The Regular and Adjunct Middle Construction in Dutch and English.
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2016-07-01
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en
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Abstract
This study researched the regular and adjunct middle construction in Dutch and English. English and Dutch are both Germanic languages, making them part of the same subgroup in the Indo-European language tree. However, further research into these languages has shown significant differences between the two. This suggests comparative research into middle constructions in English and Dutch is worthwhile. This paper constructs a number of hypotheses. Firstly, it proposed that adjunct middles do not occur in English but do occur in Dutch. Secondly, the study suggested that only accomplishments and activities convert to grammatical middles. Thirdly, it hypothesised that affectedness, a factor known to be influential on middle formation, is not a binary concept. Finally, it theorized that only agentive predicates can convert to grammatical middles. The data was collected by means of an empirical study using an online grammatical judgement survey. The following conclusions were drawn from the data. The study concluded that agency is a necessity for middle formation. Moreover, it concluded that affectedness was indeed a gradual concept and indeed influences middle formation to the extent that unaffected objects cannot form grammatical middles. Conclusions on accomplishment and achievement middles could not be reached without further research.
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