We will vote again for grammatical structure

December is always a month for pondering, stepping back and of course, lists. In 2016 we started elections with somewhat longer puffs in this column: the election of the grammatical structure of the decade. So, elections with words are not of a passing or gasping character, but a moment to reflect on what the past decade has brought us in the grammatical field.

Of course, actual developments will only become apparent within a half-century, because grammatical changes in particular are occurring at an icy pace, but a decade has passed more than a year.

How are elections conducted? The plan is that you can vote in the last week of the year, and we’ll complete the nominations in the remaining time. In recent years, five syntactic structures have already been nominated: the new use of the additive (“Dat is niet des Feyenoords”), the use of time indicators as a symbolic part of the proverb (“This is 2019”) and relatively recent developments, but also the endangered ”x of a Y “(” baby treasure “,” baby cloud “) cursing” I am like … “. But also the regional color “I have a hole in the frame” (“having” with a thing and a property) has been suggested by you as something that has been strongly noticed in the past ten years.

What are the rules of the game? It should be real build. This means: You must be able to fill in multiple words. For example, “I like” looks like a fixed expression, but you can add any quote. And “X of a Y” is limited (you can’t just use any word), but you also have a “man tree” or “movie dragon”.

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You can submit your nominations until Wednesday, December 23rd. Next week we will vote.

In the language section, grammatical controversies, linguistic puzzles, and other linguistic doubts are clarified for you by Peter-Arno Coppen and Ton den Boon. Do you also have a language question? Mail to [email protected] From [email protected].

Sophie Baker

"Award-winning music trailblazer. Gamer. Lifelong alcohol enthusiast. Thinker. Passionate analyst."

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