Lectal variation in constructional semantics:
“Benefactive” ditransitives in Dutch
Timothy Colleman
Abstract
This paper addresses the issue of lectal variation in constructional semantics
through an exploration of the semantic constraints on the so-called “benefactive”
ditransitive construction – i.e., the use of the ditransitive argument structure con-
struction [Sbj [V Obj1 Obj2]] to encode events which involve a beneficiary rather
than a (prototypical) recipient – in the two national varieties of Dutch. On the basis
of corpus data, it will be shown that this construction occurs more frequently in
Belgian than in Netherlandic Dutch. This difference in frequency will be ac-
counted for in terms of a semantic “contiguity” constraint, which greatly reduces
the lexical and semantic possibilities of the construction in (everyday registers of)
Netherlandic Dutch.
Keywords: constructional semantics, ditransitive construction, benefactive ditransi-
tive, regional variation, Construction Grammar, Belgian Dutch, Netherlandic
Dutch, dative
- Introduction*
One of the basic tenets of Construction Grammar and related constructionist
approaches to language is that abstract grammatical constructions such as
the ditransitive [Sbj [V Obj 1 Obj 2 ]] argument structure pattern are not fun-
damentally different from lexical items (or, in Construction Grammar terms,
from atomic lexically substantive constructions). That is, just like lexical
items, argument structure constructions are stored pairings of a certain form
with a certain meaning. Hence, a lot of work in Construction Grammar is
concerned with the elucidation of the semantics of abstract grammatical
constructions. An often-quoted example is Goldberg’s (1995) seminal
analysis of the English ditransitive as a polysemous category built around a
basic ‘Agent successfully causes recipient to receive patient’ sense.