Advances in Cognitive Sociolinguistics (Cognitive Linguistic Research)

206 Timothy Colleman

subevents involved in this kind of benefaction event, viz. (i) the preparatory

act, i.e. the creation or the obtainment, and (ii) the actual transfer of the

product of this preparatory act to the recipient-beneficiary. Fillmore (2007:

134) makes a similar observation: in his terms, the ditransitive clause I

bought my sister a harmonica “evokes a complex scenario involving two

phases or sub-events: the purchase of the harmonica and its subsequent

presentation to the speaker’s sister”.

4.3. The degree of contiguity required between the two subevents

4.3.1. Restrictive varieties

The hypothesis to be developed in this subsection is that the different re-
gional varieties of Dutch form a cline with regard to the degree of contiguity
required between the preparatory act and the actual transfer. In the most
restrictive variety, i.e. standard Netherlandic Dutch, both subevents almost
need to coincide for the ditransitive to be possible. This largely restricts the
possibilities to cases such as iemand een drankje inschenken ‘to pour sb a
drink’ and iemand een bord groenten opscheppen ‘to dish sb up a plate of
vegetables’, i.e., to cases where the two subevents are virtually indistin-
guishable, so that the overall event could just as well be construed as a sin-
gle act of giving. Schermer-Vermeer (1991: 219) hints at a similar explana-
tion when she states that in (6a) and (6b) above, repeated here for
convenience as (17), the verbs inschenken and opscheppen mean as much as
“door middel van inschenken, respectievelijk opscheppen geven” [to give
by means of pouring or dishing up].

(17) a. De ober heeft Piet een kop koffie ingeschonken.

‘The waiter has poured Pete a cup of coffee.’

b. Zal ik jou eens een lekker bord boerenkool opscheppen?

‘Shall I dish you up a tasty plate of kale?’

There is independent evidence for the construal of such benefactive events

of food provision as single acts of giving, in that inschenken ‘pour’ and

opscheppen ‘dish up, ladle out’ can also be used in a number of other three-

participant constructions which are normally reserved for verbs of giving.