[EDLING:1188] [Fwd: UPenn Ling Speaker Series Jan. 26 - Jack Hoeksema]

[Tamara Warhol]

This week we're hosting our first speaker for the semester, Professor Jack
Hoeksema from the University of Groningen, currently a Visiting Professor at
Swarthmore College.

     Dutch "Focus Scrambling" and the Constant Rate Hypothesis
     (abstract below)

Refreshments will start at 4:30 in the IRCS Large Conference Room; talk
starts at 5.  And everyone is encouraged to join us when we take
Professor Hoeksema out to dinner after the talk.

Just in case: IRCS is at 3401 Walnut Street, 4th floor, suite 400A.
Make two lefts out of the elevators, and the Large Conference Room is
the very first door on the left within IRCS (room 470).

Hope to see you all,
Aviad


Abstract:

Dutch "Focus Scrambling" and the Constant Rate Hypothesis

Dutch, German and other SOV languages are known for their intricate
scrambling patterns, whereby material moves to the left in the middlefield.
Less well-known perhaps is so-called focus scrambling, involving most
typically expressions headed by _zo_ "so" or _zulk_  "such". This type of
scrambling permits even predicates to move to the left, something which is
otherwise impossible:

(1)    Dat is niet zo erg  / Dat is zo erg niet
        that is not  so bad / That is so bad not

(2)    Dat is niet erg / *Dat is erg niet
        that is not  bad / *that is bad not

In my talk I will show that the class of expressions involved in focus
scrambling is larger than hitherto assumed, but that the pattern itself is
slowly disappearing from usage. Based on a corpus study of early modern and
contemporary Dutch, I will show that the loss of focus scrambling is
lexically diffuse, and therefore appears to pose a problem for Kroch's
famous (1989) Constant Rate Hypothesis.