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A Treebank-based Investigation of IPP-triggering Verbs in Dutch

A Treebank-based Investigation of IPP-triggering Verbs in Dutch

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‘I am look<strong>in</strong>g forward to be<strong>in</strong>g able to walk through the Brandenburg<br />

Gate for the first time.’<br />

Figure 5: Example <strong>of</strong> grammatical function V-MOD<br />

The grammatical function V-MOD is used for verbal modifiers that are<br />

not obligatory. The sentence <strong>in</strong> Figure 5 illustrates this usage <strong>of</strong> durch<br />

(‘through’) as an optional modifier <strong>of</strong> the verb gehen (‘go’).<br />

Table 6 shows that the three grammatical functions (GF) just surveyed<br />

exhibit rather dist<strong>in</strong>ctive distributions for the subclasses <strong>of</strong> NE differentiated<br />

<strong>in</strong> the TüBa-D/Z.<br />

durch FOPP OPP V-MOD GF average<br />

ORG + PER 70.8% 14.3% 29.7% 49.3%<br />

GPE + LOC 12.5% 85.7% 62.2% 43.4%<br />

Table 6: Distribution <strong>of</strong> NE subclasses <strong>in</strong> prepositional phrases headed by<br />

durch<br />

Among the NEs that appear <strong>in</strong> prepositional phrases headed by durch, a<br />

large majority (70.8%) belongs to the NE subclasses <strong>of</strong> ORG and PER, when<br />

the prepositional phrase <strong>in</strong>stantiates the grammatical function FOPP. This<br />

grammatical function is used for passive constructions. Therefore, the noun<br />

phrases that co-occur with durch <strong>in</strong> this construction have to have agent-like<br />

properties. S<strong>in</strong>ce such properties are typically associated with the two<br />

subclasses ORG and PER, this empirical f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>g is hardly surpris<strong>in</strong>g. On<br />

average, the subclasses <strong>of</strong> ORG and PER occur with the preposition durch<br />

under any <strong>of</strong> the exam<strong>in</strong>ed grammatical functions (OPP, FOPP, PRED, V-<br />

MOD, MOD, Non-head ‘–’) with a relative frequency <strong>of</strong> 49.3%. This<br />

contrasts sharply with the relative frequency <strong>of</strong> 70.8% for the grammatical<br />

function FOPP.<br />

22

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