A Sprachbund refers to a region where languages, despite lacking common ancestry, exhibit similarities due to contact influence, as seen with Standard Average European (SAE). Colonialism spread European languages globally, resulting in creole languages and intercontinental varieties. Languages like Afrikaans, although geographically outside the SAE Sprachbund, may share features with SAE languages due to contact. This study examines how Afrikaans and Dutch express anticausative meanings, such as "the ice melts" versus "the sun is melting the ice." While both share SAE's anticausative feature, Afrikaans simplifies morphologically related pairs and favours analytical structures, likely due to language contact. Unlike Dutch, Afrikaans lacks reflexive anticausatives, instead using constructions like "the disease spreads," suggesting further contact influences. This study highlights language divergence within the Sprachbund and the impact of contact on language evolution.

The topic of impersonalization has received a lot of attention in the literature, but the focus has mostly been on a limited number of strategies, such as the use of personal and indefinite pronouns and passive constructions. Impersonal strategies have thus far been examined using: (i) grammars, (ii) corpora, and (iii) language-based questionnaires. These methods suffer from several shortcomings if one wants to study the range of impersonal strategies. The present article aims to argue for a new way of investigating impersonal strategies that complements the other approaches, by reporting on the results of a visual questionnaire. More precisely, it discusses a visual questionnaire completed by speakers of Dutch and Afrikaans to determine whether this method is a satisfactory way of studying impersonal strategies and to also examine and compare the impersonal strategies of the two languages.*

Abstract Afrikaans, a language with roots in Indo-European, West Germanic, and Low Franconian, boasts the third-largest number of first-language speakers in South Africa, constituting 10.6% of the population, or approximately 7 million speakers. Afrikaans originated from extensive language contact involving Dutch, indigenous Southern African languages, and languages from South Asia and Europe. Its divergence from Dutch, accelerated by a complex contact situation, has prompted suggestions of a potential creole origin. Being a relatively young language, Afrikaans exhibits less dialectal variation compared to older European languages like German and Dutch. However, its origin in a complex contact situation and its broad geographic distribution in South Africa have led to the development of distinct varieties, such as Northern Cape Afrikaans, Cape Afrikaans, and Northeastern Interior Afrikaans. Socioethnic distinctions between Coloured Afrikaans and White Afrikaans reflect historical segregation, but some speakers fluidly shift between varieties based on context, challenging a strict ethnic divide. The phonetics and phonology of Afrikaans share many features with Dutch but also diverge from Dutch in notable ways, including in the segment inventory and syllable structure. Variation between different geographic and socioethnic varieties of Afrikaans is observed in both the consonant and vowel system. Afrikaans is similar to Dutch and other Germanic languages in its derivational morphology. It differs from Dutch, however, in its inflectional morphology, with Afrikaans having lost gender and case distinctions in nouns (although these distinctions are maintained in the pronominal system). Many adjectives take the suffix /-ə/ in attributive position, though some adjectives lack this suffix or mark the attributive form idiosyncratically. Afrikaans syntax exhibits creole features, especially in the verbal system, where Afrikaans differs markedly from Dutch and English. Unlike Dutch and English, for example, Afrikaans has lost number and person marking in verbs. The Afrikaans sentence has two structural positions where verbs can appear: in sentence-final position (VF) and in the second structural position in the sentence (V2). The placement of verbs in these positions is influenced by syntactic structure types (indicative, imperative, interrogative). Tense and aspect are expressed periphrastically, and modality is conveyed through modal auxiliaries or other adverbial qualifications. Afrikaans also has a unique “double negation” system, differentiating it from other Germanic languages.

