4. Discourse continuity and the written medium: Continuative relative clauses in the history of Dutch
Gijsbert Rutten, van der Wal · 2016
The paper discusses the significant relativization change from d-forms into w-forms in the history of Dutch. Focusing on relative adverbs and relative pronominal adverbs in particular, we examine 17th-century data taken from the Leiden Letters as Loot Corpus, a collection of private letters written by men and women of all social ranks. It is shown that one specific type of relative clause appropriates w-forms at a remarkably fast rate, i.e. continuative relative clauses. Against the background of an evolutionary perspective on grammaticalization, the w-preference of continuative relative clauses is treated as an example of the syntactic coding of discourse continuity and in particular as an intersubjective effort to create coherence. Since continuative relative clauses are often considered typical of written language, the paper also provides evidence that the written medium may promote grammaticalization.