With-absolutes - Niederlandistik

With-absolutes
Historical Development
In Dutch and English
Katrien Heremans
Hubert Cuyckens
University of Leuven
1

• Dutch:
With-absolutes
1. Met dat pak op den rug wordt men voortgeduwd naar juist zulk een
kerkhof. (DBNL 19 th century) (With that load on the back, one is
pushed onwards to exactly such a cemetery.)
• English:
2. With office appointments looming, discussions move briskly to their
conclusion. (TIME: 1982)
• Absolutes without with (are said to be older):
3. The coach being crowded, Fred had to stand. (Kortmann 1991: 1)
4. Ful benyngly ... he suffred hir to sey hir entent & ʒaf a fayr answer,
hir supposyng it xuld ben þe bettyr. (Blake 1992: 364; quoted from
Meech & Allen 1940: 11-12) (period: Early Middle English)
2

Structure of the presentation
• Defining with-absolutes
• Earlier research
• Research questions
• Methodology
• Results
• Discussion of results
• Conclusion
3

Defining with-absolutes (1)
• Type of absolute, preceded by with (augmented absolute)
• Formal characteristics of absolutes (cf. Kortmann 1991):
– Non-finite or verbless phrases
– Contain NP + predicative element (PP / AP / AdvP/
Participle/participial clause) → structural diversity
– Often separated from rest of sentence by a pause (comma)
• Semantic characteristics of absolutes (cf. Kortmann 1991):
– Internal subject-predicate relation (can be made explicit by
inserting being in most structural types)
– External adverbial relation (e.g. cause, additional circumstance,
condition, time,...)
– loose connection to main clause
4

Defining with-absolutes (2)
Examples:
5. With the airstrip inoperable, Kong Le was forced to rely
on runners as his primary means of communication;…
(TIME: 1963/04/26)
6. With profit margins getting ever smaller in traditional
consumer banking, such economies are very welcome.
(Kortmann 1991: 92; quoted from International Herald
Tribune 1987: 7)
7. Met voetbal op tv zie je geen kip op straat.
(http://www.let.uu.nl/~nltaal/za/gramma/a/absolute.htm
) (With football on tv, you don’t see anyone on the street.)
8. Met vader thuis kan moeder weggaan. (ANS 17.5.1) (With
father at home, mother can leave.)
5

Defining with-absolutes (3)
• Absolutes vs. Free adjuncts (cf. Kortmann 1991):
absolutes have an overt subjects while the subject of free
adjuncts is unexpressed
9. Eindelijk thuisgekomen, ging hij meteen naar bed (ANS 19.3.1.1.)
(Finally at home, he went straight to bed)
vs.
10. Met onze hond binnen hoeven we niets te vrezen (ANS 17.5.1) (With
our dog inside, we have nothing to fear)
11. The coach being crowded, Fred had to stand (Kortmann 1991: 1)
6

Defining with-absolutes (4)
• Other constructions similar to absolutes
– Gerund constructions:
12. Them/Their trying to sing a song was just too horrible. (Kortmann
1991: 13)
– With/met-prepositional phrases as adjuncts or
complements:
13. Met mijn vertrek naar Indië, […], was hij verzoend. (With my
departure for India, […], he was reconciled.) (DBNL 19 th century)
14. With a shriek so wild and piercing that […], Olive sprang to the
door. (CLMETEV 3)
7

Earlier research (1)
• Stump 1985, Kortmann 1991: (i) possible
semantic, adverbial relations between
absolutes and main clauses and (ii) the
influence of with
• König 1995: cross-linguistic perspective
• König & van der Auwera 1990: (i) crosslinguistic
perspective; (ii) linking expressions
8

Earlier research (2)
• Van der Lubbe 1985: generative approach →
absolutes = ‘predication phrases’ with their
own stress patterns (met het ráám ópen)
• Komen 1994: conjectures around origins and
development of absolutes, but no clear
support from corpus analysis
• McCawley 1983: clause-like status of withabsolutes
and conjunction-like status of with
9

