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In this paper, we revisit earlier analyses of the distribution of er 'there' in adjunct-initial sentences to demonstrate the merits of computational upscaling in syntactic variation research. Contrary to previous studies, in which major semantic and pragmatic predictors (viz. adjunct type, adjunct concreteness, and verb specificity) had to be coded manually, the present study operationalizes these predictors on the basis of distributional analysis: instead of hand-coding for specific semantic classes, we determine the semantic class of the adjunct, verb, and subject automatically by clustering the lexemes in those slots on the basis of their 'semantic passport' (as established on the basis of their distributional behaviour in a reference corpus). These clusters are subsequently interpreted as proxies for semantic classes. In addition, the pragmatic factor 'subject predictability' is operationalized automatically on the basis of collocational attraction measures, as well as distributional similarity between the other slots and the subject. We demonstrate that the distribution of er can be modelled equally successfully with the automated approach as in manual annotation-based studies. Crucially, the new method replicates our earlier findings that the Netherlandic data are easier to model than the Belgian data, and that lexical collocations play a bigger role in the Netherlandic than in the Belgian data. On a methodological level, the proposed automatization opens up a window of opportunities. Most important is its scalability: it allows for a larger gamut of alternations that can be investigated in one study, and for much larger datasets to represent each alternation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Belgian Dutch (BD) and Netherlandic Dutch (ND) are known to exhibit phonetic and lexical differences, but national variation in the syntax of Dutch has often been claimed to be quasi non-existent. This view is rooted in the fact that both laypersons and researchers are oblivious to national divergences in the grammar of Dutch (unless they are categorical and/or heavily mediatized), but also in the undisputed belief that BD and ND are different surface manifestations of 'the same grammatical motor'. As a result, only a few syntactic phenomena have hitherto been shown to be sensitive to national constraints. In this paper we illustrate a computational bottom-up approach (pioneered in Bannard & Callison-Burch 2005) to cast the net as widely as possible. Building on statistical machine translation and a parallel corpus of Dutch translations of English subtitles, we identify plausible mappings between English n-grams and their Dutch translations. We do this in order to obtain paraphrases, i.e., stretches of interchangeable Dutch text that carry approximately the same meaning. In a first case study, we found corroborating evidence among the discovered paraphrases for many syntactic variables that have previously been attested in Dutch, including complementizer variation, existential er-variation, word order phenomena, and inflection variation. Crucially, we also discovered a number of alternations we had not anticipated as interesting variables. In order to detect national constraints on the newly found variables, we carried out a second experiment with a smaller corpus of Belgian and Netherlandic subtitles: the two variables we investigated in this light - deictic strength variation and subordination variation - did indeed manifest national sensitivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1960s, language attitude research has known little methodological innovation. In social psychology, by contrast, a number of new implicit attitude measures have recently been developed. We suggest to take inspiration from social psychology to bring new methods to linguistic attitude research. In this paper, we give a succinct introduction to quantitative implicit attitude research in linguistics and social psychology. As an illustration of the new methods developed in the latter, we discuss the Implicit Association Test (Greenwald et al. 1998) and its potential for linguistic attitude research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on a well-known aspect of masculine nouns in the Southern Dutch dialects that has not received much attention in the literature, however: the fact that attributive elements are optionally inflected with an -e(n)-suffix. The appearance of the -n is moreover regulated by a number of phonological conditions. By means of the Corpus of Spoken Dutch and fourteen determiners that were operationalised as linguistic variables, we investigate three questions: the validity of the set of phonological restrictions just mentioned, the problem of the demarcation of the three genders in the light of the masculinisation tendency, and the interplay between internal and external factors in the explanation of the presence of -e(n). It is revealed that, for the first question, the restrictions listed in the literature are to a large extent valid, but that they also exhibit quite a range of variation. For the second question, the difference between the three genders is shown to be statistically significant, rendering the evidence for the masculinisation process in fact problematic. This is substantiated in the analysis of the third question where the -e(n)-suffix is found to be a marker of register rather than gender, and that it is furthermore characteristic of speakers of the new elite in Flanders that emerged under the economical growth after World War Two and the accompanying rise in affluence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