This article presents the fi ndings of research into a two-part gap in the current understanding of the variety of Afrikaans identifi ed as Scientifi c Afrikaans. Firstly, we present a survey that was used to investigate the state and use of Afrikaans as a language of science. The approach is both diachronic and synchronic: it provides a short historical overview of the development of Afrikaans as a language of science and an inventory of scientifi c Afrikaans publications from 2004 to 2018 Secondly, the article reports on the development of a comprehensive and representative corpus of Scientifi c Afrikaans that will facilitate linguistic research into the specifi c uses and nature of this variety. The development of a corpus of Scientifi c Afrikaans, namely the VivA-Wetenskapsafrikaanskorpus 1.0 ("VivA Scientifi c Afrikaans Corpus 1.0"; hereafter VivA-WAK 1.0) (2025), directly follows and is a product of the survey. The development of the corpus allowed the charting of one aspect of the use of Afrikaans for scientifi c purposes, namely the publication of Afrikaans research articles in accredited journals from 2004 to 2018. The corpus, consisting of roughly 23 000 000 words, sheds light on the nature of Scientifi c Afrikaans, in particular its application in general Afrikaans This survey was conducted and the corpus built in the context of the gradual development of Afrikaans as a fully-fl edged language of science. Afrikaans fl ourished and developed into a well-established independent language, especially during the period 1900 to 1940, not only with regard to everyday use, but also with regard to academic study (Breed & Bosman, 2024, with particular reference to Nienaber, 1934, and Carstens & Raidt, 2019). However, there are also examples of Afrikaans used in a relatively formal or academic register from before 1900. Arabic Afrikaans was in use as a medium of instruction and religious practice as early as the mid-19th century (Carstens & Raidt, 2019:244). In addition, an important text published towards the end of the 19th century is worth mentioning here: Eerste beginsels van die Afrikaanse taal ("First principles of the Afrikaans language") compiled by the Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners ("Association of True Afrikaners") in 1882. Moreover, Carstens and Raidt (2019:399-400) note that by 1919 Afrikaans had been adopted as a technical language and a medium of instruction at four South African universities. In this respect, the use of Afrikaans as a language of science dates back further than its acquiring the status of an offi cial language, the event celebrated in this issue of Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe ("Journal of Humanities") The development of Scientifi c Afrikaans is linked to, among other things, the development of subject-specifi c language and terminology for various scientifi c disciplines, and to the establishment of several scientifi c organisations that actively promoted the use of Afrikaans in scientifi c contexts. In this regard, a signifi cant achievement for Afrikaans as a language of science was its adoption as a medium of instruction at various South African universities. As a result of such initiatives and achievements, it was possible for Afrikaans to evolve fully into a language of science in the 20th century However, since the transition to a new political order in 1994, Afrikaans has been under pressure owing to new ideologies, and it is therefore often claimed that Afrikaans as a language of science is in jeopardy The validity of this claim can be ascertained by examining the Afrikaans articles published in accredited journals from 2004 to 2018. The choice for this period was motivated by the limited digital availability of articles published before 2004. The survey identifi ed 69 DHET or SciELO accredited South African journals that published Afrikaans articles in this period. In the course of this period there was a noticeable decline in the number of publications. It is also noteworthy that the largest number of Afrikaans articles are published in interdisciplinary journals rather than in discipline-specifi c journals. In addition, it appears that a diminishing number of institutions publish scientifi c work, which severely limits the possibilities for the publication of research conducted in Afrikaans The initiation of the VivA-WAK 1.0 indicated that such concentrated control may pose certain risks for the future of Scientifi c Afrikaans. When attempting to gain access to data, we found several control measures restricting access. In order to incorporate articles from some journals in our corpus, an existing usage license, such as a Creative Commons license, proved to be suffi cient to obtain the necessary permission, but in other cases permission had to be obtained through a data agreement, signed either by the editors of the journals concerned or by their publishing institutions. The worst case scenario occurred when certain factors - including possible unwillingness, lack of knowledge, contractual limitations and staff capacity - prevented the fi nalisation of agreements. However, while the inability to secure data agreements with individual journals resulted in a relatively small number of articles being excluded from our corpus, the fact that six institutions have not yet signed data agreements has resulted in the exclusion of a large number of articles. Consequently, at least 13 million words that could have been included are now not part of version 1.0 of the VivA-WAK The survey used for this article sheds light on the extent to which Afrikaans was employed as a language of science in the recent past. It could therefore be useful in several ways. For instance, it can help identify the journals and institutions that should be recognised for the opportunities they create for research to be published in Afrikaans. Additionally, it can be used to judge the vitality of the respective subject disciplines that form part of the Afrikaans scientifi c endeavours. The VivA-WAK1.0 described in this article is also expected to be useful in the other ways outlined and discussed in the article. Possible uses include facilitating systematic research on academic language use and style; the development of subject-specifi c terminology; the development of discipline-specifi c academic literacy materials; and the sophistication of AI technologies in Afrikaans