Research Questions (1)
The present research: examine historical
development of with-absolutes
– Last three centuries
– English and Dutch
– Focus on the structural diversity of the predicative
element
10

Research Questions (2)
• How did the construction develop?
• How did the structural diversity of the
predicative elements develop?
• Why with-absolutes in Dutch much less
frequent while there is similar structural
variation of the predicative element?
• How do the results influence our views on the
structure and syntactic status of the
construction?
11

Methodology (1)
• Dutch corpora: DBNL (Digital Library for Dutch
Literature) → fiction + journalism
18th Century Dutch Corpus 3 860 020 words
19 th Century Dutch Corpus 6 808 478 words
20 th Century Dutch Corpus 3 321 446 words
12

• English corpora:
Methodology (2)
– CLMETEV (The Corpus of Late Modern English
Texts extended version) → fiction
– TIME Magazine Corpus → journalism
1710-1780 (=CLMETEV 1) 3 037 607 words
1780-1920 (=CLMETEV 2+3) 11 975 552 words
1923-2006 (=TIME) 100 000 000 words
13

• Problems:
Methodology (3)
– Formal variety of with-absolutes: with + NP + ?
– Similarity to ‘regular’ with-PPs
• Anderle has a vision in which he returns with a Sword
from the Stars, but is close to despair.
(http://www.avalonbooks.net/books/sword.html)
• Solution: “*. With” = search query
• Remaining problem:
– Low frequency of with-absolutes
14

Results (1)
• Absolute frequencies of with-absolutes:
Abs. Freq. Dutch English
18 th century 4 13
19 th century 51 175
20 th century 40 *8600
* =approximation: total number of results for
“*.With” in TIME: 22500 → sample of 1000 instances
→ number of with-absolutes in sample: 382
(382/1000 × 22500 = 8600)
15

Results (2)
Normalized frequencies:
16

Results (3)
Structural variety of predicative elements:
– Prepositional phrases
– Adjectival phrases
– Verb phrases
• Infinitives
• Past participles
• Present participles
– Adverbial phrases
– Nominal phrases
– AS-phrases
17

Results (4)
• Prepositional phrases
15. Met het wetboek in de hand zullen racistische en fascistische
organisaties te vuur en te zwaard bestreden dienen te worden.
(DBNL 20 th century) (With the law book in the hand, racist and fascist
organizations will be fought with fire and sword.)
16. With a baby on the way they decided they had better get married.
(TIME 1934)
• Adjectival phrases:
17. Met de oogen nog vol slaap zag hij den zwarten kater wegspringen
van zijn knieën. (DBNL 19 th century) (With the eyes still full of sleep
he saw the black cat jump off his knees.)
5. With the airstrip inoperable, Kong Le was forced to rely on runners
as his primary means of communication. (TIME 1963)
18

• Verb phrases:
– Present participles
Results (5)
18. Tot hij kwam. Met de manke hinkepoot achter slepend. (DBNL 20 th
century) (Until he came. With the limp peg leg dragging behind.)
19. With few critics paying it attention, it sold out in eleven days. (TIME
1938)
– Infinitives (Only in English)
20. With Tallulah Bankhead to help lead the cheering, Joe Bushkin had
become a darling of the Cadillac-convertible set. (TIME 1950)
– Past participles
21. Met eiwit uitgehaald, glimt de prulleboel vrij goed. (DBNL 19 th
century) (With egg white extracted, the mess shines quite well.)
22. With two other major companies shut down for repairs, Akron was
paralyzed. (TIME 1945)
19

Results (6)
• Noun phrases (Only in English):
23. With a Viet Nam settlement a possibility, he wants to call attention
to the intruders-if only to make sure that he will not be stuck with
them when the war ends. (TIME 1969)
20

