Browsing by Author "Oosthuizen, Johan"
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- ItemMeaning-focused vs form-focused L2 instruction : implications for writing educational materials for South African learners of English(Stellenbosch University, Department of Linguistics, 2005) Ollerhead, Sue; Oosthuizen, JohanIn a report on the Third International Mathematics and Science Repeat Study (Human Sciences Research Council 2000), conducted in 1998/1999 to measure school learners' proficiency in mathematics and science, it was stated that South African learners achieved the lowest results of the 38 countries that took part. One reason cited for this was that the majority of South African learners were not fluent in English, the language of the test, and thus struggled to understand the questions and to communicate their ideas clearly. Significantly, however, learners from other participating countries, such as Malaysia and Singapore, who also face the challenge of having to learn in a second language (L2), performed comparatively well. Yet, unlike these countries, which have one common language in which all learners receive their instruction, the South African language policy of "additive multilingualism" (National Department of Education 2002) dictates that learners learn their home language and at least one additional official language. This could be English, or one of the other ten official South African languages.
- ItemMovement vs. binding : two analyses of quantifier postposing phenomena in Afrikaans(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 1988) Oosthuizen, Johan; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of . Dept. of .
- ItemA nominal shell analysis of restrictive relative clause constructions in Afrikaans(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-03) Oosthuizen, Johan; Meyer, Jean-Jacques; Huddlestone, Kate; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of General Linguistics.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study focuses on restrictive relative clauses in Afrikaans, an area that is largely underresearched in the literature on Afrikaans grammar. The primary aim of the study is to examine whether the general assumptions and devices of Oosthuizen’s (2013) Nominal Shell Analysis of reflexive constructions in Afrikaans, which was developed within the broad theoretical framework of Minimalist Syntax, can be extended to provide an account of restrictive relative clause constructions. The main consideration for taking the ideas underlying Oosthuizen’s analysis as point of departure concerns the fact that an obligatory reflexive construction and a restrictive relative clause construction both contain a pronominal element that is referentially dependent on some other expression in the sentence. That is, both a reflexive pronoun and a relative pronoun have to enter into a coreferential relationship with an antecedent expression. In light of this common characteristic, the question arises whether the general ideas and devices of the Nominal Shell account of this relationship in reflexive constructions can also be used to account for the coreferential relationship between a relative pronoun and its antecedent in restrictive relative clause constructions. In terms of the proposed analysis, the relative pronoun and its antecedent are initially merged into a nominal shell structure headed by a contrastive-focus light noun n, a functional category belonging to a natural class of identificational elements that also includes an identity-focus n, a possessor-focus n, a quantity-focus n, and a presentational-focus n (Oosthuizen 2013:126-144). More specifically: the contrastive-focus n selects a relative pronoun as its complement, with the latter carrying a set of unvalued φ-features (person, number, gender). The antecedent expression, in turn, is merged into the specifier position of the light noun. These operations result in a probe-goal configuration in which the antecedent can value the φ-features of the relative pronoun, with the n serving as mediator. In this configuration, the φ-valued relative pronoun is semantically interpreted as an anaphor and the nominal expression in the specifier position of the nP as its antecedent; that is, the pronoun is interpreted as obligatorily coreferential with this nominal expression. The main finding of the study is that the approach just outlined can provide an adequate account of the relevant facts of restrictive relative clause constructions in Afrikaans, without requiring any theoretical assumptions and devices that are either completely new or incompatible with those provided within the broad minimalist framework.