development of Afrikaans linguistics discipline The development ofAfrikaans linguistics as a scientific field has been documented in various sources, but the majority of these were published over thirty years ago. In an attempt to provide a more accurate assessment of the evolution ofAfrikaans linguistics into a contemporary field, an updated description is needed that outlines recent progress, challenges, and the current status of this discipline. The aim of this article is to provide a diachronic overview of the development ofAfrikaans linguistics from its inception to the present day. The greater part of the research outlined in this article consists of a literature review involving various sources, and exploring different perspectives to the development ofAfrikaans linguistics. A diachronic perspective traces the historical progression ofthe field; a canonical approach highlights key publications and influential linguists who had made significant contributions; and a thematic approach focuses on various sub-disciplines and areas within Afrikaans linguistics. My aim in this article is to synthesise these different perspectives from various sources while simultaneously tracing the development ofAfrikaans linguistics from the 17th century to the present. GS Nienabers'(1934) book Oor die Afrikaanse taal: 'n Bydrae oor sy ontwikkeling na aanleiding van enkele versterkingswyses (On the Afrikaans Language: A contribution to its development based on some reinforcement methods) is the earliest comprehensive source providing an historical overview of the development ofAfrikaans linguistics. Published nearly a century ago, this book describes the establishment ofAfrikaans linguistics as a distinctfield of study. Nienaber (1934:22-23) suggests that the growth ofAfrikaans linguistics reflects the evolution ofAfrikaans as a language, which, according to him, can be categorised into four phases up to 1930: (i) 1657 to 1775, (ii) 1775 to 1875, (iii) 1875 to 1900, and (iv) 1900 to "today" (referring to the publication date ofthe book). Nienabers' timeline ends around 1940, and in this article, I argue that three additional phases in the development ofAfrikaans can be identified: (v) 1940-1994, (vi) 1994-2005, and (vii) 2005 to the present. The first phase (1657-1775) represents the formative years ofAfrikaans, a period during which differences between Dutch used in the Cape Colony and Dutch used in Europe began to become noticeable. The available sources from this period shedding light on the history of the development ofAfrikaans are mainly reports used by Dutch offi cials in the Cape Colony and other communities, including the language spoken by enslaved individuals during the colonial era, and texts written during this period by the coloured community of the Western Cape. In the second phase (1775-1875), a burgeoning Afrikaans language identity can be observed, with growing interest in Afrikaans, likely due to the British authorities' emphasis on anglicisation during this period. Some sources, such as Changuions'(1844) book De Nederduitsche Taal in Zuid-Afrika (The Dutch Language in South Africa) and Lichtensteins' (1811) Reisen im S & uuml;dlich Afrika in den Jahren 1803, 1804, 1805 und 1806 (Travels in South Africa in the Years 1803, 1804, 1805, and 1806) describe unique Afrikaans words and expressions. These are representative of the beginning of linguistic research focusing specifically on Afrikaans as an object of study. In the third phase (1875-1900), the first real documentation of Afrikaans occurs. This period sees speakers of the language gradually becoming aware of the language and the origin of a separate, autonomous, and recognised language. Such language awareness directly led to the so-called "first Afrikaans language movement," particularly realised through the establishment of the Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners (GRA). According to Nienaber (1934:22-23), the fourth phase (1900-1940) marks the real beginning ofAfrikaans linguistics as a distinctfield of study-and not merely a subset ofDutch or Germanic studies. This period also saw the so-called "second language movement", with a number of important grammar sources appearing that discuss the structure of the Afrikaans language. These sources have served as standard linguistic works on Afrikaans for many years. Phase five (1940-1994) can be seen as the institutionalisation ofAfrikaans linguistics, marking the period when systematic linguistic studies, both in and about Afrikaans were initiated, indicating a new phase in the development ofAfrikaans linguistics. During the period 1940-1994 South Africa was characterised by significant socio-political changes, including the implementation ofApartheid, a system of institutional racial segregation that lasted from 1948 until the early 1990s, and the subsequent transition to a new democratic government in 1994. With the advent of the National Partys' coming into power in 1948, concrete efforts were made at the national level to promote Afrikaans as a spoken, cultural, and official language. Therefore, this was a period in which various normative sources addressing issues of "language purity,"as well as comprehensive sources outlining various aspects ofAfrikaanss' grammatical structure, emerged. In the course of the sixth phase (1994-2005), the publication of academic research concerning Afrikaans linguistics sharply declined. This contrasts markedly with the growth andfl ourishing ofAfrikaans linguistics from 1940 to 1990. During the latter periodAfrikaans enjoyed a privileged status under the National Party government which ruled from 1948 to 1994. Nonetheless, several changes in the development ofAfrikaans linguistics can be observed during the sixth phase, namely the increase of female researchers in the Afrikaans linguistic community as well as the emergence of cognitive linguistics as a new area of study within Afrikaans linguistics. The kind of linguistic research practised in the past two decades, namely the seventh phase of the development of Afrikaans linguistics (2005-2024), is characterised by a very specific expansion withinAfrikaans linguistics, namely research that utilises techniques typical of Digital Humanities. This is not only research conducted by using digital tools but it also reflects a shift of linguistic resources from printed media to digital media. Characteristic of this period is the development of two comprehensive electronic grammars, namely Taalportaal and the VivA Afrikaans Grammar. In the seventh phase of the development of Afrikaans linguistics, linguists thus employ both traditional and digital methods. A new generation of young researchers, particularly focusing on computer-based research, is emerging and unlocking new areas within the field.

