Auxiliary choice with particle verbs of motion in Dutch

Abstract

There is a long tradition of analyzing the use of the Dutch perfect auxiliaries hebben “have” and zijn “be” in semantic terms, which has centered around two notions: “change in the subject referent” and “telicity”. The present study argues that “change in the subject referent” is the most viable generalization, in light of attested examples with three particle verbs of motion: omdraaien “turn around”, weglopen “walk/run away” and afdalen “descend (off)”. While (telic) particle verbs are commonly said to take only zijn “be” as their perfect auxiliary, the three particle verbs studied here are shown to occur with hebben as well as zijn, in contexts that do not differ in terms of telicity. These data can be accounted for if the traditional notion of “change in the subject referent” is considered against the background of the cognitive-grammar notion of construal. In particular, the present study argues that zijn is used with these particle verbs when the motion event is construed as a (telic or atelic) change of state on the part of the subject referent, while hebben is used when it is construed as a subject’s executing or engaging in a (telic or atelic) type of act.

Keywords:

• Dutch perfect auxiliaries
• particle verbs of motion
• construal
• attested data
• telicity
• change of state
• type of act

1. Introduction

Verbal particles have been observed to have an effect on perfect auxiliary choice in Dutch. Van Hout (1996; 2004), for example, lists several one-argument verbs that “switch” from hebben “have” to zijn “be” when a “goal” particle is added. Her examples include manner of motion verbs, such as lopen “walk” in (1), taking hebben in (1a), yet zijn in (1b), where it is combined with the “goal” particle weg “away”. Other examples are wegzwemmen “swim away”, omdraaien “turn around”, and uitvaren “sail out” (van Hout 1996, 56; for descriptions and more examples of the same effect, see Booij 1990, 53–54; Zaenen 1993, 137; Lieber and Baayen 1997, 819–821; and Broekhuis 2013, 135).¹

Table

(1)	a.	John	heeft	de	hele	nacht	gelopen	(van Hout 1996, 332)
		John	has	the	whole	night	walked
		‘John walked all night.’

Table

	b.	John	is	weggelopen	(van Hout 1996, 332)
		John	is	away.walked
		‘John walked away.’

There is a long tradition of analyzing the use of the Dutch perfect auxiliaries, hebben “have” and zijn “be”, in semantic terms. This tradition can be said to have centered around two notions: “change in the subject referent” and “telicity”. Van Hout (1996; 2004) is a strong advocate of “telicity” as the relevant explanatory principle (see also Zaenen 1988, 1993; Sorace 2000): zijn is used with telic intransitive predicates (i.e., those with a “moment of temporal transition”, van Hout 1996, 108), while hebben is used with atelic ones. Van Hout uses temporal adverbials to diagnose telicity (cf. Dowty 1979): by itself, a manner of motion verb describes an “atelic Process” (van Hout 2008, 421) and is therefore compatible with a durative (atelic) adverbial such as de hele nacht “all night”, cf. (1a). When a manner of motion verb is combined with a particle (1b) or a prepositional phrase (2) specifying the goal of the motion event, they together describe a “telic Transition”, that is, a “Transition from a P[rocess …] to a resultative S[tate]” (van Hout 2008, 421). In such cases, the predicate is compatible with a frame (or telic) adverbial, such as in 5 minuten “in five minutes”:

Table

(2)	John	is	in	5	minuten	naar	de	bus	gelopen. (van Hout 1996, 332)
	John	is	in	5	minutes	to	the	bus	walked
	‘John walked to the bus within 5 minutes.’

While the generalization in terms of telicity can account for many particle verbs, there are some that show deviant behavior, especially when examples gathered from the Internet are taken into account. The present study shows that the particle verbs omdraaien “turn around”, weglopen “walk/run away” and afdalen “descend (off)” occur with hebben as well as zijn, in contexts that do not differ in terms of telicity. That is, omdraaien and weglopen are telic in that they involve a moment of temporal transition, namely when the subject referent is “facing the other way” (omdraaien) or “away” (weglopen). Afdalen is aspectually more varied, in that it can be telic or atelic, depending on the context (similar to “degree achievements”, cf. Hay, Kennedy, and Levin 1999, and Section 5 below). All three particle verbs, however, combine with both zijn and hebben in ways that cross-cut the telic-atelic distinction.

Rather than seeing such examples as exceptions, the present paper argues that they provide evidence for an alternative analysis of Dutch auxiliary choice with motion verbs. This alternative relies on the notion of “change in the subject referent”, which has a long history in the literature on auxiliary choice in Dutch (cf. te Winkel 1837; Kern 1912; de Vooys 1947; Honselaar 1987; Shannon 1990, 1995; Lieber and Baayen 1997). At first sight, this may not seem a viable explanatory principle either, because each of the three particle verbs describes a motion event in which the subject referent undergoes a change (be it telic or atelic). The present study argues, however, that the traditional notion suffices when seen against the background of the cognitive-grammar notion of construal: our cognitive ability to conceptualize an event (or entity or property) in different ways (e.g., Langacker 1987, 138). In that sense, the present study is an extension of the analysis of motion verbs presented in Beliën (2012, 2014): it argues that zijn is used when the motion event is construed as a (telic or atelic) change of state (on the part of the subject referent), while hebben is used when it is construed as a subject’s executing or engaging in a (telic or atelic) type of act.

