24.2684, Review: Language Acq.; Semantics; Text/Corpus Ling.: Vanderbauwhede (2012)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-24-2684. Tue Jul 02 2013. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 24.2684, Review: Language Acq.; Semantics; Text/Corpus Ling.: Vanderbauwhede (2012)

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Date: Tue, 02 Jul 2013 16:58:19
From: Jan Schroten [J.D.W.Schroten at uu.nl]
Subject: Le Déterminant Démonstratif en Français et en Néerlandais

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/23/23-4952.html

AUTHOR: Gudrun  Vanderbauwhede
TITLE: Le Déterminant Démonstratif en Français et en Néerlandais
SUBTITLE: Théorie, description, acquisition
SERIES TITLE: Sciences pour la communication - Volume 102
PUBLISHER: Peter Lang AG
YEAR: 2012

REVIEWER: Jan Schroten, Universiteit Utrecht

SUMMARY
This is a corpus-based study on the use of the French demonstrative
determiners ‘ce’ / ‘cet’ / ‘cette’ / ‘ces’ + Noun (+ proximate ‘-ci’  or
distal ‘-là’) and the Dutch demonstrative determiners: proximate ‘deze’ /
‘dit’ and distal ‘die’ / ‘dat’. The uses of demonstrative Noun Phrases, that
is, Noun Phrases with a demonstrative determiner, are analyzed and classified
according to semantic and discourse properties. The differences between French
and Dutch in the uses and properties of demonstrative Noun Phrases are the
central part of this study. These are compared in corpora of the same size:
for each language, one independent corpus, based on texts about comparable
topics in the same style, one corpus based on translated texts, and another
based on texts produced by L-2 learners: native speakers of French acquiring
Dutch and native speakers of Dutch acquiring French.

The first part of the study presents in detail previous research on
demonstrative Noun Phrases in French and in Dutch, and a comparison of the
properties of French and Dutch demonstrative Noun Phrases. The author
carefully describes the model used for analysis. Thus, there is extensive and
detailed treatment of differences and similarities in existing analyses and
approaches. Then, the “synthetic model” that has been chosen and elaborated is
presented in great detail. This basically referential model is used in the
analysis of the French and Dutch corpora taken into account. The approach is
based also on studies of English and linguistic manuals dealing with English
demonstrative Noun Phrases, with the proximate demonstrative determiner ‘this’
/ ‘these’ and the non-proximate or distal demonstrative determiner ‘that’ /
‘those’. The “synthetic model” is ultimately a classification of the
referential uses with respect to the situation in which they are used, which
determines the referential values of the demonstrative Noun Phrases.

Most of the description and evaluation of existing approaches to
demonstratives in French and Dutch, with some attention to approaches based on
the study of English demonstratives, attempts to resolve mismatches in
terminology and theory-driven differences.  The synthetic model proposed
clarifies or resolves the difficulties found in existing studies and the parts
dedicated to demonstratives in various manuals and textbooks.

There has been much more previous work on French than on Dutch. The well-known
fact that there are differences in the use of demonstrative NPs in French and
in Dutch raises the question which different uses are found in both languages
and how they can be accounted for. The basic differences treated here are
based on referential values in different situations, such as deictic use (that
is, giving reference  by pointing to the context of communication), anaphoric
use (that is, giving  reference by taking an antecedent), memorial use (that
is, giving  reference to things in the world that the speaker and addressee
have in common in memory), and nine other, less central uses stated and
defined on pp. 122-123. Demonstrative determiners turn out to be definite,
which raises the question of differences between them and the definite article
or other definite determiners.

The deictic point not treated in this study is that the proximate vs. distal
interpretation of the demonstrative pronouns ‘ceci’ / ‘celà’ in French,
usually only ‘ce’ / ‘cet’ / ‘cette’ /  ‘ces’, with “omission” of proximate
‘ci’ and distal  ‘là’ in the use of the demonstrative determiner, is different
from the proximate - distal opposition in proximate  ‘deze’ / ‘dit’ and distal
‘die’ / ‘dat’ found in Dutch, which cannot be “omitted”.

