How writers begin their sentences

369 Pages·2012·2.77 MB·English

by  Aletta Smits

How writers begin their sentences

Complex beginnings in native and learner English
Published by
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Cover illustration: Ben Kamphuis

ISBN 90-76864-28-4
NUGI 941

Copyright © Aletta Smits. All rights reserved.
How writers begin their sentences

Complex beginnings in native and learner English

ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT

ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor
aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam
op gezag van de Rector Magnificus
prof. mr. P.F. van der Heijden
ten overstaan van een door het
college voor promoties ingestelde commissie
in het openbaar te verdedigen in de Aula der Universiteit
op dinsdag 10 december 2002 te 14:00 uur precies door

Aletta Marijke Smits
geboren te Amsterdam
Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen
Universiteit van Amsterdam

PROMOTIECOMMISSIE
Promotores: Prof. dr. M. Hannay
Prof. dr. R. Appel

Overige leden: Prof. dr. B. Altenberg
Prof. dr. O.C.M. Fischer
Prof. dr. P.C. Hengeveld
Prof. dr. J.H. Hulstijn
Dr. C.H. van Wijk
Acknowledgments

Many people supported me during the writing of this thesis, both on a
professional level and on a personal level. In the first place I would like
to thank René Appel and especially Mike Hannay. Both of them always
made time to discuss my ideas and theories; theycame up with many a
useful suggestion, and took every bit of text and every idea I produced
seriously, whatever its fledgling status.
I also received generous assistance from Nanda Poulisse and Jan
Hulstijn, who helped me design my experiment; from Emile van Raaij
and Henk Schotel, who wrote bits of the software needed to collect
empirical data; from Joy Burrough-Boenisch, Heather Gynn, Roel
Vismans, Eric Kellerman, Wim van der Wurff, Marieke Klomp, Peter
Daniels, Iwona Bendkowska, and many other people who helped me find
participants for my experiment; from many kind strangers from all over
the world, who subjected themselves to the tasks my experiment set
them; from my 1997 7th graders at Nieuwer Amstel high school, who
helped me count the words in my Learner English Corpus; from Tom van
Brederode, who helped me compile my native English corpus; from Wim
van der Wurff, who came up with the title of this thesis; from Ben
Kamphuis, who designed the cover illustration and kept putting out new
versions to satisfy my every whim; from Arie Verhagen, Lachlan
Mackenzie, Kwee Tjoe Liong and Kees Hengeveld, who discussed the
finer points of Functional Grammar and general linguistics with me; from
Esther Kraak, who patiently guided me through the process of converting
the files on my computer to an actual book; and from Gerard Steen and
Rob Schoonen who answered every single question on statistics that I
had. Finally, I could never run into Machtelt Bolkestein without her
pulling out of her bag a recent reference or a copy of an article relevant
for my research. She must have had an entire reservoir at hand for every
PhD-student she might run into that day.
The theories in this study are based on the thoughts and works of
many linguists. I am especially indebted to the work of Kees Hengeveld,
Mike Hannay, Tuija Virtanen, Barbara Fox and Sandra Thompson. I was
also inspired by Peter Verdonk and Frederike van der Leek, who taught
6 Acknowledgments

me to ask why every time I was confronted with a linguistic observation.
Their manner of teaching English linguistics appealed to a curiosity that
was first instilled in me by my parents.
I also would like to thank the people who kept me sane during these
five years of insane work rate. My mentioning their name here is a poor
tribute to what they have meant to me during the past years, but it is a
start. First, I want to mention Daan Mulder, who was the only one who
could keep me from working straight through every single weekend, and
Jesse Mateyo, who would not let me forget that it was really more
important to be able to make the distinction between a ‘pottie-auto’
(police car) and a ‘pottie-auto-motor’ (police motorbike) than between a
propositional and a predicational satellite. Then there my paranymfs,
Rian Verpalen and Milembe Mateyo, and Edwin van den Bosch and
many other friends, who never gave up on me, not even when I ignored
them for long periods of time because I needed to finish whatever part of
my thesis it was that I was behind on schedule with at the time. I would
like to thank my colleagues at ICLON for their comradeship and
incessant inquiries about the progress I was making. I am also indebted to
Harry Thie, who, after many had tried but failed, finally managed to
convince me that continually striving for perfection can be as much a vice
as it can be a virtue. This therefore seems a good point to proudly claim
responsibility for any imperfections that, despite the sound advice and
solid support of all the people mentioned above, have remained in this
study.
Finally and most importantly I want to thank Ineke Groot. She was
there throughout the time I worked on this thesis. She was there during
the period of illness that delayed its completion. Miraculously she
survived all mood swings (“This is a horrible piece of work and no one
will ever allow me to graduate.”) and all promises that could not be kept
(“Next month I will hand it in and it will be all over, honest!”). This
project is now finally over, and she is still here.
Contents

