214 Timothy CollemanThis brings us to another dimension of lectal variation: the regional var-
iation described in the previous sections is complemented by register varia-
tion. The contiguity constraint may go a long way towards explaining the
distribution in everyday language, but, even in Netherlandic Dutch, the
benefactive ditransitive is still used with some degree of productivity in
certain text genres with a tendency for formal, archaic language. In view of
the wider semantic possibilities of the construction in earlier phases of the
language, this should of course not come as a surprise. By way of a brief
illustration, consider the Web examples with bouwen ‘build’ in (30). As
documented in Section 3 above, bouwen is not used with ditransitive syntax
a single time in the Netherlandic subcorpora of CONDIV and the Corpus of
spoken Dutch. Still, specialized Google queries in Dutch pages on the
WWW return quite a lot of examples of the kind illustrated in (30), often
from texts on religious, philosophical or esoteric subjects, or from poetry.^10
(30) a. Hoeveel duidelijker is dan nu dit, dat wij Hem niet een tempel moeten
bouwen, maar zelf een tempel moeten zijn.
http://www.theologienet.nl
‘Then how much more obvious is this: that we should not build Him a
temple, but rather be a temple ourselves.’
b. Bouw me een cel met vier wanden licht
Schenk me de vrijheid van je gezicht
http://www.amnesty.nl/bibliotheek_vervolg/boek_eenbriefvanjou
‘Build me a cell with four walls of light
Present me with the freedom of your face’These examples instantiate the same grammatical construction as the every-
day Belgian examples in (31), but, obviously, they represent an altogether
different register of language.(31) a. Ik wil mij een studioke bouwen en was zo eens aan het denken zijn er
bepaalde online shops waar je studio matriaal kan kopen?
<forum.belgiumdigital.com/showthread.php?t=24>
‘I’d like to build myself a little sound studio and was thinking like: are
there online-shops where you can buy studio equipment?’
b. Bouw me een pretpark, papa! [headline of an article about spoiled
Hollywood kids in Het Nieuwsblad, 31/10/2005]
‘Build me an amusement park, daddy!’