Internationale Neerlandistiek - Volume 53, Issue 1, 2015

This article discusses the way in which the VPOS+and+VINF-periphrastic construction is used in Afrikaans to express progressive aspectual meaning. The discussion is based on the results of a corpus based investigation which examined the specific ways in which the use of this construction differs from that of the other two Afrikaans periphrastic progressive constructions, namely the aan+die/’t+VINF construction and the is+besig+om+te+VINF-construction. Since three peer constructions can be identified in Dutch (i.e. the VPOS+te+VINF, the aan+het+VINF and the zijn+bezig+te+VINFconstruction), the Afrikaans VPOS en-construction was, where relevant, compared with the Dutch VPOS te-construction. The article also shows the way in which the VPOS en-construction came into being. To indicate the way in which the use of this construction differs from the uses of the other constructions mentioned, the grammaticalisation theory was used to firstly look at the frequency of the construction and secondly at the verb collocations of this construction.

This article explores the discursive role of intertextual references to medieval Persian poets, representatives of the Sufi tradition, in the work of Kader Abdolah, the internationally successful Dutch author of Iranian descent. Most references are authorial ones, that is, they do not refer to a particular text, but to the author of the text, sometimes in a fictionalized form, sometimes mentioning him as a historical figure. At first glance many of these references seem to be redundant elements of the narrative, merely responsible for creating an exoticism effect. Nevertheless, applying Bourdieu’s theoretical perspective on the formation of cultural capital, they can be assumed to fulfill an important strategic purpose. Firstly, they may allow Abdolah to position himself in the Dutch literary field as a writer-refugee, thus seeking connection with a tradition that is commonly positively received by a West-European readership. Secondly, they enhance prestige of the author, signaling Abdolah as a descendant of a classical literary tradition.