• Adverbial phrases:
Results (7)
24. Met de hoeden af zal voortaan het publiek voor zijn schilderijen
staan. (DBNL 19 th century) (With hats off the audience will from now
on stand in front of his paintings.)
25. With Lewis back, A.F. of L.'s membership topped 7,000,000 once
again, and C.I.O. could take warning. (TIME 1946)
• AS-phrases (Dutch: als)
26. Met die invallen als punt van vertrek werkte ik toen naar het
eindresultaat toe. (DBNL 20 th century) (With those thoughts as point
of departure, I worked towards the end result.)
27. With Ford as a Mr. Clean in the White House, Republicans have no
reason to allow Chappaquiddick to fade into obscurity. (TIME 1974)
21

Results (8)
• Frequencies of the various types of predicative
elements in Dutch
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
18th century 19th century 20th century
PP
VP
AP
AdvP
NP
AS
22

Results (9)
• Frequencies of the various types of predicative
elements in English
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
18th century 19th century 20th century
PP
VP
AP
AdvP
NP
AS
23

Results (10)
• Relative frequencies (%) of the three types of
verb phrases in English:
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
period 1 period 2 period 3
VP (inf)
VP (pr.pa.)
VP (pa.pa.)
24

35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Results (11)
18th century 19th century 20th century
VP (inf)
VP (pr.pa.)
VP (pa. pa.)
25

Development of structural diversity (1)
• Earlier stages (18 th + 19 th century): PPs dominant as
predicative elements → might have been the first
type of with-absolute
– Origin in [NP + PP] structure where PP could be left out
(without altering the meaning of the sentence)
– [NP + PP] structure expresses manner (of the process
expressed by the main verb)
– No (outspoken) subject-predicate relationship
28. there com uppon hym two grete gyauntis well armed […] with two
horryble clubbys in their hondys (HC)
26

Development of structural diversity (2)
28. there com uppon hym two grete gyauntis well armed […]
with two horryble clubbys in their hondys (HC)
29. Besides, as one looks at churches, etc. with a book of
travels in one's hand, and sees every thing particularized
there, it would appear transcribing, to write upon the
same subjects. (CLMETEV 1)
30. Met eene zachte blijdschap op haar gelaat, kwam mijne
lieve Nannie mij deezen morgen uit haar tuin tegen;…
(DBNL 18 th century) (With a soft happyness on her face,
my dear Nannie met me this morning in her garden;…)
27

Development of structural diversity (3)
• Step 1: Structural and semantic reanalysis:
– structural [with [NP a book] [PP in one's hand]]
[with [NP (being) PP]], showing a subject-
predicate structure
31.hee caused in all the haste al his seruauntes to bee called vppe, and so
with his owne householde aboute hym, and euerie manne weaponed,
hee tooke the greate Seale with him (HC)
32. With General Calles at Torreon in the north, rebel commanders made
a flank attack around the western wing of the federals (TIME 1929)
28

Development of structural diversity (4)
– semantic: means accompanying situation /
cause
33. With two or three of these Pigeon's on each side, a
Correspondence might be carried on in a very expeditious
manner, especially in Matters of Curiosity, or those things which
tend to publick Good. (CLMETEV 1)
34. Met een mikroskoop aan den neus verleezen zij een boek
phrasis voor phrasis, enz. (With a microscope in front of the
nose, they misread a book phrase before phrase, etc.) (DBNL
18 th century)
29

Development of structural diversity (5)
Step 2: Structure [NP + PP] expands to [NP +
AdjP / NP / AdvP / Past Participle]
= “Host-class expansion”
“the class of elements the gram is in construction with, i.e.
the host class, may be expanded. For example, when
demonstratives are grammaticized to articles they may start
to co-occur regularly with proper names or nouns designating
unique entities […]” (Himmelmann 2004: 32)
30

Development of structural diversity (6)
• Second biggest group in the early period:
Adjectival phrases
– host-class expansion→ adjectives can also be used
as predicates (after a connective verb like ‘to be’)
35. With such a confederacy against her--with a knowledge so intimate
of his goodness--what could she do? (CLMETEV 2)
31

