Van (neutraal) tussenwerpsel naar (positief ) evaluatief adjectief: - ça va en oké in het Nederlands

The present paper discusses the syntactic reanalysis and subsequent actualisation of ça va (‘okay’) that has recently taken place in (Belgian) Dutch, and that of OK/ oké in (Standard) Dutch, revealing how these two expressions have evolved quite comparatively. Both start out as interjections, but then set out to be used as predicative adjectives (N is ça va / oké), and subsequently move into attributive position. Moreover, in Belgian Dutch, ça va can also be used as an adverbial modifier of an adjective. Strikingly, both ça va and oké (but ça va in particular) have also undergone a semantic ev... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Lemmens, Maarten
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2013
Reihe/Periodikum: Internationale Neerlandistiek ; volume 51, issue 1, page 5-28 ; ISSN 1876-9071 2214-5729
Verlag/Hrsg.: Amsterdam University Press
Schlagwörter: Literature and Literary Theory / Linguistics and Language / Communication / Language and Linguistics
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-26761453
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
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Link(s) : http://dx.doi.org/10.5117/ivn2013.1.lemm

The present paper discusses the syntactic reanalysis and subsequent actualisation of ça va (‘okay’) that has recently taken place in (Belgian) Dutch, and that of OK/ oké in (Standard) Dutch, revealing how these two expressions have evolved quite comparatively. Both start out as interjections, but then set out to be used as predicative adjectives (N is ça va / oké), and subsequently move into attributive position. Moreover, in Belgian Dutch, ça va can also be used as an adverbial modifier of an adjective. Strikingly, both ça va and oké (but ça va in particular) have also undergone a semantic evolution, in which they shift from the meaning ‘mediocre, more or less’, to ‘good’. As such, the actualisation proves to be the catalyst for further grammaticalisation, which is particularly true for the adverbial use of ça va moving towards an intensifier. The study confirms that syntactic reanalysis and actualisation are driven by analogy (see also De Smet 2012); at the same time, it raises important theoretical questions as to the nature of grammaticalisation, especially in view of the emergence of new constructions with new (unpredictable) meanings.