This proposal is described in Section 2 in the context of existing literature, focusing especially on types of examples that have been little studied so far: the use of hebben in the case of motion events with a specified endpoint, and the use of zijn with motion events that are atelic. Then, the three particle verbs are analyzed in terms of it: omdraaien “turn around” in Section 3, weglopen “walk away” in Section 4, and afdalen “descend (off)” in Section 5.

2. A revival of the notion of “change in the subject referent”

In recent work, I have argued that the use of hebben and zijn with motion verbs can be accounted for in terms of a (telic or atelic) “type of act” vs. a (telic or atelic) “change of state” (Beliën 2008, 2012, 2014).² This is inspired by Honselaar (1987), who proposes that auxiliary choice in Dutch can be accounted for in terms of “change in subject” (zijn) and “no change in subject” (hebben). This distinction has a long history in the literature on Dutch auxiliary choice (see e.g., te Winkel 1837; Kern 1912; de Vooys 1947; Shannon 1995; Lieber and Baayen 1997). Honselaar (1987) stands out, however, because he applies it to a wider range of examples than any other study that I am aware of.

The present section focuses on telic examples of motion verbs with hebben, and atelic ones with zijn, because they have received little attention in the literature so far (and some linguists have simply considered them to be ungrammatical). The examples can be explained, however, in terms of the notions “type of act” and “change of state” if also the idea of “construal” is taken into account, cf. e.g., Langacker (1987, 138):

The full conceptual or semantic value of a conceived situation is a function of not only its content […], but also how we structure this content with respect to such matters as attention, selection, figure/ground organization, viewpoint, and level of schematicity.

In particular, a motion event with a clear endpoint may allow two types of construal. One involves “simply” that of a subject referent undergoing a telic change of state, which can be conveyed by means of zijn. In some special contexts, and perhaps not for all speakers, the same motion event can be construed as a “type of act”, something special that the subject referent does.³ And similarly, an atelic motion event can in certain circumstances also be construed in two ways. These special cases are considered in more detail below.

Some studies have indeed observed that explicitly mentioning the endpoint of the motion does not always exclude the use of hebben (Ebeling 2006, 406–407). Most accounts, however, consider this to be only possible with atelic interpretations, which would be in line with an analysis in terms of telicity: hebben with atelic examples, and zijn with telic ones. One such atelic interpretation involves iterative examples, such as (3) from Honselaar (1987, 57; cf. also Ebeling 2006, 406; Broekhuis, Corver, and Vos 2015, 210).⁴

Table

(i)	Ik	ben/heb	mijn	hele	schooltijd	dagelijks	naar	Almelo	gefietst
	I	am/have	my	whole	school-time	daily	to	Almelo	cycled
	‘All through my schooldays, I cycled to Almelo every day’

Table

(3)	ik	heb	mijn	hele	leven	naar	Den	Haag	gelopen,
	I	have	my	whole	life	to	The	Hague	walked,

Table

	en	zal	dat	nu	ook	doen
	and	shall	that	now	also	do
	‘I have walked to The Hague all my life, and will do so now too.’

Honselaar (1987) characterizes (3) as conveying an act (“handeling”) that is repeated in the course of the subject’s life. While zijn could have been used to refer to each of these acts separately, the use of hebben expresses the idea of “een onveranderlijke reeks veranderingshandelingen[; h]et subject wordt dus, op een hoger plan dan dat van de concrete handeling, voorgesteld als onveranderlijk” [“an unchanging series of acts that themselves do involve change; so, the subject is portrayed as unchanging at a higher level than that of the concrete act”] (1987, 58).

Another type of atelic interpretation, but one that I find hard to get, is described in Hoekstra (1984, 246, 248). The examples in (4) include the paraphrases that Hoekstra provides to characterize the difference in interpretation between zijn in (4a) and hebben in (4b).

Table

(4)	a.	dat	Jan	naar	Groningen	gewandeld	is
		that	John	to	Groningen	walked	is
		‘[that] John ended up being in Groningen by walking there’

Table

	b.	dat	Jan	naar	Groningen	gewandeld	heeft
		that	John	to	Groningen	walked	has
		‘[that] John was walking while on his way to Groningen’

Hoekstra states that with hebben in (4b) “it is asserted that John is engaged in a certain activity”, whereas (4a), with zijn, “specifies a change of position of John …, which happens to result from the process of walking” (1984, 246). It seems, in other words, that Hoekstra’s interpretations of (4a) and (4b) are in keeping with an account of auxiliary choice in terms of telicity: zijn is used when the motion event is telic, while hebben is used when it is not.

Zubizarreta and Oh (2007) make this supposed difference in telicity explicit by adding telic modifiers to Hoekstra’s examples.⁵ As they consider the case with hebben to be atelic, they are unsurprised by the asterisk they provide in example (5b): “[a]s expected, given the unbounded nature of the VP, it cannot be modified by a telic temporal phrase, as shown in [5b]” (2007, 132).

Table

(5)	a.	dat	Jan	in	twee	uur	naar	Groningen	gewandeld	is
		that	Jan	in	two	hour	to	Groningen	walked	is

Table

	b.	*dat	Jan	in	twee	uur	naar	Groningen	gewandeld	heeft
		that	Jan	in	two	hour	to	Groningen	walked	has

For me, however, (4b) is as telic as (4a), and the use of the telic temporal phrase in (5b) not impossible. This is not something that has often been recognized, but Ebeling (2006, 407) gives the example in (6), which describes a single, telic motion event (and is possible, according to Ebeling, for a subset of the speakers of Dutch; cf. also Honselaar 1987, 58 for a similar example with dalen “descend”).

