The relative high frequency of niet (not) compared to other licensing environments is even more striking in the adult speech directed to the children in the electronic corpus. See the following table:
| adults, written speech | adults to children | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| hoeven N=339 |
meer N=832 |
hoeven N=454 |
meer N=1128 | |
| niet (not) | 61% | 62% | 80% | 74% |
| other licensers | 39% | 38% | 20% | 26% |
It remains as yet unclear what this difference represents. It could be an example of motherese, of parents using short and simple forms in interaction with children. But the difference could equally well be the result of comparing written and spoken language with each other.
Up to Chapter 2 Table of Contents