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Article published In:
Linguistics in the Netherlands 2023
Edited by Sterre Leufkens and Marco Bril
[Linguistics in the Netherlands 40] 2023
► pp. 137–154

Dit is Laura-se (trui)

The spreading of the possessive se construction in Dutch

| Utrecht University

Dutch children temporarily use a possessor se construction with proper/kinship names and pronouns, like dit is Laura-se/opa-se/hem-se jas (‘this is Laura’s/grandpa’s/his coat’). The se possessive is not available in standard Dutch, although examples of it are found on the internet. The se possessive is fully productive with all nouns in Afrikaans.

In standard Dutch prenominal possessive constructions show a wide range of variations and restrictions. Dutch children avoid the complexity of the system, but what makes the children apply the se possessive in the first place? I will show that it is due to three properties specific to Dutch. Nevertheless, the se possessive does not persist in standard Dutch as it did in Afrikaans. The Dutch Achilles’ heel might be the early use of weak possessive pronouns.

Keywords: possessor-possessum constructions, possessive se , acquisition, Dutch, Afrikaans, diachronic syntax
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Variation in possessive constructions in Dutch
  • 3.Acquisition order of possessor-possessum relations
  • 4.The spontaneous appearance of possessive se in child Dutch
    • 4.1Possessive se with possessum present
    • 4.2Possessive se without possessum present
  • 5.The syntactic status of se
    • 5.1The attributive [−e (N)] construction
  • 6.Acquisition preliminaries
    • 6.1The acquisition of attributive adjectives
    • 6.2The acquisition of reference to female names
  • 7.Possessive se: A language-specific generalization
  • 8.The se possessive in Afrikaans
  • 9.The Achilles’ heel of the se generalization
  • 10.Conclusion
  • 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: 3 November 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/avt.00084.van
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