Table

(6)

Ik

heb

een

keer

in

één

ruk

van

Amsterdam

naar

Almelo

gefietst.

I

have

one

time

in

one

go

from

Amsterdam

to

Almelo

cycled

‘I once cycled from Amsterdam to Almelo in one go.’

Evidence for the use of such telic examples with hebben is provided in Beliën (2012), which presents data gathered from the Internet that consist of Dutch manner of motion verbs and prepositional phrases. (7), for instance, features the telic temporal phrase in vier maanden tijd “in four months’ time” (counter to Zubizarreta and Oh’s expectation, cf. 5b above). The telicity of (8) is apparent from the momentaneous nature of the motion event: “flying through the sound barrier”.⁶

Table

(7)	Onze	kameel	Ned	blijkt	een	kameel	die	…
	our	camel	Ned	turns.out	a	camel	that

Table

in	vier	maanden	tijd	van	het	midden
in	four	months	time	from	the	middle

Table

	van	Australië	(Alice	Springs)	naar	Broome	gelopen	heeft.
	of	Australia	(Alice	Springs)	to	Broome	walked	has
	‘Our camel Ned turns out to be a camel that … walked from the middle of Australia (Alice Springs) to Broome … in four months’ time.’

Table

(8)	Miles	Hilton	Barber	[…]	is	de	eerste	blinde	man
	Miles	Hilton	Barber		is	the	first	blind	man

Table

	die [...]	door	de	geluidsbarrière	heeft	gevlogen.
	who	through	the	sound.barrier	has	flown

Table

	Die	prestatie	leverde	hij	afgelopen	zondag	30	maart	…
	that	achievement	delivered	he	last	Sunday	30	March	…
	‘Miles Hilton Barber is the first blind man to have flown through the sound barrier. He performed this feat last Sunday, March 30, …’

While examples similar to (7) and (8) occur more frequently with zijn than with hebben (see Beliën 2012 for the details), these data show that at least for some speakers and in certain contexts, hebben is a possibility too. Note that (6)–(8) each describes some remarkable achievement, or feat: cycling or walking a long distance in (6) and (7), and a blind pilot flying through the sound barrier in (8) (cf. the use of die prestatie “that achievement/feat” right after heeft gevlogen “has flown”).

The explanation for this use of hebben is that it portrays the subject referent not so much as undergoing a change, but rather as executing a “type of act” (Beliën 2012). As the type of act involved in (6), (7) or (8) consists in a motion event with some well-defined endpoint, it is telic. It is important to stress that the notion of “type of act” is meant to be unspecified for telicity or atelicity. In this way, it applies to the relatively infrequent telic examples in (6)–(8), as well as to run-of-the-mill examples such as (1a) above (John heeft de hele nacht gelopen “John walked all night”), in which the subject executes the atelic act of “walking”.

Another set of examples that have generally received little attention are atelic ones with zijn. Lieber and Baayen (1997), for instance, give the example of dalen “descend, fall”, which they argue need not necessarily be telic, yet still takes zijn as its perfect auxiliary (1997, 800; cf. also Kern 1912, 162). Van Hout (2004), who analyzes auxiliary choice in terms of telicity, is aware of this issue too, when she says that “verbs of inherently directed motion such as rise, descend, and fall ... take the typical atelicity[-]indicating temporal modifiers such as for hours – but still select the be auxiliary” (van Hout 2004, 75: fn. 12).⁷ We actually find both options in (9), which Sorace (2000, 866) quotes from van Hout (1993, 7): the directed motion verb stijgen “rise, ascend” is considered to be possible with both zijn and hebben in this atelic example (note the durative modifier 3 uur lang “for three hours”).

Table

(9)	De	temperatuur	is/heeft	3	uur[ ]lang	gestegen,	maar	is
	The	temperature	is/has	3	hours	risen,	but	is

Table

	toen	weer	gezakt
	then	again	dropped
	‘The temperature rose for three hours but then dropped again.’

Attested data that support the intuitions reflected in (9) can be found in Beliën (2014), on auxiliary choice with directed motion verbs. Both (10) and (11), for example, feature the durative modifier een tijdje “for a while”, yet zijn is used in (10) and hebben in (11). Similar atelic examples can be found in Beliën (2012), involving manner of motion verbs that combine with prepositional phrases, such as naar boven lopen “walk up” and door Boston wandelen “walk/stroll through Boston”.

Table

(10)	De	werkloosheid	is	vervolgens	nog	een	tijdje
	the	unemployment	is	subsequently	still	a	little.while

Table

gestegen	tot	er	weer	een	moment	van
risen	until	there	again	a	moment	of

Table

	stabilisatie	aanbrak
	stabilization	started
	‘After that, unemployment rose for yet another while, until there came a moment of stabilization.’

