Reviving the genitive. Prescription and practice in the Netherlands (1770-1840)

Area of Science:

• Historical sociolinguistics
• Corpus linguistics
• Language policy

Background:

• Historical metalinguistic discourse frequently promotes infrequent linguistic variants and discourages common ones.
• The Dutch genitive case exemplifies this, declining in usage since the 13th century but maintained in grammatical tradition.
• Official codification of standard Dutch in 1805 reinforced a preference for the genitive case, aiming to revive synthetic forms.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the discrepancy between prescriptive metalinguistic discourse and actual language use regarding the Dutch genitive case.
• To analyze the influence of prescription on language practices in 18th- and 19th-century Dutch.
• To explore genre differences and variation within genres in the context of prescriptive grammar.

Main Methods:

• Corpus-based analysis of 18th- and 19th-century Dutch texts.
• Examination of historical metalinguistic discourse and grammatical traditions.
• Sociolinguistic analysis of language variation and change.

Main Results:

• The study reveals a significant gap between prescriptive ideals and actual language use concerning the Dutch genitive case.
• Prescription efforts to revive the genitive case had limited success in influencing widespread language practices.
• Genre and specific textual contexts played a crucial role in the variation of genitive case usage.

Conclusions:

• The Dutch genitive case serves as a compelling example of the complex interplay between prescriptive grammar and language evolution.
• Prescriptive efforts, even when codified, may not override established language use patterns, especially across different genres.
• Understanding historical language policy requires analyzing both prescriptive texts and actual language corpora.