That an assumption of language-internal homogeneity is misleading when it is applied to the formal side of language has been established for quite a while now by sociolinguistics: even within linguistic communities, there is language variation, and it is structured along social lines. With regard to the conceptual side of language, however, it is only with the recent advent of Cognitive Linguistics and prototype-based models of semantic structure that linguists have become sensitive to the fact that meanings are fuzzy and flexible entities, knowledge of which may not be evenly distributed over the linguistic community. So what effect could this conceptual heterogeneity have on the interpretation of dialectological data? In particular, can it be established that lesser known concepts exhibit more lexical variation, as a reflection of more insecurity and hesitation on the part of the informants? In other words, can we detect a negative correlation between conceptual entrenchment and lexical uncertainty? In an initial step towards an answer to the question, we analyse the dialectological data of the Woordenboek van de Limburgse Dialecten, focusing on the lexical field of the body. We investigate to what extent lexical heterogeneity is determined by the entrenchment of the concepts in question. Using the number of different lexical types that are mentioned for a given concept as a dependent variable, we are able to establish that conceptual factors (like entrenchment, but also other semantic factors like the taboo character of the concepts) do indeed correlate with lexical uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this contribution we will analyze to what extent the inflectional variation of attributive adjectives in spoken standard Dutch is determined by geographical parameters. In particular, we will consider the geographical constraints on the alternation between inflected and uninflected adjectives in a definite NP with a singular neuter head noun, as illustrated by the distinction between het aardig-e kind ('the nice-INFLECTED child') and het aardig-∅ kind ('the nice-ZERO child'). The following questions will be tackled : Does a statistical analysis using the Corpus Gesproken Nederlands ('Corpus Spoken Dutch') corroborate the hypothesis that adjectival inflection is different in both national varieties of Dutch, viz. Belgian Dutch and Netherlandic Dutch? Is it possible to refine this distinction between both national varieties in more fine-grainded, regional distinctions in accordance with the existing dialectological state-of-the-art on adjectival inflection? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a corpus-based in-depth analysis of the impact of region and register on the choice of word order in Dutch clause-final verb clusters consisting of an auxiliary verb (AUX) and a past participle (PART). The study verifies the main traditional hypotheses, and completes and refines the picture sketched in previous studies by cross-analysing written and spoken language in different communicative situations (register) in Belgian and Netherlandic Dutch (region). Confirmed by several statistical techniques for bivariate and conditional analyses, the results reveal that language users in the Belgian part of the Dutch language area use word order [PART+AUX] more frequently than Netherlandic Dutch language users, and that word order choice is determined by the mode of language production, the degree of interaction and the type of editorial control. The present study, however, does not only aim at a purely linguistic contribution to the field of word order variation in Dutch clause-final verb clusters, but also demonstrates the advantages of a quantitative corpus-based methodology, and the statistical testing of hypotheses in variation linguistics, so that the present study may also be of interest for those researchers working in other areas of linguistic variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a series of corpus-based investigations into the diachronic and synchronic status of Belgian Dutch, a variant whose standardisation was delayed in the 16th and 17th C and is as yet incomplete. Building on a newly developed measure of linguistic overlap and an extensive corpus of synonymous designations of 30 clothing and soccer concepts, a first study (Geeraerts, Grondelaers & Speelman 1999) confirmed the alleged diachronic convergence between Belgian and Netherlandic Dutch from 1950 to 1990, as well as the larger distance traditionally assumed between standard and substandard language in Belgian Dutch (a major indication of the latter's delayed standardisation). Whereas the first investigation relied on shopwindow materials to represent substandard language, the two follow-up studies reported on in this paper make use of a new corpus containing Internet materials as representatives of substandard register -- viz. Internet Relay Chat and Usenet. In the first follow-up study, the diachronic and synchronic findings are replicated on the basis of clothing terms. In the second, the basis of comparison between different variants of Dutch is extended from content words to function words, viz. prepositions. Although the lexical as well as the prepositional indicators fully confirm the diachronic convergence between Belgian and Netherlandic Dutch and their different synchronic stratification, the present methodology does not allow us to compare the respective impact of the indicators on the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]