Table

(11)	Zaterdag gingen [we] mountainbiken. Eerst gingen we stijgen. Voor sommigen was dit erg vermoeiend, maar uiteindelijk zijn we allemaal boven gekomen. Vanzelfsprekend moesten wij ook weer dalen. Dit was ook niet altijd even makkelijk, maar duidelijk veel leuker dan het stijgen.
	Daarna	hadden	we	nog	een	tijdje	gestegen
	[after-that	had	we	still	a	little.while	ascended]
	‘Saturday we went mountainbiking. First we climbed. For some, this was exhausting, but ultimately we all made it to the top. Of course then we had to descend. This was not always easy either, but definitely much more fun than climbing. After that we climbed again for a while.’

Directed motion verbs such as stijgen “climb, ascend, rise” and dalen “descend, fall” imply a certain direction, and therefore a change in the subject referent, namely a change in elevation (or metaphorical height, in the case of prices, temperatures, or figures), whether the motion event is telic or atelic. This change in the subject referent thus motivates the use of zijn. Another perspective on such events is that the subject referent is engaged in some type of act, for example, because it is especially strenuous, or it is contrasted with some other type of act. Both these factors play a role in (11): a group of boy scouts are engaged in climbing, descending, and then some more climbing; with hebben, the speaker focuses more on executing a strenuous type of act than on the subject referent’s change in elevation.

The attested data involving particle verbs presented below show the same dual construal possibility as the examples discussed in this section. Omdraaien “turn around” (Section 3) and weglopen “walk/run away” (Section 4) describe telic events which may be construed as a type of act in some particular contexts (and then take hebben). Afdalen “descend (off)” (Section 5) has telic and atelic interpretations, each potentially construable as a type of act (hebben) or as a change of state (zijn).

3. Omdraaien “turn around” in the context of The Voice of Holland

The first particle verb to be discussed here is omdraaien “turn around” as used in a very specific context: the talent show The Voice of Holland. On this TV show (cf. also Beliën 2014), candidates sing in front of a jury who cannot see the candidate. This is because the jury members, called “coaches”, are sitting in chairs facing away from the stage. If coaches like what they hear, they press a button which makes them turn around, so that they can then see the candidate. For candidates, this is a big moment, because only if one or more coaches turn around for them, can they go on to the next round. This turning is therefore much commented on in reactions to the show on the Internet.

The auxiliary choice in these comments on the show fits in nicely with the construal analysis presented above, as has already been argued for the “simple” verb draaien “turn” in Beliën (2014). For the present study, comments featuring the particle verb omdraaien were gathered by means of Google, by searching for highly specific strings of words.⁸ This yielded 12 relevant examples with zijn (cf. 12) and 8 with hebben (cf. 13):

Table

(12)

a.

Ze

heeft

geluk

dat

alle

drie

de

coaches

voor

haar

zijn

omgedraaid^9

she

has

luck

that

all

three

the

coaches

for

her

are

around.turned

‘She’s lucky that all three coaches have turned around for her.’

Table

b.

ik

vind

dit

ook

niet

mooi

maar

van

Velzen

is

omgedraaid^10

I

find

this

also

not

beautiful

but

van

Velzen

is

around.turned

‘I don’t like this either but van Velzen has turned around.’

Table

(13)	a.	ik	kan	niet	geloven	dat	Angela	heeft	omgedraaid^11
		I	can	not	believe	that	Angela	has	around.turned
		‘I cannot believe that Angela has turned around.’

Table

	b.	Ze	was	heel	blij	dat	alle	coaches	hadden	omgedraaid^12
		she	was	very	happy	that	all	coaches	had	around.turned
		‘She was very happy that all coaches had turned around.’

Table

	c.	vette	auditie!!	onbegrijpelijk	dat	niemand	heeft	omgedraaid^13
		cool	audition	incomprehensible	that	no.one	has	around.turned
		‘Cool audition! Unbelievable that nobody has turned around.’

Note that these examples describe identical events, whatever auxiliary is chosen: the subject referent makes a 180-degree turn, from facing away to facing toward the candidate. This telic motion event constitutes a change of state (i.e., orientation) on the part of the subject referent, which motivates the use of zijn in (12). At the same time, however, this motion event entails more than that in the particular context of this show: by turning around, a jury member signals that this candidate can go on to the next round. In other words, this telic turn is the type of act that a jury member needs to “execute” to signal that this candidate can go on to the next round, which motivates the use of hebben in (13).

4. Counterfactual cases of weglopen “walk away”

The second particle verb to be discussed here is weglopen “walk away”, which is usually considered to take zijn rather than hebben, cf. (1b) above. Interestingly, however, quite a few examples can be found on the Internet of weggelopen with past tense “had”, although examples with “was” are more frequent: Googling “was weggelopen” yielded 163 relevant, unique hits, as opposed to 26 for “had weggelopen”.¹⁴

The contexts in which weggelopen appears with was or had are quite different. Virtually all examples with zijn are descriptions of what actually happened (or what someone thinks has happened, or what appears to have happened), cf. (14).¹⁵

Table

(14)	a.	Het	meisje	was	weggelopen.	uit	een	psychiatrische	instelling^16
		the	girl	was	away.walked	from	a	psychiatric	institution
		‘The girl had run away from a psychiatric hospital.’

Table

	b.	De	bestelauto	kwam	[…]	in	de	berm	terecht
		the	van	ended		in	the	shoulder	up

Table

		en	de	bestuurder	was	weggelopen.^17
		and	the	driver	was	away.walked
		‘The van ended up on the shoulder and the driver had left the scene (had walked away).’