1 Complex beginnings: Initial considerations
1.1 Introduction.............................................................................11
1.2 Types of complex beginnings in English................................18
1.3 Discourse functions of complex beginnings............................20
1.4 A second language perspective on complex beginnings ........22
1.5 A process perspective on complex beginnings........................25
1.6 Overview of chapters...............................................................27

2 A definition of complex beginnings
2.1 Introduction.............................................................................31
2.2 Adverbials................................................................................32
2.3 Two or more adverbials...........................................................41
2.4 Two or more adverbials in sentence initial position................44
2.5 Examples of complex beginnings............................................49

3 The internal order of complex beginnings
3.1 Introduction.............................................................................53
3.2 The Native English Corpus (NEC)..........................................53
3.3 Syntactic realization................................................................56
3.4 Semantic function....................................................................62
3.5 Layer modification..................................................................69
3.6 Conclusion...............................................................................72

4 A typology of complex beginnings
4.1 Introduction.............................................................................75
4.2 The functions of the second initial adverbial...........................75
4.3 Class I: no grounding function for the 2nd initial adverbial.....80
4.4 Class II: the grounding function of the 2nd initial adverbial....84
4.5 A typology of complex beginnings.........................................91
4.6 Unacceptable complex beginnings..........................................97
4.7 Complex beginnings with three adverbials...........................102
4.8 Summary...............................................................................104
8

5 The discourse functions of complex beginnings
5.1 Introduction.........................................................................107
5.2 The text position of complex beginnings.............................108
5.3 Complex beginnings per genre............................................110
5.4 The discourse functions of adverbial placement in English111
5.5 Spatio-temporal and temporal-spatial complex beginnings.115
5.6 Stepwise orientations versus complex orientations.............117
5.7 Stepwise orientations versus grounded orientations............123
5.8 Statistical illustration of TSCs.............................................125
5.9 The structure of the sentence-initial area.............................134
5.10 Summary..............................................................................138

6 Complex beginnings in Dutch Learner English
6.1 Introduction.........................................................................141
6.2 The Learner English Corpus (LEC).....................................141
6.3 Frequency of complex beginnings in Dutch Learner
English.................................................................................145
6.4 Types of orientations in Dutch Learner English..................149
6.5 Stepwise orientations in the LEC........................................152
6.6 Grounded orientations in the LEC.......................................156
6.7 Complex orientations in the LEC........................................157
6.8 Orientational clashes and overloads in the LEC..................160
6.9 Observations and hypotheses...............................................161

7 Learner and native complex beginnings: sources for differences
7.1 Introduction.........................................................................165
7.2 Comparison of English and Dutch adverbial placement.....166
7.3 The Native Dutch Corpus (NDC)........................................169
7.4 The language competence hypothesis.................................174
7.5 Discourse competence.........................................................179
7.6 Discourse organization in English and Dutch newspaper
articles..................................................................................180
7.7 Discourse organization in learner English...........................188
7.8 The discourse competence hypothesis.................................193
7.9 Theories on writing processes.............................................194
7.10 The writing process hypothesis...........................................202
7.11 Summary..............................................................................204
9

8 Design of an exploratory experiment
8.1 Introduction.........................................................................207
8.2 General design.....................................................................207
8.3 The subjects.........................................................................211
8.4 The tasks: type and order.....................................................212
8.5 The writing task...................................................................213
8.6 The unscrambling task.........................................................219
8.7 The judgment task...............................................................220
8.8 The cloze text.......................................................................226

9 Results of the experiment
9.1 Introduction.........................................................................229
9.2 The subjects.........................................................................230
9.2.1 Number of subjects..............................................................230
9.2.2 English language competence of DNE and DNN
compared.............................................................................231
9.3 The ‘context-driven’ hypothesis..........................................231
9.3.1 Writing Items I-1 and II-2...................................................232
9.3.2 Judgment Items 1 and 4.......................................................236
9.3.3 Unscrambling Items 3, 5 and 7............................................239
9.3.4 Conclusion...........................................................................243
9.4 Stepwise and complex orientations.....................................243
9.4.1 Judgment Items 1 and 4.......................................................245
9.4.2 Unscrambling Items 3, 5 and 7............................................253
9.4.3 Writing tasks I-1 and II-2....................................................267
9.4.4 Knowledge telli ng and knowledge transformation.............278
9.4.5 Concluding remarks.............................................................291
9.5 Orientational clashes............................................................295
9.5.1 Judgment Items 2 and 3.......................................................296
9.5.2 Writing Item II-3.................................................................301
9.5.3 Writing Item I-2...................................................................307
9.5.4 Concluding remarks.............................................................309
9.6 Conclusion...........................................................................311

10 Summary and discussion
10.1 Introduction.........................................................................317
10.2 Form and function of complex beginnings .........................317
10.3 A language-acquisition perspective on complex
beginnings ...........................................................................325
10

10.4 A process perspective on complex beginnings....................330
10.5 Concluding remarks.............................................................331

References ...........................................................................................333

Appendix The cloze text.......................................................................347

Samenvatting................................................................................................355

Curriculum Vitae..........................................................................................369