Talk by Sterre Leufkens

On the 16th of February, Sterre Leufkens will give a talk on the use of articles vs possessive pronouns with kinship terms in Dutch, organized by the student association Babel.
All invited! The talk will take place at the Drift

Abstract

In Dutch, kinship terms are usually preceded by a possessive pronoun (e.g. mijn vader  ‘my father’). However, on Twitter, we find examples like the following, where the possessee noun is preceded by a definite article:

“Dus in Joggingbroek met kop koffie op de bank. Terwijl de kleuter in pyjama en ongekamde haartjes lekker zit te kleuren. De puber is nog niet gesignaleerd.”

‘So in sweat pants with cup of coffee on the couch. While the [my] toddler is coloring in their pajamas and with unbrushed hair. The [my] adolescent has not been seen yet.’

In this lecture, Sterre Leufkens will discuss the characteristics of this phenomenon and its communicative effects, both from a typological and theoretical point of view.