frequency of person/number -- Dutch

[Gisela Redeker]

On 26 Apr 2002, at 23:00, Kees Hengeveld wrote:
> I can give you the facts for Dutch. The frequency dictionary, based on a
> 800,000 word corpus, shows remarkable differences in the distribution of
> pronouns for the written and oral varieties of Dutch. The absolute facts are..
[snip]
> What is remarkable is the fact that the second peron pronouns come last in
> both subparts of the corpus.

Which corpus are you using, Kees? Leiden? Especially important: how
is the distribution of interactive/non-interactive, formal/informal, etc.
genres in that corpus? As Biber c.s. (also Redeker 1984) have shown,
these factors are at least as important in register variation as the
oral/written distinction; that goes of course a fortiori for 2nd person
references.

Fritz Newmeyer's question concerned mainly conversations, so he must
need the separate figures for (informal?) interactive talk (spoken? how
about emails?).

For large amounts of interactive and non-interactive spoken Dutch,
coded (i.a.) for genre, the CGN is the most valuable source. Maybe
someone out there (e.g. from the CGN project?) has or could produce
relevant figures from that?

Gisela Redeker


Gisela Redeker, Professor, Dept. of Language and Communication
University of Groningen,  P.O.Box 716,  NL-9700 AS Groningen
tel:  +31-50-3635973/-5858     fax:  +31-50-3636855
e-mail: G.Redeker at let.rug.nl   http://www.let.rug.nl/~redeker/