Chapter published in:
Category Change from a Constructional Perspective
Edited by Kristel Van Goethem, Muriel Norde, Evie Coussé and Gudrun Vanderbauwhede
[Constructional Approaches to Language 20] 2018
► pp. 179–206

Chapter 7
The emergence of a new adverbial downtoner

Constructional change and constructionalization of Dutch [ver van X] and [verre van X] ‘far from X’

The English expression far from, denoting spatial or metaphorical distance, has developed into an adverbial downtoner (De Smet, 2012). In this corpus-based study, our first purpose is to analyze to which degree the Dutch counterparts of the English [far from X] construction, that is [ver van X] and [verre van X], have also developed into downtoners. We show that synchronically ver van mostly has a spatial or metaphorical meaning, while verre van is generally used as an adverbial downtoner. As a second objective, we explore the diachronic pathways taken by both constructions and argue that the category change undergone by [verre van X] is part of a true constructionalization process, while [ver van X] has been affected by minor constructional changes only.
Keywords: downtoner, degree adverb, Dutch, category change, constructional change, constructionalization
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Downtoners
  • 3.[ver van X] and [verre van X] in present-day Dutch
    • 3.1Method
    • 3.2Semantics
    • 3.3Complementation patterns
  • 4.Diachronic developments
    • 4.1Method
    • 4.2[ver van X]
      • 4.2.1Semantic changes
      • 4.2.2Changes in the complementation types
    • 4.3[verre van X]
      • 4.3.1Semantic changes
      • 4.3.2Changes in the complementation types
    • 4.4Comparison [ver van X] and [verre van X]
  • 5.Category change, constructional change and constructionalization
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Online sources
Published online: 22 March 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.20.07goe
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Online sources

COW (Corpora from the Web)
Available online at: https://​webcorpora​.org/
CGN (Corpus Gesproken Nederlands)
Available online at: http://​lands​.let​.ru​.nl​/cgn/
CHK (Corpus Historische Kranten)
Available online at: http://​www​.delpher​.nl​/nl​/kranten
TwNC (Twente News Corpus)
Available online at: http://​hmi​.ewi​.utwente​.nl​/TwNC
WNT (Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal)
Available online at: http://​gtb​.inl​.nl/
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Brinton, Laurel J. & Tohru Inoue
2020.  In Late Modern English [Studies in Language Companion Series, 214], ► pp. 272 ff. Crossref logo
Koutsoukos, Nikos, Kristel Van Goethem & Hendrik De Smet
2018. Asymmetries, mismatches and construction grammar. Constructions and Frames 10:2 ► pp. 123 ff. Crossref logo

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