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Article published In:
Linguistics in the Netherlands 2021
Edited by Mark Dingemanse, Eva van Lier and Jorrig Vogels
[Linguistics in the Netherlands 38] 2021
► pp. 40–64

Are Dutch posture verbs lexical or functional elements?

| Utrecht University

In Dutch, posture verbs like liggen ‘lie’ and staan ‘stand’ are obligatorily used in locative constructions with inanimate subjects, classifying the spatial Figure-Ground relation. Prima facie, in this use, posture verbs seem more like functional elements than like lexical verbs.

This paper investigates processing of Dutch posture verbs in a reference resolution task in the visual world paradigm, to get more clarity on the nature of these verbs. We know that lexical verbs like rinkelen ‘ring’ cause anticipatory looks towards a matching target referent like telefoon ‘telephone’; and that they suppress looks to a phonological competitor like telescoop ‘telescope’. The functional property of grammatical gender on determiners (de vs. het) is less robust in directing looks. When it comes to anticipating the target referent, and suppressing looks to a phonological competitor, do posture verbs pattern with lexical verbs, or with functional elements like grammatical gender?

Keywords: posture verbs, lexicality, grammatical gender, eye-tracking, visual world paradigm
Article outline
  • 1.Are Dutch posture verbs lexical or functional elements?
  • 2.Processing properties of lexical vs. functional elements
  • 3.Eye-tracking experiment comparing posture verbs to lexical verbs and grammatical gender: Method
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Procedure
  • 4.Comparing posture verbs to lexical verbs
    • 4.1Materials in the ‘verb’ conditions
    • 4.2Predictions for the ‘verb’ conditions
      • 4.2.1Anticipatory looks to the matched distractor
      • 4.2.2Suppressing looks to the phonological cohort after target word onset
    • 4.3Response data
    • 4.4Eye-tracking data preprocessing and analysis
      • 4.4.1Preprocessing
      • 4.4.2Growth curve analysis
    • 4.5Eye-tracking results
      • 4.5.1Anticipatory looks to the matched distractor
      • 4.5.2Suppressing looks to the cohort in the ‘verb’ conditions
  • 5.Comparing posture verbs to grammatical gender
    • 5.1Materials in the ‘gender’ conditions
    • 5.2Predictions for the ‘gender’ conditions
      • 5.2.1Anticipatory looks to the matched distractor
      • 5.2.2Suppressing looks to the phonological cohort after target word onset
    • 5.3Response data
    • 5.4Eye-tracking data analysis
    • 5.5Results
      • 5.5.1Anticipatory looks to the matched distractor
      • 5.5.2Suppressing looks to the cohort in the ‘gender’ conditions
  • 6.Discussion
    • 6.1Could it be frequency?
    • 6.2Could it be the pictures?
    • 6.3Could it be time?
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Data archive
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 29 October 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/avt.00049.mul
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