Taalkunde liefhebbers? HELP!

Ik weet dat dit geen forum is, maar ik loop tegen een best wel vervelend probleem aan met mijn scriptie die maandag ingeleverd moet zijn. Dus ik hoop dat jullie me willen vergeven dat ik een noodgreep doe en de vraag die ik op een taalkunde forum stelde hier herhaal. Als iemand me hiermee kan helpen dan ben ik voor eeuwig dankbaar!




Hi!

I would very much like to get some help with the following problem. I'm writing my bachelor thesis at the moment, it is a comparative research between subject drop in French chat language and Dutch chat language. My deadline is next Monday (*bites fist*), so I'm in a bit of a hurry with this. I've been working on my theoretical framework for a while now, and I had a pretty decent argument built up when it comes to the situations we encounter in Dutch. To make it short and sweet I'll sum them up for you. I'm adding one full tree analysis thingy (I got so frustrated by this that I resorted to calling everything in my thesis a thingy.):

1. Contrastive left dislocation:
Jan, die ken ik niet.
Jan, that know I not.
'Jan, I don't know.'
[Topic Topic-i] [CP D-Word-i [IP V-fin... t-i...]]

[XP [Morgen-i][CP [Spec Ø-i][C'[C werkt] [IP [Spec zij] [VP t-i t-j thuis]]]]]

2. Topicalization:
Morgen werkt Jan thuis.
Tomorrow works Jan home.
'Jan is working at home tomorrow.'
[Topic Topic-i] [CP OP-i [IP V-fin... t-i...]]

3. Clause external topic drop:
Die ken ik niet.
That know I not.
'I don't know him.'
[Topic Ø-i] [CP D-Word-i [IP V-fin... t-i...]]

4. Topic drop:
Ken je Jan? Ken ik niet.
Know you Jan? Know I not.
'Do you know Jan? I don't know (him).'
[Topic Ø-i] [CP OP-i [IP V-fin... t-i...]]

So far this seems pretty decent, right? It makes sense to me anyway. However, my tutor was so kind to point out to me that in my analysis I run into a practical problem. In Dutch we can produce a grammatically correct sentence when we say:

Jan ken ik niet.
Jan I know not.
'I don't know Jan.'

However, in my analysis this could be considered a drop of a topicalized sentence, even if it's not! I need to re-analyse these four cases now and bring the topic under the CP head rather than the XP head, and this is where my problem lies. I have absolutely no idea hoe to do that!

Is there anyone who can explain it to me or redirect me to a place where this is explained? Pretty please? I'd be eternally grateful and I'd even bake brownies for you (though I can't recommend that, I am a terrible cook and I can just see the waft of smoke coming from my oven and filling my kitchen in my attempt to make you those brownies).

Thank you so much in advance! (I hope the question is clear by the way.)
06 jul 2011 - bewerkt op 06 jul 2011 - meld ongepast verhaal
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