In previous work, much attention has been given to the observations on the
properties of demonstrative Noun Phrases which have coreferential and
anaphoric or cataphoric interpretation in appropriate contexts. In this work,
the basic referential uses that have been taken into account are: (i)
situational use; (ii) anaphoric use; (iii) deictic use in discourse; (iv)
memorial use based on “common memory” shared by the speaker and the
addressee(s).

As noted above, the analysis is based on the analysis of three types of
corpora. The first type consists of two parallel contrastive corpora, based on
translations. French texts that have been translated to Dutch produce two
parallel corpora: the “original” French corpus, which is the source of the
Dutch “translation corpus”.  Dutch texts that have been translated to French
are the basis of an “original” Dutch corpus, which is the source of the French
“translation corpus”.  In translation, a Dutch demonstrative determiner is
sometimes found as a definite article in French, and the French demonstrative
determiner in the “original” is a definite article in the Dutch translation.
For example, French “ces dernières années” (= these last years) corresponds to
“de laatste jaren” (= the last years)  in Dutch, as shown on p. 9 (7). And
there are more differences, like choosing a quite different type of determiner
or construction.

The second type includes a “monolingual” French corpus and a “monolingual”
Dutch corpus. The corpora are not related, but are comparable. The texts are
characterized as 20% non-fictional, 20% journalistic, 10% informative, 25%
written debates, 25% fictional texts. The use of demonstrative NPs is given in
numbers and percentages. The overall number is higher in French -- 978 -- than
in Dutch -759. The percentage found in written debates is higher in Dutch than
in French: 37,29% vs. 25,26%. The referential use is analyzed and given in
quantitative detail.

The third type is “acquisitional”: a corpus of Dutch as written in exercises
by people with French as mother tongue learning Dutch and a corpus of French
as written by people with Dutch as mother tongue learning French. Two steps
are taken in the analysis of these acquisitional corpora. The first is the
presentation of the data, including the number of demonstrative Noun Phrases
in each corpus and the subtypes as given in the model and their use in
numbers. The second step is the analysis of the errors / mistakes that the
learners have made. The morphological errors have been easy to find. The
incorrect use of ‘ci’ / ‘ça’ and other aberrant or incorrect uses require
native speaker judgments and this has been done.

EVALUATION
The descriptive part of this book, based on studies of the use and meaning of
demonstratives in French and in Dutch, is extensive and detailed, due to the
considerable number of studies on various aspects of French demonstratives
that have been published. A more direct presentation of the “synthetic model”
the author adopts would have made it possible to account for the differences
across previous research without spending time on various unimportant details.
For example, the history of the demonstratives is not at stake, but is
nonetheless discussed in some parts of the introductory chapters.

A very clear explanation is given of the use of the corpora and their
contents, the data that have been used and the aspects that have been
investigated. The reader can understand exactly what has been hypothesized,
analyzed and investigated.  The very clear facts are separated from the
fuzzier aspects shown and discussed in the analysis.

As far as possible, the use of demonstrative Noun Phrases by native speakers
has been shown for French and Dutch in a clear and comparable fashion.
Differences between original texts and their translations are presented in a
clear fashion in both directions. The use of demonstratives by Dutch
L2-learners of French and by French L2-learners of Dutch found in two corpora
are analyzed in useful detail. The errors in these acquisition texts are
analyzed and discussed with much clarity.

In short, the investigation is presented in a useful way, the discussion of
the data is clear, and the conclusions are readily understandable. The study’s
weak point is that the number of demonstrative Noun Phrases that have been
found is not very high, making percentages of different uses not very
convincing numerically.

Given the fact that the corpora are built exclusively on written texts, the
treatment is valid for written French and Dutch, and the study of spoken texts
remains to be done. This is possibly part of the reason why emotive value in
the use of demonstratives, which is indicated but not elaborated on, has been
given little attention.

Overall, this is a valuable study. The analysis of the corpora that have been
used stresses the point that comparison of languages as to the use of
demonstratives should take into account non-use as well.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Jan Schroten is an emeritus associate professor, doing research at UiL-OTS of
Utrecht University. He took his Ph.D. from Utrecht University and taught
Spanish linguistics at the same university. His publications have dealt with
syntactic, morphological and lexical properties of Spanish, usually taking
into account related phenomena in other Romance languages and in Germanic
languages, in the context of generative linguistics.



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