Nominal compounds in Dutch and French. Typological differences and additional language acquisition from a Diasystematic Construction Grammar Perspective

Van Goethem, Kristel;Isa Hendrikx
(2022) 13th Mediterranean Morphology Meeting — Location: University of the Aegean, Rhodes (Greece) (19.May.2022)

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Schlücker (2019) points out the commonalities and differences between compounds as word-formation units and syntactically formed multi-word expressions in a wide set of European languages. In spite of the formal differences, both patterns may serve the same purpose and even enter into competition to do so (e.g. Dutch wetenschapsbeleid ‘science policy’ vs wetenschappelijk beleid ‘scientific policy’ (Booij 2019: 105)). However, even within a same genealogical family, languages may significantly vary with respect to their degree of analyticity, as has been argued in the “Germanic Sandwich” and “Romance Sandwich” hypotheses (e.g. van Haeringen 1956, Lamiroy 2011). The cross-linguistic differences in degree of analyticity between French (more analytic) and Dutch (more synthetic) are also perceivable in the field of compounding. Van Goethem (2009) and Van Goethem & Amiot (2019) have demonstrated that Dutch has a much stronger tendency towards compounding than French (e.g. Du. badkamer vs Fr. salle de bains ‘bathroom’). In line with Fradin (2009), we adopt a restrictive approach of compounding in which the presence of prepositions and/or internal inflection in multi-word expressions is considered evidence for their syntactic formation. The example above illustrates that Dutch compounding differs from French in another important aspect: while Germanic compounding is by definition right-headed, French has a general tendency towards left-hand headed compounds and phrases. In this study, we investigate the impact of these typological differences on the acquisition of Dutch nominal compounds by French-speaking learners in the context of multilingual Belgium. The aims of the study are threefold: (i) to provide a corpus analysis of the acquisition of Dutch compounds at different levels of abstraction (schematic and substantive compound constructions); (ii) to investigate the impact of additional target-language input through CLIL programs (Content and Language Integrated Learning) on the acquisition of Dutch compounds by French-speaking learners of Dutch; (iii) to describe and interpret the results of our study from the perspective of Diasystematic Construction Grammar (DCxG) (among others Höder et al. 2021). The DCxG approach conceptualizes the linguistic competence of multilingual speakers as one integrated network of constructions, containing language-specific idioconstructions and shared diaconstructions. Additional language acquisition is seen as a dynamic process of constructional reorganization involving entrenchment of the newly acquired constructions and inhibition of redundant constructions (Höder et al. 2021). The greater the typological difference between the native and the additional language, the more reorganizational processes need to take place in the learners’ constructicon. The corpus study is based on e-mails written by 213 French-speaking learners of Dutch and 59 native speakers. This data was collected within the context of a research project on CLIL in French-speaking Belgium (cf. Hiligsmann et al. 2017; Meunier et al. 2020). The data are annotated and analyzed for their formal make-up (compound length and structure), semantic function, accuracy (a.o. mistakes in word-formation and word order), frequency and productivity (type token ratio, hapaxes). With respect to the research hypotheses, we expect in the first place an overgeneralization of the French idioconstructions: more specifically, the use of phrasal structures instead of compounds (e.g. *kamer van bad instead of badkamer ‘bathroom’) and the use of left-headed compounds instead of right-headed compounds (e.g. *kamerbad). Second, we assume a positive impact of CLIL on the accuracy and productivity of the compounds and word-formation in Dutch. References Booij, G. (2019). The Morphology of Dutch. Second, revised edition. Oxford UK: Oxford University Press. Fradin, B. (2009). IE, Romance: French. In R. Lieber and P. Štekauer (eds.), The Oxford handbook of compounding. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 417-435. Haeringen, C. B. van (1956). Nederlands tussen Duits en Engels. The Hague: Servire. Hiligsmann, Ph., Van Mensel, L., Galand, B., Mettewie, L., Meunier, F., Szmalec, A., Van Goethem, K., Bulon, A., De Smet, A., Hendrikx, I., & Simonis, M. (2017). Assessing Content and Language Integrated Learning in the French-speaking Community of Belgium: linguistic, cognitive and educational perspectives. Cahiers du GIRSEF, 109, 1- 24. Höder, S., Prentice, J. & Tingsell, S. (2021). Additional language acquisition as emerging multilingualism: A Construction Grammar approach. In H. C. Boas & S. Höder (eds.), Constructions in Contact 2: Language change, multilingual practices, and additional acquisition. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 309-337. Lamiroy, B. (2011). Degrés de grammaticalisation à travers les langues de même famille. Mémoires de la Société de linguistique de Paris, 19, 167-192. Meunier, F., Hendrikx, I., Bulon, A., Van Goethem, K. & Naets, H. (2020). MulTINCo: Multilingual Traditional Immersion and Native Corpus. Better-documented multi-literacy practices for more refined SLA studies. In L. Van Mensel & Ph. Hiligsmann (eds.), Assessing CLIL: A multidisciplinary approach [special issue]. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. DOI: 10.1080/13670050.2020.1786494. Schlücker, B. (ed.). (2019). Complex lexical units: compounds and multi-word expressions. Berlin: De Gruyter. Van Goethem, K. (2009). Choosing between A+N compounds and lexicalised A+N phrases: The position of French in comparison to Germanic languages. Word Structure, 2, 241-253. Van Goethem, K. & D. Amiot. (2019). Compounds and multi-word expressions in French. In: B. Schlücker (ed.), Complex lexical units: compounds and multi-word expressions. Berlin: De Gruyter. 127-152.
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Van Goethem, K., & Isa Hendrikx. (2022). Nominal compounds in Dutch and French. Typological differences and additional language acquisition from a Diasystematic Construction Grammar Perspective. 13th Mediterranean Morphology Meeting, University of the Aegean, Rhodes (Greece). https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/107391