In Between Description and Prescription: Analysing Metalanguage in Normative Works on Dutch 1550–1650

This paper is the first to perform a systematic quantitative analysis of the arguments used to motivate selections in grammatical entries from normative works on Standard Dutch written between ca. 1550 and 1650. Thus, it aims to obtain insight into what language ideologies were characteristic of this early modern period, what these reveal about how Standard Dutch took shape in its initiating phase, and what the differences are between the codification of Dutch in the early modern period (16th/17th century) and the (post)modern period (20th/21st century; analysed in earlier studies). Although c... Mehr ...