Categorisation is an inherent characteristic of all approaches to grammar. Although the boundaries of grammatical categories at school level should not be fuzzy, it seems that this is in fact the case. Fuzzy boundaries of grammatical categories are problematic within the context of school instruction, as any pedagogical school grammar, according to Bourke (2005:85) and Thornbury (1999:32), should meet specific criteria. Among such criteria are restrictedness and simplicity, which implies that a pedagogical grammar must clearly indicate what the boundaries of a given grammatical unit are. Van der Merwe (1966) refers to, for example, the unclear boundaries of subordinate clauses, stating that teachers of Afrikaans separate where separation should not occur, and this confusion seems to persist, as evidenced by a survey conducted on social media in 2024. Since subordinate clauses create sophisticated sentence constructions and enable language users to express their experiences of the world, it was important to determine to what extent subordinate clauses at school level are characterised by fuzziness. To this end, a survey was conducted, beginning with Afrikaanse Spraakkuns (Bouman & Pienaar, 1924) and extending the survey to the most recent CAPS-aligned textbooks for Grade 12 learners. From the conducted survey it is clear that the boundaries of subordinate clauses at school level have indeed been fuzzy over the past 100 years. Fuzzy boundaries arise because subordinate clauses that are introduced by the same word class and should therefore logically be considered the same type of subordinate clause, are assigned to different types of subordinate clauses, based on their function. Although functional criteria are primarily used to distinguish the main types of subordinate clauses, this criterion is often associated with formal, syntactic, or semantic properties. This combination of different criteria for categorisation also indicates the poorly defined nature ofsubordinate clauses, or their fuzzy boundaries. Furthermore, the boundaries of various subcategories, particularly adverbial subordinate clauses, are fuzzy, as meaning is most often used as a criterion. This means that the same subordinate clause (e.g., Jason het te veel kersies ge & euml;et, [sodat] hy nou maagpyn het) can be classified in multiple ways, either as an adverbial clause of degree (answering the question "To what extent?") or as an adverbial clause of contingency (answering the question "What happened then?"). Certain gaps regarding clause categorisation were also noted. For instance, in the sentence Die berig dat hy dood is, is onwaar, the subordinate clause dat hy dood is, is regarded as a subject clause, even though the main clause (Die berig is onwaar) has a subject (die berig). This is in contrast with the guideline that a clause can only be an object/ subject clause if such apart of the main clause is not present. Therefore, dat hy dood is should rather be classified as another type of clause. Den Hertog (1904:70) classifies such clauses that fulfil the function of modifiers of nouns, limiting the representation of the noun or providing secondary information about the noun, as adjective clauses. We also noted a shift from viewing the modifier as a syntactic function that can be performed by different grammatical elements (including subordinate clauses), to viewing it as a formal-functional grammatical unit that is limited solely to the simple sentence and contrasted with subordinate clauses. For instance, in Den Hertog (1904:67) it is acknowledged that a subordinate clause can have the function ofan adverbial when used as a modifier that restricts the action/state ofthe verb, therefore rendering it an adverbial clause. Likewise a subordinate clause can fulfil the function of a modifier of a noun within a noun phrase, leading to its classification as an adjective clause (compare Den Hertog, 1904:67). Modifiers have since been understood as agroup ofwords withouta predicate that is usedfor modification and is contrasted with subordinate clauses (compare Vermaak et al., 2013).

