Mood, modals and modification The imperative in English and Dutch

Daniël Van Olmen

Lancaster University

46th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea

Split, 18-21 September 2013 – Workshop 9

Introduction

• earlier research into the imperative in English and Dutch

• many formalist studies (e.g. Potsdam 1998, Rupp 2003, Mastop 2005, Van der Wurff 2007, Kaufmann 2012), fewer functionalist ones (e.g. Davies 1986, Takahashi 2012)

• only a few corpus-based investigations of English (e.g. De Rycker 1990, De Clerck 2006), none of Dutch

Introduction

• present paper

• complementing the corpus-based work on English

• questions

• the imperative’s distribution?

• its illocutionary profile?

• its correlation with modifiers?

• its ‘alternatives’ in the other language?

Introduction

• two issues in the limited contrastive literature

• modification (e.g. Vismans 1995, Hendriks 2002)

• fewer modifiers in English than in Dutch

• also used less often

• English preference for indirectness? (see House 1996 too)

• here: corpus evidence to verify/refute these hypotheses

Introduction

• alternatives and modals in particular (e.g. Hendriks 2002, Nuyts et al. 2010, Mortelmans 2010)

• on the one hand: due to the relative lack of modifiers, fewer ‘permissive’ imperatives in English and more permissive modals?

• on the other hand: moeten more multifunctional than must, including a highly grammaticalized, speaker-oriented type of modality?

• here: corpus evidence from the perspective of the imperative

Preliminaries

• imperative

• excluding cases (cf. De Clerck 2006)

• with little or no illocutionary flexibility

• allowing little or no formal variation

• i.e. idiomatic phrases, DMs, etc.

• including cases

• with explicit subjects (cf. De Schutter & Van Hauwermeiren 1983 vs Fortuin 2004)

• such as good wishes in English, success imperatives in Dutch, etc.

Preliminaries

• modification

• utterance-internal elements which mitigate or boost the force with which the point of the imperative is made (cf. Holmes 1984)

• these elements do not necessarily have mitigation or boosting as its primary meaning, though

• including

• MPs

• tags

• courtesy subjuncts

• emphatic do

• subjects

• vocatives

Preliminaries

• corpora

• comparable corpus

• British English

• private dialogues of ICE-GB (Survey of English Usage 2006)

• 205,627 words

• Northern Dutch

• similar selection of the syntactically annotated spontaneous face-to-face conversations and phone calls in CSD (Dutch Language Union 2004)

• 100,048 words

Preliminaries

• parallel corpus

• drama texts

• high frequency of imperatives (cf. Vismans 1994)

• ‘similar’ to private dialogues (cf. Culpeper & Kytö 2000)

• ‘recent’ BrE plays written by different authors & translated by different NoD translators + vice versa

• size

• SE 96,452 words – SD 70,280 words

• TE 73,503 words – TD 99,113 words

Preliminaries

• methodological remarks

• translationese? (cf. Teubert 1996 vs Mauranen 2002)

• “make it possible to investigate how the same content is expressed in two languages” (Aijmer & Altenberg 1996: 13)

Preliminaries

• analytical framework (cf. De Rycker 1990, De Clerck 2006)

• speech act theory (Austin 1962, Searle 1979, Verscheuren 1985)

• criticized for (e.g. Ervin-Tripp 1987, Du Bois 1993)

• focus on isolated sentences

• inapplicability to non-Western languages

• disregard of multifunctionality

• too speaker-oriented

Preliminaries

• parameters here

• Searlean notions of illocutionary point, illocutionary strength, psychological state and direction of fit

• benefit, power, …

• remarks beforehand

• grouping together similar functions

• recognizing hybridity

• ‘only’ attempt at capturing the imperative

Preliminaries

Type Description Examples

wilful directive

strong appeal to A to do what S wants and what is usually to the benefit of the latter

demand, order, …

non-wilful directive

weaker appeal to A to do what S thinks is to the benefit of the former

suggestion, advice, …

commissive directive

commitment of S to do something which is often to the benefit of S and A and which usually also involves some action by A

permission, offer, …

expressive directive

appeal to A in which S primarily expresses his or her attitude toward A

challenge, apology, …

mixed expressive

‘appeal‘ through which S hopes to bring about a SoA that A does not control and that shows S’s attitude toward A

imprecation, wish, …

non-directive

general truths and beliefs or descriptions of certain habits and specific properties, i.e. representatives

