Advances in Cognitive Sociolinguistics (Cognitive Linguistic Research)

(Dana P.) #1

192 Timothy Colleman


It is well known that the semantic properties of lexical items are subject
to various kinds of lectal variation, however. Yet, if one accepts that sche-
matic argument structure constructions are meaningful linguistic entities in
their own right just like lexical items, it is only to be expected that, on care-
ful examination, such constructional meanings will be found to display a
certain amount of lectal variation as well. This has not been a major focus
of attention in Construction Grammar, but there are a number of studies
which report on such intralingual differences in constructional semantics,
including Wulff, Stefanowitsch and Gries (2007) on the distinct sets of
verbs most typically associated with the into-causative in British versus
American English and the associated constructional senses, Mukherjee and
Hoffmann (2006) on the wider semantic range of the ditransitive in Indian
English (as compared with standard British and American English) and
Webelhuth and Dannenberg (2006) on the specific semantic properties of
the “personal dative” construction in Southern American English.
The present study will address the issue of lectal variation in construc-
tional semantics through an exploration of the semantic constraints on the
so-called “benefactive” ditransitive construction in different (regional)
varieties of Dutch. While the Dutch ditransitive construction has already
attracted quite a lot of linguistic attention, the majority of existing studies
are framed in the context of the well-known dative alternation. They focus
on the relation between the ditransitive and so-called prepositional dative
constructions in which the indirect object participant is marked by a prepo-
sition, usually aan for recipients and voor for beneficiaries, which are rele-
vantly similar to the constructions with to and for in English, respectively
(but see Colleman and De Clerck 2009). The main aim of such studies is to
uncover the subtle semantic and/or discourse-pragmatic contrasts between
these “competing” constructions (see e.g. Schermer-Vermeer 1991, Van
Belle and Van Langendonck 1996, Janssen 1997, Colleman 2009a). In ad-
dition, the studies by Geeraerts (1998) and Colleman (2009b) examine the
semantic range of the Dutch ditransitive in its own right from a construc-
tionist perspective, providing overviews of the construction’s various uses
and subsenses. These studies do not deal with issues of lectal variation,
however. In this respect, the present article is the first to look into the
Dutch ditransitive from a combined constructionist and variational-
linguistic perspective.
The paper is structured as follows. The following section introduces the
“benefactive” ditransitive construction and summarizes existing claims
about its semantic range in different regional varieties of Dutch. Section 3

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