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Article published In:
Linguistics in the Netherlands 2016
Edited by Jenny Audring and Sander Lestrade
[Linguistics in the Netherlands 33] 2016
► pp. 89–105

Fragment answers with infinitives in a Flemish dialect

| University of Antwerp
| KU Leuven

This paper is devoted to a construction in a specific Flemish dialect, in which infinitives are used in fragment answers in contexts where this would be unacceptable in other varieties. Questions such as Waar is mijn boek? ‘Where is my book?’ can be answered with constructions such as Op tafel liggen ‘lay.INF on the table’. We apply an analysis in terms of ellipsis to these infinitival constructions. However, we find fragment answers with infinitives in contexts where the assumption of ellipsis is problematic, since there is no plausible underlying structure available. We show that the use of this construction has extended to contexts in which the infinitive independently expresses the clausal tense features. Our description of the construction is based on a questionnaire study in which around thirty speakers were tested.

Keywords: Fragment answers, ellipsis, infinitival tense, microvariation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Questionnaire
  • 3.Results
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Applying an ellipsis analysis
    • 4.2Recoverability and identity relation
    • 4.3Fragment answers with non-animate subjects
    • 4.4Infinitives with tense features
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

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

Published online: 21 December 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/avt.33.07rys
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