A case study. In Verb-subject Order and Theticity in European Languages, Yaron Matras & Hans-Jürgen Sasse (eds), 3–31. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.Google Scholar
. 2006. Theticity. In Pragmatic Organization of Discourse in the Languages of Europe, Giuliano Bernini & Marcia Schwartz (eds), 255–308. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schermer-Vermeer, Ina. 1985. De onthullende status van er in de generatieve grammatica. Spektator 15: 65–84.Google Scholar
. 1987. Er in de ANS. Forum der Letteren, 120–125.Google Scholar
Schmerling, Susan. 1976. Aspects of English Sentence Stress. Austin TX: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Schultze-Berndt, Eva. 2008. Discontinuous noun phrases as an iconic strategy of marking thetic clauses. Paper presented at Syntax of the World’s Languages, 28 September 2008, Berlin.
Schwarz, Anne. 2016. All-in-one and one-for-all: Thetic structures in Buli grammar and discourse. In Diversity in African Languages, Doris Payne, Sara Pacchiarotti & Mokaya Bosire (eds), 81–100. Berlin: Language Science Press.Google Scholar
Stalnaker, Robert. 1973. Presuppositions. Journal of Philosophical Logic 2: 447–457. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1999. Context and Content. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2002. Common ground. Linguistics and Philosophy 25: 701–721. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Strawson, Peter. 1950. On referring. Mind 59: 320–344. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ulrich, Miorita. 1985. Thetisch Und Kategorisch: Funktionen Der Anordnung Von Satzkonstituenten: Am Beispiel Des Rumänischen Und Anderer Sprachen. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.Google Scholar
Van der Beek, Leonoor. 2003. The Dutch It-cleft constructions. In Proceedings of the LFG03 Conference University, Miriam Butt & Tracy Holloway King (eds), 23–42. Stanford CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
. 2005. Topics in Corpus-based Dutch Syntax. Groningen: Grodil.Google Scholar
Van der Gucht, Fieke, Willems, Klaas & De Cuypere, Ludovic. 2007. The iconicity of embodied meaning. Polysemy of spatial prepositions in the cognitive framework. Language Sciences 29(6): 733–754. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vandeweghe, Willy. 2004. Presentatief ER en de definitie van ‘Subject’. In Taeldeman, Man van Taal, Schatbewaarder van de Taal, Johan De Caluwe, Georges De Schutter, Magdalena Devos & Jacques Van Keymeulen (eds), 1019–1027. Gent: Academia Press.Google Scholar
Venier, Federica. 2002. La presentatività. Sulle tracce di una nozione. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso.Google Scholar
Willems, Dominique & Blanche-Benveniste, Claire. 2014. A constructional corpus-based approach of ‘weak’ verbs in French. In Romance Perspectives on Construction Grammar [Constructional Approaches to Grammar 15], Hans C. Boas & Francisco Gonzálvez-García (eds), 113–138. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Willems, Klaas. 1994. Sprache, Sprachreflexion und Erkenntniskritik: Versuch einer transzendental-phänomenologischen Klärung der Bedeutungsfrage. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.Google Scholar
. 1997. Kasus, grammatische Bedeutung und kognitive Linguistik: Ein Beitrag zur allgemeinen Sprachwissenschaft. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.Google Scholar
. 2011. Meaning and interpretation: The semiotic similarities and differences between cognitive grammar and European structural linguistics. Semiotica 185(1–4): 1–50. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2016. The universality of categories and meaning: A Coserian perspective. Acta Linguistica Hafniensa 48(1): 110–133. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zimmermann, Malte & Onea, Edgar. 2011. Focus marking and focus interpretation. Lingua 121(11): 1651–1670. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (7)

Cited by seven other publications

Bartlett, Tom
2023. Chapter 3. Atopicality as the unmarked logical structure in Scottish Gaelic. In Reconnecting Form and Meaning [Studies in Language Companion Series, 230], ► pp. 71 ff. DOI logo
Belligh, Thomas, Ludovic De Cuypere & Claudia Crocco
2023. Alternating Italian thetic and sentence-focus constructions. Revue Romane. Langue et littérature. International Journal of Romance Languages and Literatures 58:2 ► pp. 246 ff. DOI logo
Belligh, Thomas & Claudia Crocco
2022. Theticity and sentence-focus in Italian: grammatically encoded categories or categories of language use?. Linguistics 60:4 ► pp. 1241 ff. DOI logo
Lahousse, Karen
2022. Is focus a root phenomenon?. In When Data Challenges Theory [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 273], ► pp. 148 ff. DOI logo
Schultze-Berndt, Eva
2022. When subjects frame the clause: discontinuous noun phrases as an iconic strategy for marking thetic constructions. Linguistics 60:3 ► pp. 865 ff. DOI logo
Belligh, Thomas
2020. Dutch thetic and sentence-focus constructions on the semantics-pragmatics interface. Studies in Language 44:4 ► pp. 831 ff. DOI logo
De Vaere, Hilde, Julia Kolkmann & Thomas Belligh
2020. Allostructions revisited. Journal of Pragmatics 170 ► pp. 96 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 29 june 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.