The examples with hebben, on the other hand, are practically all counterfactual: the speaker is aware that the subject referent had not actually walked or run away (or had actually walked away in the case of a negative construction).^18,19 The comment in (15a), for example, follows a long list of disgusted reactions to a TV interview with swimming champion Ranomi Kromowidjojo: she is felt not to have been treated with respect by the interviewer. The writer of the comment in (15a) agrees and conveys what she would have done in Kromowidjojo’s stead: walk away. The dog owner in (15b) prefers the factual situation of her pet Dulce having feasted on a chick to the counterfactual situation of Dulce having run away. In (15c), finally, the writer sketches an alternative (counterfactual) scenario to someone’s story about being tricked into buying a horse.

Table

(15)

a.

Ja

echt

erg.

Ik

had

weggelopen

Totaal

geen

fatsoen.^20

yes

really

awful

I

had

away.walked

totally

no

decency

‘Yes, really awful. I would have walked away. No decency at all.’

Table

	b.	maar	eerlijk,	liever	een	kippetje	minder	dan	dat
		but	honestly	rather	a	chick	less	than	that

Table

		Dulce	had	weggelopen^21
		Dulce	had	away.walked
		‘but honestly, I rather lose a chick than [find] that Dulce had run away.’

Table

c.

als

jij

je

had

omgedraaid

en

had

weggelopen

en

if

you

yourself

had

around.turned

and

had

away.walked

and

Table

		had	gelachen	en	gezegd	had	bij	[ ]	wijze
		had	laughed	and	said	had	by		way

Table

		van,	dan	had	hij	je	niets	kunnen	maken^22
		of	than	had	he	you	nothing	be.able.to	make
		‘If you had turned around and had walked away and had laughed and said ‘in a manner of speaking’, then he wouldn’t have had anything on you.’

While these counterfactual examples may be felt to be unacceptable by quite a few speakers of Dutch, they do fit into wider observations that counterfactual contexts are “favorable” to the use of hebben with verbs that usually take zijn. The Dutch reference grammar Algemene Nederlandse Spraakkunst (Haeseryn et al. 1997, 75) provides the examples in (16), about which they add that such examples are found almost exclusively in spoken language and that few language users consider them part of the standard language (cf. also Honselaar 1987, 65; Ebeling 2006, 409).²³ This is, in other words, in accordance with examples of “had weggelopen” showing up on the Internet, particularly in reactions to posts (cf. 15a) and on forums (cf. 15c), which have a more informal, spoken-language style.

Table

(16)	a.	Hadden	we	maar	eerder	weggegaan,	dan	hadden	we	niet
		had	we	but	earlier	away.gone	then	had	we	not

Table

		te	laat	gekomen.
		too	late	come
		‘Had we only left earlier, then we would not have arrived late.’

Table

b.

Met

mij

erbij

had

dat

zeker

niet

gebeurd.

with

me

there.by

had

that

definitely

not

happened

‘With me present, that definitely would not have happened.’

Shannon (1995) refers to this favorability of counterfactual contexts to the use of have as the “irrealis effect”, based on data from Middle Dutch and Middle Low German observed in Kern (1912, cf. also Coussé 2014) and Magnussen (1939), respectively. In fact, Kern (1912) spends a considerable part of his book-length treatise of Dutch auxiliary choice since medieval times on the use of hebben in counterfactual contexts. This effect is found in other West-Germanic languages too (cf. e.g., Hoekstra 2016 on Frisian unaccusative verbs and McFadden and Alexiadou 2010 on Middle English come), as well as in Romance (cf. Stolova 2006 on intransitive verbs in Old Spanish, as well as references there to studies on older stages of French, Neapolitan and Sicilian).

I would like to suggest that the notion of a “type of act” can also account for the counterfactual cases. As Ebeling (2006, 409) puts it, hebben is eminently suitable for presenting a situation as counterfactual, “omdat het als hulpwerkwoord overal de aandacht concentreert op het gebeuren zelf, en dat wat er het gevolg van is naar de achtergrond dringt” [“because it focuses the attention on what actually takes place in all its uses, and pushes the effect of the action into the background”]. In other words, the focus is not so much on the subject referent changing place in the examples in (15), but rather on the subject referent hypothetically engaging in a particular type of act.²⁴ Both writers in (15a) and (15c) would have done something else, would have acted differently, than Kromowidjojo and the person tricked into buying a horse. In (15b), the dog owner expresses her relief that Dulce has engaged in one type of act rather than another one.

5. Auxiliary choice with afdalen “descend (off)”

The verb afdalen, finally, appears to be extremely flexible with respect to telicity and auxiliary choice. While the “simple” verb dalen roughly means to go from a higher to a lower position, afdalen also includes the idea of a reference object with respect to which the subject referent moves downward.²⁵ So, while the temperature can dalen “fall, go down”, it cannot afdalen “descend (off)”.

The particle variant afdalen “descend (off)” has both telic and atelic uses, even though the particle af “off” often has a telicizing effect in other verb-particle combinations. It shows the same “aspectual duality” (Hay, Kennedy, and Levin 1999, 139) that has been observed for English verbs of directed motion, such as ascend, descend, rise and fall (cf. also Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995, 172–173). Hay, Kennedy, and Levin (1999) observe that these verbs share this property with “degree achievements”, such as cool or widen, which “introduce a measure of the amount to which an argument of the verb changes with respect to the gradable property introduced by the adjectival base” which they refer to as the “difference value” (1999, 130).

