Tracking shifts in the literal versus the intensifying fake reflexive resultative construction
The development of intensifying dood ‘dead’ in 19th–20th Century Dutch
This paper explores diachronic shifts in the literal and intensifying uses of dood ‘dead’ in the Dutch fake reflexive
resultative construction. Without sufficient context, a clause like Hij werkte zich dood (lit. ‘He worked himself dead’) is
ambiguous in that it is unclear whether dood expresses an actual result of the activity denoted by the verb or whether it
intensifies that verbal activity. We will investigate shifts in the (relative) type and token frequencies of both subtypes over the last two
centuries and show that the intensifying use has become predominant. Particular attention is paid to the notion of productivity, which may
help us to elucidate the possible pathways along which dood – in its function as an intensifier – is moving. By taking into
account the variety of verbs that dood has occurred with since the early 19th Century, we aim to assess whether the
dramatic increase in relative frequency of intensifying dood is paralleled by a concomitant extension of its collocational
range or, conversely, whether this increase in frequency is mainly due to the rise of some highly frequent collocations.
References
Delpher
The online database of digitized Dutch newspapers from 1618–1995. Available at
[URL]
SoNaR =
500 million word Dutch reference corpus; see
[URL] and Oostdijk et al. (
2013)
Van Dale =
Boon, Ton den, and
Dirk Geeraerts 2005 Van Dale: Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal: 3 Dl. (14e dr.). Utrecht: Van Dale Lexicografie.

WNT
Online version of Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal
, made available at
[URL] by the Institute for Dutch Lexicology. Most recent version: 10th December 2015
Aronoff, Mark
1976 Word Formation in Generative Grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Baayen, Harald R.
1990 “
Corpusgebaseerd onderzoek naar morfologische produktiviteit [
Corpus-based research into morphological productivity].”
Spektator 191: 213–233.

Baayen, Harald R.
1992 “
Quantitative Aspects of Morphological Productivity.” In
Yearbook of Morphology 1991, ed. by
Geert Booij, and
Jaap van Marle, 109–149. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.


Baayen, Harald R.
1993 “
On Frequency, Transparency and Productivity.” In
Yearbook of Morphology 1992, ed. by
Geert Booij, and
Jaap van Marle, 181–208. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.


Baayen, Harald R.
2009 “
Corpus Linguistics in Morphology: Morphological Productivity.” In
Corpus Linguistics. An International Handbook., ed. by
Anke Lüdeling, and
Merja Kytö, 900–919. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.


Baayen, Harald R., and Rochelle Lieber
1991 “
Productivity and English Derivation: A Corpus-based Study.”
Linguistics 29 (5): 801–844.


Barðdal, Jóhanna, and Spike Gildea
Barðdal, Jóhanna, Kristian Emil Kristoffersen, and Andreas Sveen
2011 “
West Scandinavian Ditransitives as a Family of Constructions: With a Special Attention to the Norwegian V-REFL-NP Construction.”
Linguistics 49 (1): 53–104.


Boas, Hans C.
2003 A Constructional Approach to Resultatives. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.

Bolinger, Dwight L.
1972 Degree words. Den Haag: Mouton.


Booij, Geert
1977 Dutch Morphology. A Study of Word Formation in Generative Grammar. Dordrecht: Foris.


Broekhuis, Hans, Norbert Corver, and Riet Vos
2015 Syntax of Dutch. Verbs and Verb Phrases Vol 1. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.


Bybee, Joan
1988 “
Morphology as Lexical Organization.” In
Theoretical Morphology: Approaches in Modern Linguistics, ed. by
Michael Hammond, and
Michael Noonan, 119–141. London: Academic Press.

Cappelle, Bert
2014 “
Conventional Combinations in Pockets of Productivity: English Resultatives and Dutch Ditransitives Expressing Excess.” In
Extending the Scope of Construction Grammar, ed. by
Ronny Boogaart,
Timothy Colleman, and
Gijsbert Rutten, 251–282. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.

Colleman, Timothy, and Bernard De Clerck
2011 “
Constructional Semantics on the Move: On Semantic Specialization in the English Double Object Construction.”
Cognitive Linguistics 221: 183–209.


De Clerck, Bernard, and Timothy Colleman
2013 “
From Noun to Intensifier: massa and massa’s in Flemish Varieties of Dutch.”
Language Sciences 361: 147–160.


Espinal, Teresa M., and Jaume Mateu
2010 “
On Classes of Idioms and Their Interpretation.”
Journal of Pragmatics 42 (5): 1397–1411.


Everaert, Martin, and Alexis Dimitriadis
2013 On Reflexive Resultatives. Lecture given at the Workshop Secondary Predication in Formal Frameworks at Utrecht University on 27 May 2013.

Goldberg, Adele E.
1995 Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Goldberg, Adele E.
2013 “
Constructionist Approaches.” In
The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar, ed. by
Thomas Hoffmann, and
Graeme Trousdale, 15–31. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Goldberg, Adele E., and Ray Jackendoff
2004 “
The English Resultative as a Family of Constructions.”
Language 80 (3): 532–568.


Goodman, Leo A., and William H. Kruskal
1954 “
Measure of Association for Cross Classifications.”
Journal of the American Statistical Association 49 (268): 732–764.

Gould, Madelyn S.
2001 “
Suicide and the Media.”
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 932 (1): 200–224.


