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A Quantitative-Theoretical Analysis of Syntactic Microvariation: Word Order in Dutch Verb Clusters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Jeroen van Craenenbroeck,
Marjo van Koppen and
Antal van den Bosch
Jeroen van Craenenbroeck*
Affiliation:
KU Leuven, CRISSP, and KNAW Meertens Instituut
Marjo van Koppen*
Affiliation:
KNAW Meertens Instituut, Utrecht University, and UiL-OTS
Antal van den Bosch*
Affiliation:
KNAW Meertens Instituut
*
van Craenenbroeck, KU Leuven/CRISSP/KNAW Meertens Instituut, Blijde-Inkomststraat 21, 3000 Leuven, Belgium [jeroen.vancraenenbroeck@kuleuven.be]
van Koppen, KNAW Meertens Instituut/Utrecht University/UiL-OTS, PO Box 10855, 1001 EW Amsterdam, The Netherlands [marjo.van.koppen@meertens.knaw.nl]
van den Bosch, KNAW Meertens Instituut, PO Box 10855, 1001 EW Amsterdam, The Netherlands [antal.van.den.bosch@meertens.knaw.nl]
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Abstract

This article is a case study in how quantitative-statistical and formal-theoretical (generative) approaches to language variation can be combined. We provide a quantitative analysis of word-order variation in verb clusters in 185 dialects of Dutch and map the results of that analysis against linguistic parameters extracted from the theoretical literature on verb clusters. Based on this novel methodology, we argue that verb cluster ordering in Dutch dialects can be reduced to three grammatical parameters (largely similar to the ones described in Barbiers et al. 2018), and we identify the dialect groups that correspond to the various settings of those parameters.

Keywords

verb clustersDutch dialectslinguistic variationgenerative grammarcorrespondence analysisk-nearest neighbors classification

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 95 , Issue 2 , June 2019, pp. 333 - 370
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 Linguistic Society of America

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