The gift of the gap: a study of Dutch and Swedish learners' use of the English zero relativizer

• The zero relativizer, as in "Places _ I have seen", is used in English and in Nordic languages but in no other Germanic language. On the basis of a corpus of learner essays in English (ICLE) the article investigates to what extent advanced Dutch learners, without the help of positive transfer, match Swedish learners, who have exactly the same zero construction in their first language, in their use of the English zero relativizer.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Studier av enskilda språk (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- Specific Languages (hsv//eng)

Keyword

corpus linguistics

syntax

zero

relative clause

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)