This paper investigates the so-called South African English busy progressive (for example, I'm busy working). Linguistic literature on South African English (SAfE) often states that this construction is a typical feature of this variety of English. The use and the frequency of this construction is mostly attributed to the influence of the Afrikaans [BUSYPROG X-COMP V-INF] construction, as in Ek is besig om te werk ('I am working'). The aim of this paper is twofold: Firstly, it critically evaluates some of the claims that have been made about the so-called "SAfE busy progressive" and, secondly, it uses a corpus- and usage-based approach that employs a greater assortment of available corpus data from SAfE and other English varieties, as well as available information on the Afrikaans and Dutch progressives, to explore the possibility of new insights into the use of busy in English aspectual constructions.

(English) In many (West) Germanic languages we see that personal pronouns can be used in impersonal contexts. These pronouns are often referred to as Human Impersonal Pronouns (HIPs). This is also the case for Afrikaans with the personal pronouns ‘jy’ and ‘hulle’. Since ‘(’n) mens’ as a HIP in written standard Afrikaans has already received attention in Afrikaans corpus investigations, the aim of this investigation is to understand the use of ‘jy’ and ‘hulle’ in written standard Afrikaans. These pronouns can be seen as grammatical constructions, which can develop/change over time. Typology research on impersonalization has identified twelve impersonal contexts in which HIPs can be used. To investigate the use of ‘jy’ and ‘hulle’ it is important to have an understanding of impersonalization. For this project the Taalkommissiekorpus (2011) is used. The content of the corpus is divided into three subcategories, each representing a text genre: fiction + non-fiction/non-academic (in short: books); academic and other formal texts (study guides/academic articles/minutes; in short: formal); and the third one is based on newspaper and magazine articles.

Views on constructionalisation and constructional change are at the forefront of construction grammar approaches to language change. In order to be able to talk about constructionalisation and constructional changes in a particular part of the constructicon, it is necessary to have both a diachronic and synchronic view of that network of constructions. The overall purpose of this contribution is to propose a methodology (i.e. a set of methods, principles, rules, etc. for a specific purpose within a specific theory / discipline) for the description and explanation of constructionalisation networks, i.e. networks with a temporal dimension that indicate the development of constructions. To illustrate this framework, we look at the constructionalisation network of "in" as a prepositional lexical item, as based on data from dictionaries and corpora. It is shown that changes in a construction network are (among other things) characterised by the presence of taboo constructions in that part of the network, and that constructions with taboo words can be taken as one of the starting points to search for constructional change and constructionalisations in a network. __________________________________ Beskouings oor konstruksionalisering en konstruksieverandering is aan die voorpunt van konstruksiegrammatikabenaderings tot taalverandering. Ten einde oor konstruksionalisering en konstruksieveranderings in ʼn bepaalde deel van die konstruktikon te kan praat, is dit nodig dat ʼn mens ʼn diachroniese én sinchroniese blik op daardie netwerk van konstruksies moet hê. Die oorhoofse doel van hierdie bydrae is om ʼn metodologie (d.i. ʼn stel metodes, beginsels, reëls, ens. vir ʼn bepaalde doel binne ʼn bepaalde teorie/dissipline) voor te stel vir die beskrywing en verklaring van konstruksionaliseringsnetwerke, d.i. netwerke met ʼn tyddimensie waarmee die ontwikkeling van konstruksies aangedui word. Om hierdie raamwerk te illustreer, kyk ons na die konstruksionaliseringsnetwerk van in as preposisionele leksikale item, soos gebaseer op data uit woordeboeke en korpora. Daar word aangetoon dat veranderinge in ʼn konstruksienetwerk word (onder andere) gekenmerk deur die teenwoordigheid van taboekonstruksies in daardie deel van die netwerk en dat konstruksies met taboewoorde in as een van die vertrekpunte geneem kan word om soektogte na konstruksieverandering en konstruksionaliserings in ʼn netwerk te begin.