Gyselinck, Emmeline, and Timothy Colleman
In press. “
Je dood vervelen of je te pletter amuseren? Het intensiverende gebruik van de pseudo-reflexieve resultatiefconstructie in hedendaags Belgisch en Nederlands Nederlands [
Je dood vervelen or je te pletter amuseren? The intensifying use of the pseudo-reflexive resultative construction in present-day Belgian and Netherlandic Dutch].”
Handelingen van de Koninklijke Zuid-Nederlandse Maatschappij voor Taal- en Letterkunde en Geschiedenis LXX.
Hilpert, Martin
2013 Constructional Change in English : Developments in Allomorphy, Word Formation, and Syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


Himmelmann, Nikolaus
2004 “
Lexicalization and Grammaticization: Opposite or Orthogonal?” In
What Makes Grammaticalization – A Look from Its Fringes and Its Components, ed. by
Walter Bisang,
Nikolaus Himmelmann, and
Björn Wiener, 19–40. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.

Hiramatsu, Keijiro
2003 “
Fake Reflexive Objects and Run Verbs.”
Osaka University Papers in English Linguistics 81: 1–21.

Hoeksema, Jack
2012 “
Elative Compounds in Dutch: Properties and Developments.” In
Intensivierungskonzepte bei Adjektiven und Adverbien im Sprachvergleich [
Cross-linguistic comparison of intensified adjectives and adverbs], ed. by
Guido Oebel, 97–142. Hamburg: Verlag dr. Kovač.

Huang, James
2006 “
Resultatives and Unaccusatives: a Parametric View.”
Bulletin of the Chinese Linguistic Society of Japan 20061: 1–43.


Iwata, Seizi
2006 “
Argument Resultatives and Adjunct Resultatives in a Lexical Constructional Account: The Case of Resultatives with Adjectival Result Phrases.”
Language Sciences 28 (5): 449–496.


Jackendoff, Ray
1997 “
Twisting the Night Away.”
Language 731: 534–559.


Kiss, Katalin É.
2006 “
The Function and the Syntax of the Verbal Particle.” In
Event Structure and the Left Periphery – Studies on Hungarian, ed. by
Katalin É. Kiss, 17–55. Dordrecht: Springer.


Kudo, Shun
2011 “
A Comparative Study between Resultative Constructions and Body Part Off Constructions.”
Tsubaka English Studies 291: 169–185.

Margerie, Hélène
2011 “
Grammaticalising Constructions: To Death as a Peripheral Degree Modifier.”
Folia Linguistica Historica 32 (1): 115–147.

Méndez-Naya, Belén
2003 “
On Intensifiers and Grammaticalization: The Case of swithe
.”
English Studies 84 (4): 372–391.


Müller, Stefan
2006 “
Phrasal or Lexical Constructions?”
Language 82 (4): 850–883.


Napoli, Donna J., and Jack Hoeksema
Oostdijk, Nelleke, Martin Reynaert, Veronique Hoste, and Ineke Schuurman
2013 “
The Construction of a 500 Million Word Reference Corpus of Contemporary Written Dutch.” In
Essential Speech and Language Technology for Dutch: Results by the STEVIN-project, ed. by
Peter Spijns, and
Jan Odijk. 219–247. Berlin: Springer.


Phillips, David P.
1974 “
The Influence of Suggestion on Suicide: Substantive and Theoretical Implications of the Werther Effect.”
American Sociological Review 391: 340–354.


Rappaport Hovav, M., and Beth Levin
2001 “
An Event Structure Account of English Resultatives.”
Language 771: 766–797.


Sawada, Shigeyasu
2000 “
The Semantics of the ‘Body Part Off’ Construction.”
English Linguistics 17 (2): 361–385.


Schultink, Henk
1961 “
Produktiviteit als morfologisch fenomeen [
Productivity as a morphological phenomenon].”
Forum der Letteren 21: 100–125.

Schultink, Henk
1962 De morfologische valentie van het ongelede adjectief in Modern Nederlands [
The morphological valency of the simplex adjective in Modern Dutch]. Den Haag: Van Goor.

Simpson, Jane
1983 “
Resultatives.” In
Papers in Lexical-functional Grammar, ed. by
Lori Levin,
Malka Rappaport, and
Annie Zaenen, 143–157. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.

Stack, Steven
1996 “
The Effect of the Media on Suicide: Evidence From Japan, 1955–1985.”
Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior 26 (2): 132–142.

Stoffel, Cornelis
1901 Intensives and Down-toners: a Study in English Adverbs. Heidelberg: C. Winter's Universitätsbuchhandlung.

Traugott, Elizabeth C., and Graeme Trousdale
2013 Constructionalization and Constructional Changes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.


Van de Velde, Freek
2011 “
Left-peripheral Expansion of the English NP.”
English Language and Linguistics 15 (2): 387–415.


Van Marle, Jaap
1985 On the Paradigmatic Dimension of Morphological Creativity. Dordrecht: Foris.

Washio, Ryuichi
1997 “
Resultatives, Compositionality and Language Variation.”
Journal of East Asian Linguistics 61: 1–49.


Wechsler, Stephen, and Bokyung Noh
2001 “
Predication and Anaphora: Parallels Between Korean and English Resultatives.”
Language Sciences 231: 391–423.


Zeldes, Amir
2012 Productivity in Argument Selection: From Morphology to Syntax. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.


Zeschel, Arne
2012 Incipient Productivity: a Construction-Based Approach to Linguistic Creativity. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.


Cited by
Cited by 3 other publications
Hoeksema, Jack
2023.
Elative Compounds. In
The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Morphology,
► pp. 1 ff.

Hoeksema, Jack & Donna Jo Napoli
2019.
Degree Resultatives as Second-Order Constructions.
Journal of Germanic Linguistics 31:3
► pp. 225 ff.

Shyldkrot, Hava Bat-Zeev & Einat Kuzai
2022.
Life and Death Expressions in Hebrew Through Time. In
Developing Language and Literacy [
Literacy Studies, 23],
► pp. 703 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 november 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.