Lidwoordomissie in Moroccan Flavored Dutch*

Abstract

Article omission in Moroccan Flavored Dutch. Bare nouns in monolingual Dutch expressionsThe aim of this paper is to shed light on article omission in Moroccan Flavored Dutch (MFD), a language variety in which Moroccan linguistic material (mainly Berber and Arabic) is combined with Dutch. It is well-known that MFD speakers are often inclined to omit articles in nominal phrases, and by doing so expressions contain so-called bare nouns (nominals without articles, i.e. definite or indefinite articles). This raises the question what triggers article omission in MFD. This study focuses on Dutch expressions that are embedded in MFD discourse and provides an innovative explanation for bare noun constructions. In particular, we argue that article omission in MFD is the result of an interplay between identity marking (article omission indexes the belonging to an ethnic subgroup in contrast to outsiders) and information structure. We show that there is a correlation between the syntactic position of a constituent and the type of article (i.e. definite or indefinite) that is omitted. The direct object position yields an indefinite, discourse-new interpretation of the bare nominal phrase. Since the neutral surface order of a Dutch main clause is subject-initial, the direct object position is canonically a focus position that is associated with new information. Therefore, the information structure of Dutch clauses seems to be a trigger for article omission.

Negotiating local in-group norms in times of globalization. Adnominal gender variation in two urban youth varieties in the Netherlands

“…The same principle applies to other mechanisms of linguistic innovation. For example, it has been shown that omission of (in)definite articles occurs in youth language, with MFD speakers producing bare nouns, e.g., hij geeft mij Ø boek 'he gives me Ø book' (Doreleijers et al 2019). Interestingly, both patterns, i.e., overgeneralization and omission, may as well occur simultaneously within the same variety or speaker (group).…”

“…The Brabantish form of the definite article preceding singular nouns only deviates from the Dutch form if the phonological constraint is met (den in contrast to de). Similar to speakers of Straattaal or MFD, younger speakers of Brabantish tend to exhibit patterns of omission and overgeneralization, in this case of the masculine gender suffix, resulting in non-traditional dialectal forms (Doreleijers et al 2020). Some detailed examples will be provided in Section 4.1.…”

“…Furthermore, determiners are often omitted (cf. Doreleijers et al 2019), as in ( 18). ( 18) Nu is het gewoon Ø spelletje.…”

“…Variation increases as younger speakers overgeneralize the suffix or invent innovative suffixes. A study by Doreleijers et al (2020) presents evidence of this increased variation by investigating speech data from fifteen adolescent speakers, aged 14 to 17 (different educational levels). In this study, peer groups of three speakers performed a translation task in which they had to translate 75 sentences from Standard Dutch to their own way of speaking Brabantish (with peers).…”

“…The variation in forms that was discovered in the study of Doreleijers et al (2020) raises multiple questions, for example on the situated use and the metalinguistic awareness of the gender feature. Are hyperdialectal forms also found in other contexts?…”