Introduction

In this paper we discuss a number of properties of spatial description in Dutch. Since Dutch is one of the closest linguistic neighbours of English, comparisons between Dutch and English are easily drawn. Yet while at first glance, English and Dutch indeed appear rather similar in the encoding of spatial relations, closer examination reveals remarkable differences. A first difference turns up in the domain of prepositions, postpositions and particles used in spatial descriptions. Not only do the two languages cut up the domain covered by prepositions rather differently (Dutch has, for instance, two kinds of ‘on’), but also the division of labour among parts of speech in the expression of spatial relations in simple locative descriptions is radically different. Unlike English, Dutch has a form class of positional verbs expressing the posture of the figure, but also aspects of the relation between figure and ground. We also find that although both English and Dutch combine intrinsic and relative orientation in the expression of frames of reference, Dutch has a set of adverbs that can be used in combination with prepositions to give quite an elaborate set of expressions for frames of references, where speakers of English must resort to topological descriptions. Moreover, the regions that the terms of each language pick out are markedly different.