Nederlandse Taalkunde - Volume 27, Issue 2, 2022

This paper introduces three articles which each highlight a specific aspect of Dirk Geeraerts’ research in the field of Dutch linguistics. At the same time, some general observations are made regarding Geeraerts’ theoretical, methodological, and organizational contribution to linguistics.

This paper focuses on the merits of Dirk Geeraerts in the field of lexicology, lexicography and lexical semantics. The article highlights some of the major achievements and insights in the field developed by Geeraerts. From the very first beginning of his research and the publication of his PhD, his work at the Institute for Dutch Lexicology up to the development of his academic career at KU Leuven, Geeraerts’ research focus is on the lexicon. The paper highlights how this research was born out of, and nurtured by, an ongoing dialectic between the practice of lexicography and the theoretical framework of Cognitive Linguistics.

This paper focuses on the merits of Dirk Geeraerts in the field of (diachronic) lexical semantics. The article highlights Geeraerts’ work on prototypes and metaphor. Some of Geeraerts’ most illuminating case-studies are reviewed and a number of characteristic features of this part of Geeraerts’ work are identified and presented.

The research of Dirk Geeraerts and his team has extensively documented, analyzed and discussed the diachronic and synchronic (stylistic) stratification of Belgian and Netherlandic Dutch, and the relationship between the two. While its relevance for the sociolinguistics of the Low Countries cannot be overestimated, due to its substantive and methodological coherence and rigor, it also transcends Dutch variational linguistics. More specifically, the lectometric approach provides an instrument for measuring the distance between varieties of pluricentric languages and for finetuning the concept of (de)standardization. Finally, the wide variety of case studies produced by Geeraerts and colleagues fuel the debate on the position of (sub)standard Dutch in Flanders.

Adverbs of degree are prone to undergo change, and new adverbs frequently emerge through grammaticalisation. These adverbs tend to adhere to various syntactic and semantic restrictions that govern their usage depending on their degree of grammaticalisation (Klein 1998). During the grammaticalisation process, they first tend to expand in function and then become more specialised (Bolinger 1972, Klein 1998). This article provides documentation for the usage of the different adverbs of degree in Early Middle Dutch, and draws comparisons with Modern Dutch in order to shed light on the changes that led to the present situation. Using data from the Corpus Gysseling (2013), the present study focuses on eight adverbs. These include adverbs of high degree (harde, vele, sere, grotelike, utermaten), low degree (een deel, iewet), a negative polarity item (buere) and a modifier of comparatives. Some of these are still around in Modern Dutch, but with differences in distribution (veel) or in register (zeer), while others have disappeared (een deel). We present evidence that distributional patterns may be preserved even when the adverbs themselves are replaced by other expressions. We also found that the high degree adverbs show greater distinctions than those of low degree.

Many languages use verbs of perception to express evidentiality. This paper studies the evidential use of the object-oriented perception verb eruitzien ‘look’ in Dutch. The results of a Twitter corpus study show that, whereas ziet eruit alsof ‘looks as if’ occasionally comes with an evidential interpretation, the construction ziet ernaar uit ‘looks like’ predominantly expresses inferential evidentiality. A diachronic investigation shows how the evidential reading of this construction developed from the object-oriented use of the verb, through a stage in which the construction is used to mark a prediction. This predictive reading, which is still available in present-day Dutch, is not evidential. It does not indicate a speaker has supporting evidence for a factual claim, but rather they have evidence for something they expect to become a fact in the near future. Our diachronic study also reveals how another construction, with a subject-oriented verb (eruit) zien ‘see (from it)’, once used to be an expression of inferential evidentiality as well. This particular construction appears to have lost the competition to its object-oriented counterpart ziet ernaar uit ‘looks like’, as it is no longer attested. We argue that the construction ziet ernaar uit ‘looks like’ has fully developed into an evidential construction, since its current primary function is to express evidentiality.

In present-day Frisian there is an ongoing change in the inflection of verbs. Frisian has two classes of regular verbs (class I and class II), and for some speakers of Frisian some verbs or verb forms appear to shift from class II to class I. In her 2021 dissertation Changes in Modern Frisian inflection Anne Merkuur presents an empirical investigation of these and some related changes, and discusses how they can be explained. In her analysis she makes use of the theory of productivity developed in Yang (2016) that aims to make a principled distinction between productive and unproductive rules. A rule is only productive if there are not too many exceptions, and this tolerance threshold can be computed. Merkuur argues that both class I and class II verbs are subject to productive rules, and thus the number of class I verbs can in principle be extended. Yet, the external factor of language contact between Frisian and Dutch appears to be a crucial factor in these morphological changes. This review article provides a critical discussion of the theoretical models and concepts used in Merkuur’s analysis, and additional considerations for why language contact between Frisian and Dutch must be a crucial factor in this kind of morphological change.