Development of structural diversity (7)
• Prepositional phrases → Adverbial phrases
(both locate entity in time/space or express
manner)
36. With his head in his breast and his eyes down he was struggling to
think of … (CLMETEV 3)
• Adjectival phrases → Noun phrases (not all)
(predicate a quality or status)
37. With a Viet Nam settlement a possibility, he wants to call attention
to the intruders-if only to make sure that he will not be stuck with
them when the war ends. (Time) ≈ With a Viet Nam settlement
possible, he wants ...
32

Development of structural diversity (8)
• Step 3: shift in [NP + Participle] to ‘accompanying
event’
38. With a mind experienced and matured, you may in all probability
be successful (CLMETEV2)
39. With income taxes already banned by the State constitution,
Florida recently ratified an amendment exempting cinema
companies from taxation for 15 years. (TIME 1935)
• Semantics still situational but resultative: clear passive
meaning
• Being can still be inserted
• shift from ‘accompaning situation’ to ‘accompanying
situation which is the result of an event/process’
33

Development of structural diversity (9)
– To determine whether Past Participles were/are
increasingly used verbally, ie expressing the result
of an action or simply expressing a passive, the
possible attributive use of the Past Participles was
investigated.
34

Development of structural diversity (10)
Dutch 18 th century 19 th century 20 th century
part. also attr. 0 6 2
total part. 0 9 4
percentage 67% 50%
English CLMETEV 1 CLMETEV 2 CLMETEV 3 TIME
part. also attr. 3 16 26 96
total part. 3 18 34 191
percentage 100% 89% 76% 50%
35

Development of structural diversity (11)
• Step 4: [NP + Present Participle]
40. With human-rights activists crying foul, some consumers are turning to
Fair Trade… (TIME: 2004)
• Absolute expresses still encodes a situation, but at
the same time, it clearly expresses the action of an
agent the absolute gets a clausal interpretation
with the present participle as non-finite verb, the NP
as subject, and with as a conjunction
• Being cannot be inserted
36

Absolutes with present participles (1)
The introduction of present participles:
• Option 1: present participles introduced as
active counterpart of those with-absolutes
with past participles
41. With the cat bitten by the dog, we couldn’t get a good night sleep.
42. With the dog biting the cat, we couldn’t get a good night sleep.
37

Absolutes with present participles (2)
• Option 2: with-absolutes containing present participles =
multiple source constructions, subtype: syntactic blend
(“the formal and functional features of different lineages
are recombined into a new construction”)
(http://marivs.com/pdf/Workshop_descriptions.pdf)
– Follows existing [With [NP (being) PP/AdjP/…] structure
– Follows existing non-augmented (without with) absolute
construction with non-finite verb
Non-augmented absolutes containing present participles are the
most frequent type (83.6% of all absolutes contained a present
participle as predicative element) (Kortmann 1995: 195)
38

In any case, analogy with non-augmented
absolutes probably played major role in the
development of the different types of with-
absolutes (cf. Kortmann 1991)
39

With-absolutes in Dutch
• Situation in Dutch: less structural variety of predicative
elements (mostly PP), but especially far lower frequency of
with-absolutes in general
• Possible explanation: after 17th , 18th century: frequency of
participial constructions in general started to decline (Van Der
Horst 2008) → Absolutes without met are only found in
idioms in Present-day Dutch and are no longer productive. As
a result: no source for analogy
• Might also explain why the number of clearly verbal, clauselike
examples of with-absolutes is so much lower in Dutch.
40

Conclusion
• Development of with-absolutes:
– Start: end 17 th century, begin 18 th century
– Absolutes containing PPs probably emerged first
(reanalysis NP-PP)
– Absolutes containing VPs came later → made
absolutes more clause-like
– The latter became very frequent in English, not so
in Dutch (no productive source of analogy)
41

Future research
Even though this research resolved some
questions concerning the development and
nature of with-absolutes, some questions for
future research remain:
– Development of non-augmented absolutes during
this period (to further substantiate the analogy
claim)
– Development of alternatives for with: without,
what with,…
– …
42

