In this paper, the author elaborates a 'lexicogrammatical' approach to the locative alternation in Dutch and English, in which the semantics of the constructions is related directly to the semantic features of their verbs. First the author takes stock of the different verb classes associated with one or both variants in Dutch and English. Whereas both the spray and the load-classes alternate in English, only the spray-verbs do so in Dutch. However, the alternating spray-class is much more extended in Dutch, which the author then argues, is partly due to the use of the prefix be- in Dutch in one of the variants. Be- has an applicative meaning, and is used to bring out the correspondence between Patients designating a surface and the locative Process. When they are not prefixed by be-, these verbs have a primarily dispersive meaning, which tends to collocate with the Patient designating the substance.