| dc.description.abstract | In Dutch it is customary to use posture verbs not only to describe the positions of humans, but to describe the position of objects as well. In cases in which English would just use the verb “to be”, Dutch would, in most cases, use one of the three posture verbs: ‘zitten’, ‘staan’, and ‘liggen’. The question now is: which one to use when? Although there have been some articles on this subject, the exact processes behind the decision between these posture verbs is not completely clear. These articles mostly focus on the different posture verbs used with different object. This research, on the other hand, focuses on the effects of the canonicity of the location the object is in, the height of the location the object is on, and also on the functionality of both the object and its location. Due to the somewhat default status of the verb zitten, meaning it is mainly used when the two other verbs do not apply, this research focuses on those other two.
Via an experiment in which respondents are shown photos of different objects in different locations in which different factors are varied, an attempt is made to find a dissimilarity between how often a verb, liggen or staan, is used with the photographs of objects that have a certain factor or do not.
In the end it was found that indeed the canonicity of the location of the object, the functionality of the object, the height of the object and the perspective with which the object was viewed had their influence. The fact that all sorts of factors associated with the object influence the choice of posture verb supports the idea of prototype theory. | |