As Hay, Kennedy, and Levin (1999, 140) put it, verbs of directed motion “describe a change along a projected scale: the path of movement of the affected argument”; “[t]heir telicity … depend[s] on the boundedness of the difference value” (1999, 140). As shown in (17), from Hay, Kennedy, and Levin (1999, 140), the verb descend can be telic (17a), when a “maximal value of change (a descent to the ground)” is available, which, in their words, “give[s] rise to a telicity implicature” (1999, 140). It can also be atelic (17b), when there is no such implicature. (17c) shows that the “difference value” can be made explicit by means of a “measure phrase”:

Table

(17)	a.	The plane descended in 20 minutes.
	b.	The plane descended for 20 minutes.
	c.	The plane descended 1000 meters.

The data presented below show that afdalen too has telic and atelic uses, can combine with a measure phrase, and is found with hebben and zijn in all these uses. The observations here are based on Googling “afgedaald te zijn” and “afgedaald te hebben” (“descended to be/have”) on March 21, 2014, which yielded 147 and 50 hits, respectively. Many of these were part of a (non-finite) clause headed by na “after”, which were considered in more detail: 106 unique examples with zijn and 46 with hebben. Since the subject referent changes state (i.e., position/elevation) in all these cases, the use of zijn is motivated, even in atelic cases. The constructions with hebben, telic or atelic, highlight the type of act that the subject referent is involved in.

Let us first take a look at examples with durative modifiers, such as even “for a little while” in (18a) and heel die tijd “all that time” in (18b). Three of the examples with zijn featured such a durative modifier, as opposed to nine with hebben. In these particular cases, those with zijn appear to indicate where something else can be found: after descending for a while, you get to a certain location. With hebben, on the other hand, the type of act involved is foregrounded: (18b), for instance, contrasts the act of descending with that of climbing, as well as focuses on the effect that descending has had on the speaker’s body.

Table

(18)	a.	na	even	afgedaald	te	zijn	in	het	smalle
		after	for.a.little.while	off.descended	to	be	in	the	narrow

Table

		straatje,	[…]	kom	je	aan	de	voet	van	de
		street		come	you	at	the	foot	of	the

Table

		Yivli	Minaret^26
		Yivli	Minaret
		‘After having descended (off) for a little while in the narrow street, you get to the foot of the Yivli Minaret.’

Table

	b.	na	heel	die	tijd	afgedaald	te	hebben,
		after	all	that	time	off.descended	to	have

Table

voelt

het

even

goed

aan

de

beentjes

om

wat

te

klimmen^27

feels

it

briefly

good

on

the

legs

to

a-little

to

climb

‘After having descended (off) for all that time, it is nice for the legs to be climbing a little.’

The data-set includes quite a few examples with “measure phrases”, which appear to combine equally easily with zijn and hebben. The examples in (19) feature phrases which explicitly measure a distance in meters or kilometers: there were 7 such examples with zijn (cf. 19a), and 9 with hebben (cf. 19b). Note that (19a) with zijn comments on the state of the speaker’s body after the descent, just as (18b) with hebben does,²⁸ which might make the analysis proposed here, in terms of construing an event in two different ways, seem rather elusive. Another perspective on this, however, is that language users are extremely flexible in the way that they construct and convey interpretations. The “change of state” and “type of act” construals may not be determined by certain (linguistic) contexts, but they can be seen to be allowed by, or compatible with them.

Table

(19)	a.	Na	2	kilometer	zo	afgedaald	te	zijn	waren
		after	2	kilometer	like.this	off.descended	to	be	were

Table

		mijn	handen	bevroren^29
		my	hands	frozen
		‘After having descended 2 kilometers like this, my hands were freezing.’

Table

	b.	Na	duizend	meter	afgedaald	te	hebben
		after	thousand	meter	off.descended	to	have

Table

		wordt	de	sneeuw	op	vierduizend	meter
		becomes	the	snow	at	four.thousand	meter

Table

		hoogte	weer	wat	minder.^30
		height	again	a.bit	less
		‘After having descended a thousand meters, the snow gets to be a bit less again at four thousand meters.’

Other examples explicitly mention the reference object with respect to which the subject referent descends. These objects too provide a measure of the difference value, such as some variant of de berg “the mountain” (3 with zijn, 3 with hebben), a phrase involving treden “steps (of a flight of stairs)” (4 with zijn, 1 with hebben), or some variant of de trap “the stairs” (9 examples with zijn, 7 with hebben), as in (20).

Table

(20)	a.	Na	een	flink	aantal	trappen	afgedaald	te	zijn
		after	a	good	number	stairs	off-descended	to	be,

Table

		kwamen	we	aan	bij	het	gebied	The	Rocks
		came	we	on	at	the	area	The	Rocks

Table

		en	de	haven^31
		and	the	harbor
		‘After having descended down a great number of stairs, we arrived at the area The Rocks and the harbor.’

Table

	b.	Na	een	paar	trappen	afgedaald	te	hebben,
		after	a	few	flights.of.stairs	off.descended	to	have

Table

		kwamen	we	in	het	hart	van	de	Maersk	Kimi:	de
		came	we	in	the	heart	of	the	Maersk	Kimi	the

Table

		reusachtige	machinekamer^32
		enormous	engine.room
		‘After having descended down a few stairs, we entered the heart of the Maersk Kimi: the gigantic engine room.’