References
• “absolute constructie”. http://www.let.uu.nl/~nltaal/za/gramma/a/absolute.htm (last
accessed on 5 June 2010).
• Blake, Norman. 1992. Cambridge History of the English Language, vol. 2. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
• Haeseryn, W., K. Romijn, G. Geerts, J. de Rooij & M.C. van den Toorn, Algemene Nederlandse
Spraakkunst (ANS). 1997. Groningen/Deurne: Martinus Nijhoff uitgevers/Wolters Plantyn.
• Himmelmann, N.P. “Lexicalization and grammaticization: Opposite or orthogonal?”. In: B.
Wiemer, W. Bisang & N.P. Himmelman (eds.), What makes grammaticalization? A look from
its fringes and its components. 2004. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 21-40.
• Komen, J.A.M. Over de ontwikkeling van absolute constructies. 1994. Amsterdam: Buijten en
Schipperheijn.
• König, E. & J. van der Auwera “Adverbial participles, gerunds and absolute constructions in
the languages of Europe”. In: Johannes Bechert, Giuliano Bernini and Claude Buridant (eds.),
Toward a Typology of European Languages. 1990. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 337-355.
• König, E. “The meaning of converb constructions”. In: Martin Haspelmath and Ekkehard König
(eds.), Converbs in cross-linguistic perspective. 1995. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 57-95.
43

References
• Kortmann, B. “Adverbial participial clauses in English”. In: Martin Haspelmath and
Ekkehard König (eds.), Converbs in cross-linguistic perspective. 1995. Berlin:
Mouton de Gruyter. 189-237.
• Kortmann, B. Free Adjuncts and Absolutes in English: Problems of control and
interpretation. 1991. London/New York: Routledge.
• McCawley, J.D. “What's with with?”. Language 59.2 (1983): 271-287.
• Stump, G.T. The Semantic Variability of Absolute Constructions. 1985. Dordrecht: D.
Reidel Publishing Company.
• Van der Horst, J. 2008. Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Syntaxis. Leuven:
Universitaire Pers Leuven.
• Van der Lubbe, H.F.A. “De structuur van de zgn. absolute met-constructie”. De
Nieuwe taalgids 78.1 (1985): 6-17.
• Van de Velde, F., L. Ghesquière & H. De Smet “Multiple source constructions in
language change”. Workshop Descriptions.
http://marivs.com/pdf/Workshop_descriptions.pdf (43rd meeting of the Societas
Linguistica Europaea, Vilnius, 2-5 September 2010) (last accessed on 3 June 2010).
44

Corpora used
• CLMETEV: “The Corpus of Late Modern English Texts
(extended version)”.
https://perswww.kuleuven.be/~u0044428/clmetev.htm (last
accessed on 6 June 2010).
• HC: Helsinki Corpus
• TIME: Davies, Mark. (2007-) TIME Magazine Corpus (100
million words, 1920s-2000s). Available online at
http://corpus.byu.edu/time (last accessed on 6 June 2010).
• DBNL: “Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren”.
http://www.dbnl.org/ (last accessed on 6 June 2010).
45

• Katrien Heremans
Contact information
katrien.heremans@arts.kuleuven.be (as of 1
October)
• Hubert Cuyckens
hubert.cuyckens@arts.kuleuven.be
http://wwwling.arts.kuleuven.be/fll
46

Interpretation
• Noun phrases ≈ AS-phrases
35. With Reagan as President, the Soviets do not need military
superiority; they will simply outsmart us. (TIME 1984)
36. With Reagan President, the Soviets do not need military superiority.
• As (or als in Dutch) might serve as a
‘prepositional copula’ (Declerck 1991): makes
the qualifying relation more explicit
47

Absolutes with infinitives
• Last type of verbal phrases: infinitives
• Implication of futurity or intention instead of
duration or progress
43. With little combat reporting to be done, journalists have begun
scrounging around base camps and rear areas, asking questions
about drugs, fragging, phony decorations and morale. (TIME 1971)
44. With little combat reporting being done,…
48