- ItemObligatory reflexivity in Afrikaans : a minimalist approach(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2013-03) Oosthuizen, Johan; Biberauer, Theresa; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Philosophy.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study focuses on the phenomenon of obligatory reflexivity in Afrikaans. Despite a considerable literature on this phenomenon as it is reflected in other languages, the Afrikaans data have not received any systematic attention. Hence, a first major aim is to address this empirical gap. Secondly, informed by the Afrikaans data, the study aims to develop an analysis that can provide a conceptually adequate account for the facts, and that is amenable to extension beyond Afrikaans. The proposed nominal shell analysis (of obligatory reflexivity) (NSA) is developed within, on the one hand, the general framework of Minimalist Syntax and, on the other hand, the specific framework of proposals about word order and linearisation phenomena in Germanic languages worked out in, amongst others, Holmberg (2000), Biberauer (2003), Biberauer & Richards (2006), Biberauer & Roberts (2006), and Biberauer et al. (2009, 2011). The basic idea underlying the NSA is that two expressions which enter into an obligatory coreferential relationship are initially merged into a nominal shell structure headed by an identity focus light noun n. It is argued that the identity focus n belongs to a natural class of identificational elements which also includes a contrastive focus n, a presentational focus n, a possessor focus n, and a quantity focus n. In terms of the NSA, the identity focus n takes a reflexive pronoun as its complement, with such a pronoun being analysed as a syntactic compound that is derived by merging a category-neutral lexical root √PRON with a D constituent containing unvalued φ-features. This means, then, that a reflexive pronoun is defined in syntactic terms and not in terms of special lexical features. The reflexive is subsequently raised to the identity focus n – which forms the locus of the suffix -self associated with morphologically complex reflexive pronouns – where it is spelled out as part of the compound n that is derived in this manner. The antecedent expression is next merged as the specifier of the compound light noun, resulting in a configuration where the antecedent can value the φ-features of the reflexive, with the n serving as mediator. In this configuration, the φ-valued pronoun is semantically interpreted as an anaphor and the nominal expression in the specifier position of the nP as its antecedent; that is, the pronoun is interpreted as obligatorily coreferential with this nominal expression. The details of the NSA and its empirical and conceptual consequences are worked out with reference to six constructions in which reflexive pronouns can occur: verbal object constructions, prepositional object constructions, double object constructions, infinitival constructions, small clause constructions, and possessive constructions. Brief attention is also given to the possibility of extending the ideas underlying the NSA to (i) languages of the Southern Bantu family, where the reflexive element surfaces as a verbal affix, and (ii) two further types of construction in Afrikaans which seem amenable to such a nominal shell approach, namely floating quantifier constructions and expletive daar (“there”) constructions.
- ItemOn establishing co-reference in left dislocation constructions(Stellenbosch University, Department of General Linguistics, 2016) Oosthuizen, JohanThe phenomenon of left dislocation (LD) has received relatively little attention in the generative literature. In Government & Binding theory and early versions of Minimalist Syntax, the left-dislocated expression is conventionally taken to be base-generated in its sentence-initial surface position and the resumptive pronoun in some other position in the structure. The establishment of an (obligatory) coreferential relationship between these expressions is usually ascribed to a special binding mechanism, A-bar binding, though this issue is seldom explicitly addressed in LD studies. The aim of this paper is to present, in broad outline, an alternative analysis of LD constructions, one that incorporates the core hypotheses of the nominal shell analysis of coreferential constructions put forward by Oosthuizen (2013a,b). On this analysis, the resumptive pronoun and the referring expression that is to serve as its antecedent are base-generated in a nominal shell structure which is headed by a presentational focus light noun, a functional category belonging to a natural class of identificational elements. The coreferential relationship between the two expressions is established within this structure by means of phi-feature valuation. The antecedent is subsequently raised into the left-periphery of the sentence, where it surfaces as the left-dislocated expression. It is claimed that such an analysis can account for the phenomenon of obligatory coreferentiality in LD constructions in terms of formal devices that are either already provided by or compatible with the basic assumptions and concepts of Minimalist Syntax. A tentative proposal is also put forward to account for the word order in LD constructions, specifically for the fact that left-dislocation does not bring about (surface) subject-verb inversion in V2 languages such as Afrikaans.
- ItemReflexives and reflexive constructions in Afrikaans(Stellenbosch University, Department of Linguistics, 2015) Oosthuizen, JohanThis article provides a non-formalistic description of the various reflexive pronouns in Afrikaans. In addition to the traditional class of reflexive pronouns, it is shown that possessive pronouns can also be used reflexively. The facts about (obligatory) reflexivity involving these two types of pronoun are illustrated with reference to several types of construction in which they can occur. It is moreover shown that, besides the subject, the reflexive can take as its antecedent an expression functioning as the direct object, indirect object or as a prepositional object. Attention is also given to a number of non-reflexive constructions, that is, constructions containing inherently non-reflexive verbs and prepositions which disallow a coreferential relationship between the pronoun and some other expression in the sentence.