As a final set of examples, let us consider cases with prepositional phrases conveying the endpoint or starting point of the event, cf. (21):

Table

(21)	a.	Na	weer	afgedaald	te	zijn	naar	Bédoin
		after	again	off.descended	to	be	to	Bédoin

Table

		startte	ik	direct	met	de	vierde	beklimming.^33
		started	I	directly	with	the	fourth	climb
		‘After having descended down to Bédoin, I immediately took on the fourth climb.’

Table

	b.	Na	eerst	afgedaald	te	hebben	naar	Valkenburg
		after	first	off.descended	to	have	to	Valkenburg

Table

		kon	de	Heldentocht	beginnen.^34
		could	the	Hero.ride	start
		‘After having descended down to Valkenburg, the heroic ride started.’

The set with zijn included almost 20 of such prepositional phrases (cf. naar Bédoin in 21a), while there were only two examples with hebben: one with naar (cf. 21b) and one with tot “to, until”. Examples with zijn also included prepositional phrases with van “from” and vanuit “from, out of”. These specifications of the starting point or end point may well make the change of state aspect of these motion events so prominent, that the use of zijn is preferred in these cases.

6. Conclusion

This paper has provided evidence for the viability of the traditional notion of “change in the subject referent” as an explanatory principle for Dutch auxiliary choice, focusing on particle verbs of motion. It is often assumed that these verbs automatically “trigger” the use of zijn. While this quite plausibly applies to a great many of these verbs, this paper has zoomed in on attested examples of three verbs that exhibit more flexible behavior: omdraaien “turn around”, weglopen “walk away”, and afdalen “descend (off)”.

These three verbs were shown to occur with both hebben and zijn in constructions that involve roughly similar motion events. All the examples involved a subject changing state: change of orientation with omdraaien, change of location with weglopen, and change of elevation with afdalen. The examples with omdraaien and weglopen were telic, yet occurred with both hebben and zijn. In the case of afdalen, atelic as well as telic examples were found with both perfect auxiliaries. The paper has argued that auxiliary choice with motion verbs can be accounted for in terms of different construals of a motion event: as a (telic or atelic) change of state (zijn) or a (telic or atelic) type of act (hebben).

The Internet data here involve examples that not all speakers may consider to be part of the standard language, perhaps especially the counterfactual cases with weglopen. They were discussed because they represent the “irrealis shift”: the susceptibility of intransitive change-of-state verbs in counterfactual contexts to take hebben (or its cognates in other languages). To me, the data presented here sound quite natural, and they occurred in contexts that were highly informal at times, but did not strike me as particularly regional, for example.³⁵ Further study should examine to what extent the data discussed here represent a language change and/or regional, social or stylistic variation. In any case, while the attested data presented here might appear to complicate the picture of auxiliary choice in Dutch somewhat, it seems to me that they provide a richer empirical basis, which can only lead to more adequate generalizations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Maaike Beliën is currently a researcher at Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, involved in a project that aims to update the online Dutch reference grammar Algemene Nederlandse Spraakkunst. She is also a lecturer at the Centre for Languages and Academic Skills at Delft University of Technology. Her research focuses on the semantics of grammatical constructions, including Dutch constructions with adpositions (prepositions, postpositions and particles) and with past participles (perfect auxiliaries and impersonal passives).

Acknowledgments

I would like to extend a warm word of thanks to the two anonymous reviewers, as well as to Ronny Boogaart, Wim Honselaar, Ton van der Wouden, and Joost Zwarts, for their comments on an earlier version of this paper. I would also very much like to thank the organizers and participants of the symposium on “Perfect auxiliaries in the languages of Europe” (Copenhagen, June 9–10, 2016) for their questions and encouragement.

Notes

¹ The effect is not restricted to motion verbs: van Hout (2004), for example, lists other types of one-argument verbs too, including drogen “dry”/opdrogen “dry up”, reizen “travel”/afreizen “set off to travel”, and groeien “grow”/opgroeien “grow up” (2004, 74).

² I used the term “change of location” in Beliën (2008, 2012), but broadened the notion in Beliën (2014) to “change of state” to include other types of change in the subject referent.

³ At this stage, I do not know whether the notion “type of act” necessarily involves such notions as “agentivity”, “control” or “volition”. As I have focused mainly on motion verbs with human or animal subjects, those aspects are part of the interpretation of the constructions with hebben (but note van Hout’s (1993) example in (9) below). This is therefore an issue for further research.

⁴ Note that Ebeling (2006, 407) also gives the possibility of using zijn here:

⁵ They suggest that while (4a) “implies that Jan walked all the way to Groningen, there is no such implication in [4b] (he could have walked only part of the way)” (2007, 132). This interpretation sounds very artificial to me, and difficult if not impossible to get.

⁶ Both (7) and (8) are from Beliën (2012, 11).

⁷ While Lieber and Baayen (1997) and van Hout (2004) consider atelic cases that involve a single unbounded process, Zaenen (1988, 333) makes a similar observation about an example that is atelic because it is iterative (involving multiple instances of vertrekken “leave” and aankomen “arrive”), which she considers to be acceptable only with zijn, despite the atelic interpretation.

