The word order in a phrase such as all John's friends, in which a universal quantifier is immediately followed by a genitive, is perfectly grammatical in Dutch but unacceptable in German. This article shows that there are three explanations for this difference between the two closely related languages. First, in German, the Saxon Genitive is a true case assigned in Spec, NP. In contrast, in Dutch and English, genitive case cannot be assigned in Spec, NP without a preposition. The Saxon Genitive in these languages is comparable to a possessive adjective that originates as the head of PossP and moves to D. Second, in a definite DP in a Germanic language, either D or Spec, DP must be occupied; if one of these positions is overtly occupied, and if genitive case has already been assigned, the movement of a genitive phrase to D or Spec, DP is unmotivated and causes ungrammaticality. Third, there is evidence that the -e inflection on the universal quantifier alle ‘all’ in German and Dutch has the characteristics of a determiner.*

This paper presents a corpus-based analysis of the semantics of the German am V-inf sein construction, or am-progressive. Like its English counterpart and many other progressive constructions in the world's languages, the am-progressive is shown to convey not only a variety of aspecto-temporal meanings, but also a range of (inter)subjective qualifications, such as intensification, irritation, and evasiveness. These (inter)subjective connotations are argued to reflect the am-progressive's core meaning of epistemic contingency, which we believe is instantiated in all of its uses.*

The quantifier viel changes from exhibiting properties of a head in Old High German to exhibiting properties of a modifier in Modern German. This is accompanied by changes in word order vis-à-vis its quantified constituent and the loss of the ability to assign genitive case to some of the quantified constituents. Assuming that quantifying expressions may have various syntactic representations, we argue that viel develops from a quantifying noun to a particle in Card0 to an adjectival quantifier in Spec, CardP, and that this structural change in the position of viel can account in part for the morphosyntactic properties of the quantified element. The development of viel from a quantifying noun to a quantifying particle—a case of head-to-head reanalysis—is typical of grammaticalization. However, the change from a particle to an adjectival quantifier represents head-to-specifier reanalysis, which we relate to degrammaticalization due to analogy with other inflected elements of the DP. The change in word order and case properties of the quantified constituent represents a third type of reanalysis, whereby an embedded nominal undergoes downward reanalysis. Depending on the structural size—that is, whether a DP-layer is present or not—the dependent nominal either integrates into the matrix nominal agreeing with viel or, if too large, it takes up a new embedded position as a complement of the matrix head noun, retaining genitive. We demonstrate that in each case, the morphological change lags behind the syntactic reanalysis.*

As a starting point, this paper offers a theoretical discussion of a number of widely used yet diversely conceived concepts: (standard) language ideology, identity, agency, and indexicality. Using these concepts, we analyze a number of illustrative interview extracts from a corpus of sociolinguistic interviews with Flemish primary and secondary school teachers. Our goal is twofold. First, we discuss how Flemish teachers perceive (the importance of) Standard Dutch and other, nonstandard varieties of Dutch. Second, we show how these perceptions discursively shape teacher identities of authenticity, authority, and professionalism.

Based on a comparative corpus study, the present paper contrasts conditionals containing the modal verbs sollte in German, should in English, and mocht/moest in Dutch. The conditionals are examined with respect to the linkage levels between protasis and apodosis, the tense/mood patterns in the two clauses, and the degree of syntactic integration of the protasis into the apodosis. We argue that sollte, should, mocht, and moest are undergoing a process of grammaticalization as markers of conditionality, understood as upwards reanalysis in the hierarchy of functional projections. We show that this grammaticalization process is at different stages in the different languages, not showing any “sandwich”-like pattern.

This paper investigates the possibility of subject omission in the history of Icelandic, including the syntactic and pragmatic conditions under which it could arise. Based on regression analysis of substantial data drawn from the IcePaHC corpus, we provide robust quantitative support for Hjartardóttir's (1987) claim that null subjects persist until a very late stage in Icelandic. We also argue, contra Sigurðsson (1993), that only one licensing mechanism is needed for null subjects in early Icelandic. Moreover, on the basis of the position of the null subjects and their person features, we argue that the modern stage, where (predominantly 3rd person) pro-drop yields to a system permitting topic drop of all persons, arises in Icelandic in the early twentieth century.*

All West Germanic languages possess periphrastic verb constructions in which a finite dummy auxiliary ‘do’ combines with an infinitival thematic verb (compare do-support in English and tun-periphrasis in German). In Frisian, periphrastic verb constructions are not very common. It is all the more surprising, therefore, to find a general periphrastic verb construction in Karrharde North Frisian that seems to go beyond the typology of these constructions in West Germanic to some extent: The construction is rather unconstrained, it features a mysterious dummy auxiliary wer- and, most strikingly, both the dummy auxiliary and the thematic verb are finite. In this article, the basic data on finite verb doubling in Karrharde North Frisian is presented, and the origin of the dummy auxiliary wer- is tracked down. A synchronic analysis of the construction is proposed that relates it to the periphrastic verb constructions in other West Germanic languages. It is shown that finite verb doubling is in most respects a garden variety periphrastic verb construction, and that its special properties can be traced back to the fact that the dummy auxiliary developed from the complementizer wer ‘if, whether’ (possibly under language contact with Danish).

This paper investigates three verbs expressing necessity in the three West Germanic languages: Dutch hoeven, English need, and German brauchen. These three verbs are all categorized as negative polarity items (npis). However, there are differences in their distribution as NPIs, which posit German brauchen between English need and Dutch hoeven. By analyzing two factors that may influence acquisition, namely, opacity and input frequency, this paper moreover presents a similar pattern for the acquisition of these NPIs: The Dutch NPI hoeven emerges earlier in child language than its German counterpart, which in turn arises earlier than the English NPI need.

This study discusses copy raising in English, German, and Dutch from both a synchronic and diachronic perspective. Synchronically, copy raising has the same purpose in all three languages: to mark direct evidence. However, the languages differ in whether they allow their ‘seem’-verbs to appear in copy-raised constructions: English seem can copy raise, German scheinen cannot, whereas the status of Dutch lijken is undecided. This difference is explained by the diachronic development of these verbs: English seem has developed the furthest along the grammaticalization cline of ‘seem’-verbs, German scheinen is the most conservative in its development, and Dutch lijken has developed quite late, but is quickly catching up to English seem. Even though it is too early to tell, this distribution hints at a Van Haeringen pattern.*