conditional

Modification

• percentage of modified imperatives

• in comparable corpus and source corpus

• English imperative much less frequently modified than its Dutch counterpart

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

CC-E CC-D SC-E SC-D

UnM

M

Modification

• range of modifiers

• MPs

• tags

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

MPs

no MPS

97%

97%

98%

98%

99%

99%

100%

100%

tags

no tags

Modification

• courtesy subjuncts

• emphatic do

91%

92%

93%

94%

95%

96%

97%

98%

99%

100%

CSs

no CSs

97%

97%

98%

98%

99%

99%

100%

100%

CC-E SC-E

do

no do

Modification

• subjects

• vocatives

90%

91%

92%

93%

94%

95%

96%

97%

98%

99%

100%

CC-E CC-D SC-E SC-D

S

no S

92%

93%

94%

95%

96%

97%

98%

99%

100%

VOC

no VOC

Modification

• some conclusions

• indeed

• fewer modifiers in English than in Dutch

• but mostly: imperative typically unmodified in English and modified in Dutch

• other types of modification in English?

• DMs?

• intonation?

• …

Mood

• relative frequency

• in comparable corpus and source corpus

• plays ≈ private dialogues

• comparative “English love of imperatives”

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

CC SC

per

10

,00

0 w

ord

s

E

D

Mood

• functions

• similar illocutionary

‘potential’

• usage

• Dutch: typically WD

• English: more multifunctional & strikingly higher rate of N-WDs 0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

WD

N-W

D

CD ED ME

N-D ?

pe

r 1

0,0

00

wo

rds

E

D

Mood & modification

• loose relationship between specific functions and specific modifiers

• e.g. emphatic do

But anyway do send him my best regards.

Work at that and do listen to your pitch.

Oh do sit down.

• e.g. even ‘briefly’

En bel me eventjes als je wat weet.

Bekijk anders effe de notities.

Mood & modification

• some ‘weaker’ correlations in Dutch, though

• warnings, orders, demands, good wishes and instructions often without MPs (see Fortuin 2004 too)

• requests typically with (nou ‘now’) eens ‘once’ /even

• permissions typically with maar ‘only’

• suggestions typically with (gewoon ‘ordinarily’) eens

Mood & modification

• some tentative conclusions

• to some extent …

• Dutch seems to require modifiers and in particular MPs to ‘force’ certain readings of the imperative

• while English doesn’t

• evoking Hawkins (1986) and research on the ‘Germanic Sandwich’, in a way …

• Dutch is more explicit at the surface

• while English is relatively implicit or vague

Mood & modals

• translational correspondences

• not unexpectedly

• E → D less than 70%

• D → E nearly 90%

• impact of target language/culture; pace translationese

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

SE >TD

TE >SD

E > D SD >TE

TD >SE

D > E

zero

other

=

Mood & modals

• functions

• D → E

• E → D

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

zero

other

=

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

zero

other

=

Mood & modals

• modals

• D → E

• just 10 of 73 ‘other’ correspondences (906 in total)

• 3x necessity modal

Blijf nou liggen. (S) - You have to lie down. (T)

• 7x possibility modal

Ga maar weer zitten. (S) - You can sit down again. (T)

• still, 57 ‘=‘ correspondences for permissions

Zeg maar wat tegen haar. (T) – Speak to her. (S)

Mood & modals

• E → D

• 84 of 322 ‘other’ correspondences (1231 in total)

• 17x possibility modal

Go, my boy. (T) – Je mag nu weg, jongen. (S)

• 67x necessity modal

Take life as it comes. (T) – Je moet het leven gewoon nemen zoals het komt. (S)

Never be ashamed of your red hair! (T) – Je hoeft je heus niet te schamen omdat je nou toevallig rood bent. (S)

Conclusions

• validity & usefulness of parallel corpora (in combination with comparable corpora)

• ‘paradox’ (cf. Hawkins 1986, Vismans 1995, House 1996, Hendriks 2002, Nuyts et al. 2010)

• more modifiers in Dutch than in English

• but a more frequent and multifunctional imperative in English than in Dutch

• difference in the distribution of labor between mood and modals in English and Dutch (cf. Nuyts et al. 2010, Mortelmans 2010)

Thanks for your attention! Questions/comments?

Daniël Van Olmen

Lancaster University County South C68

Bailrigg Lancaster

United Kingdom LA1 4YL

d.vanolmen@lancaster.ac.uk

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