⁸ The following strings were googled: voice “simon/velzen/angela/coaches/niemand * omgedraaid”, which yielded 75 hits in total. From these, repeated and irrelevant examples were removed, including passive, transitive, and reflexive constructions, as well as telegram-style examples without a perfect auxiliary. This resulted in the 8 relevant examples with hebben and the 12 with zijn mentioned above.

⁹ http://dutchcharts.nl/showitem.asp?interpret=Chlo%EB+Groen&titel=I+Don%27t+Believe+You&cat=s, accessed February 22, 2013.

¹⁰ http://www.babybrabbel.nl/forums/showbizz-tv/voice-deel-7, accessed February 22, 2013.

¹¹ http://www.thevoicekids.nl/video/daantje-vlieg-met-me-mee/, accessed February 22, 2013.

¹² http://www.deweekkrant.nl/artikel/2013/februari/12/anne_keizer_en_the_voice_kids, accessed February 22, 2013.

¹³ https://www.youtube.com/all_comments?threaded=1&v=8AAc4mo58kY, accessed February 22, 2013.

¹⁴ These searches were conducted on October 31, 2016. “Was weggelopen” produced 189 hits in total, versus 80 hits for “had weggelopen”. Both sets of hits included repeated examples as well as (dodgy) automatic translations/dictionary entries, which were removed. In addition, the results for “had weggelopen” included irrelevant ones such as transitives and cases in which had and weggelopen did not belong together – they were also removed. The search was limited to these two phrases, so as to obtain a data-set of a size that could be studied in detail. It would be interesting to broaden the data-set by allowing different word orders and other forms of the auxiliaries, that is, plurals and present tense forms.

¹⁵ The 163 unique results for “was weggelopen” included two counterfactual cases:

https://www.ed.nl/algemeen/sport/voetbal/als-bazoer-was-weggelopen-zou-knvb-alle-begrip-hebben-1.5635021, accessed October 31, 2016.

https://www.chaima.nl/2087364-post554.html?langid=1, accessed October 31, 2016.

¹⁶ http://www.metronieuws.nl/nieuws/amsterdam/2016/07/meisje-krijgt-geen-hulp-wordt-op-youtube-gezet, accessed October 31, 2016.

¹⁷ https://www.politie.nl/nieuws/2014/maart/21/09-bebloede-man-weggelopen-na-aanrijding.html, accessed October 31, 2016.

¹⁸ There was one exception: (i) is not a counterfactual example, but a durative or iterative one. The subject referent pictures herself having had to run away from something continuously or repeatedly, which she now has to face.

http://www.chaima.nl/2087364-post554.html?langid=1, accessed October 31, 2016.

¹⁹ In fact, the other two particle verbs discussed here can be found with hebben in counterfactual contexts too:

http://forum.viva.nl/forum/zwanger/ervaring-abortuspil/list_messages/260375, accessed March 8, 2017.

https://forum.mountainbike.be/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=126474&start=20, accessed March 8, 2017.

²⁰ https://statuscope.nl/Lieve-mensen-bedankt-voor-jullie-support-%f0%9f%92%9e%f0%9f%99%8f%f0%9f%8f%bc-Vier-jaar-geleden?id=6002417d, accessed October 31, 2016.

²¹ https://lovingrescuedanimals.weebly.com/2014-en-vroeger.html, accessed October 31, 2016.

²² https://www.bokt.nl/forums/viewtopic.php?f=192&t=1120342, accessed October 31, 2016.

²³ The Corpus of Contemporary Dutch (CHN), which is a written-language corpus (newspapers, magazines, legal documents, and television news scripts), features no hits for “had weggelopen” at all, as opposed to 126 hits for “was weggelopen”.

²⁴ Note that the “type of act” characterization is argued here to account for verbs of motion; it is to be seen to what extent it also applies to gebeuren “happen” or zijn “be” (cf. also fn. 3 above).

²⁵ This reference object can also be made explicit, cf. (20) below. A possible analysis is therefore that afdalen is a transitive verb whose direct object can be left unexpressed. This does not make it any less interesting with respect to the issue of auxiliary choice: while most transitive verbs take hebben, also when their direct object is not expressed, afdalen occurs with both hebben and zijn.

²⁶ http://zienenweten.blogspot.nl/2013/05/lycie-rondreis-antalya-deel-14b.html, accessed March 21, 2014.

²⁷ http://forum.allesamerika.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=40493&start=40, accessed March 21, 2014.

²⁸ And conversely, (20b) with hebben could be argued to be similar to (18a) with zijn.

²⁹ https://www.twcdevoorsprong.nl/mv.htm, accessed March 21, 2014.

³⁰ https://www.ralphtuijn.nl/wmview.php?ArtID=229, accessed March 21, 2014.

³¹ https://www.maritiem-officier.nl/2011/05/excursie-op-de-maersk-kimi/, accessed March 21, 2014.

³² https://vlasjes.blogspot.nl/, accessed March 21, 2014.

³³ https://montventouxvirus.blogspot.nl/2011_06_01_archive.html, accessed March 21, 2014.

³⁴ https://stevensbart.blogspot.nl/, accessed March 21, 2014.

³⁵ That there are regional (dialectal) differences in the use of hebben and zijn is shown, for example, in de Rooij (1988).