This article reports on an interdisciplinary, collaborative project grounded in linguistic theory on impersonalisation and visual communication theory on wordless visual narratives. The aims of this practice-based research project are to develop an alternative to existing methods of studying impersonalisation strategies through interdisciplinary collaboration and to test its usefulness for identifying not only the range of possible linguistic strategies of impersonalisation, but also the preferred strategies for specific impersonal uses. The group of 18 collaborators consisted of two linguists, one graphic design lecturer and 15 final-year graphic design students. The students were responsible for designing visual prompts for the questionnaire that 1) should not limit the possible linguistic answers, 2) must be able to accommodate any impersonalisation strategy, 3) should not contain any limiting linguistic clues, and 4) had to comply with the criteria on the basis of which the 12 impersonal uses are distinguished from one another. The questionnaire was piloted in two phases. After each phase, the students adjusted and refined their visual prompts. A validation phase indicated that the finalised questionnaire fulfils its functions, since at least 16 different impersonalisation strategies can be distinguished, and preferable strategies for each impersonal use can be identified.

Die progressiewe perifrastiese konstruksies in Afrikaans en Nederlands is 'n tema wat heelwat aandag in resente taalkundeliteratuur geniet het. 'n Verskeidenheid sinchroniese studies het die drie ewekniekonstruksies van Afrikaans en Nederlands, naamlik die PREP-, besig-, en CPV-konstruksies al afsonderlik en vergelykend bestudeer, waaronder die vernaamste vergelykende studie dié van Breed, Brisard en Verhoeven (2017). Vanuit die literatuur is dit duidelik dat, alhoewel hierdie drie progressiewe perifrastiese konstruksies vormlike ewekniekonstruksies is, daar bepaalde verskille in die gebruike van hierdie konstruksies tussen Afrikaans en Nederlands voorkom. Hierdie artikel poog om die leemte in die huidige literatuur te vul, deur middel van 'n diachroniese studie wat gebruik maak van die Tracing History Trust-korpus (2011) en die Historiese korpus van Standaardafrikaans (2016). Die doel is om vas te stel óf en tot watter máte die verskille wat tans tussen die progressiewe konstruksies van Afrikaans en Nederlands bestaan, sigbaar was tydens die 17de, 18de en 20ste eeu.

Hierdie artikel ondersoek die verskillende strategieë wat Afrikaanse sprekers gebruik om aan te dui dat 'n konstruksie onpersoonlik is. Onpersoonlike konstruksies is konstruksies waar die (soms implisiete) subjek geparafraseer kan word as "mense in die algemeen", " 'n onbekende persoon" of "sommige mense". Hierdie onderwerp het al baie aandag in die taalkundeliteratuur gekry, maar die fokus was meestal op 'n beperkte aantal onverpersoonlikingstrategieë, soos die gebruik van persoonlike voornaamwoorde (bv. Jy leef net een keer), onbepaalde voornaamwoorde (byvoorbeeld Iemand het my beursie gesteel!) en passiewe konstruksies (byvoorbeeld My kar is gesteel). Volgens ons kan dié nou fokus in die literatuur toegeskryf word aan die feit dat die navorsingsmetodes (byvoorbeeld korpusstudies en vraelyste) wat tot op hede gebruik is om onverpersoonlikingstrategieë te ondersoek, navorsers slegs in staat stel om op deduktiewe wyse na die strategieë te kyk. Tot op hede is daar nog nie 'n studie uitgevoer om te bepaal i) watter verskillende moontlike onverpersoonlikingstrategieë deur Afrikaanse sprekers aangewend kan word nie, en ii) of daar bepaalde voorkeure vir sprekers bestaan oor watter strategieë om te gebruik in die verskillende en onderskeibare onpersoonlike kontekste. Hierdie ondersoek beantwoord hierdie twee vrae deur die resultate van 'n visuele vraelys - wat aan ongeveer 450 Afrikaanssprekende respondente gegee is om te beantwoord - te bestudeer.

The progressive periphrastic constructions are a well published topic in Afrikaans and Dutch. Various publications outlining the individual forms and functions of the three dominant periphrastic progressives in Afrikaans and Dutch, namely the PREP-, besig- (or busy-construction), and CPV-constructions, as well as many publications comparing these constructions, among which the most prevalent is that of Breed, Brisard and Verhoeven (2017), and Breed and Brisard (2015), have taken a synchronic approach. The results of these publications indicated that whilst Afrikaans and Dutch share these three periphrastic constructions as markers of progressive aspect, there are numerous differences in the forms, functions and usage parameters of these constructions. Many of these differences are ascribed to divergent developmental circumstances due to the geographical placement of these language groups in the Netherlands and South-Africa. Since Afrikaans has its roots in 17th century Dutch it is assumed that these progressive periphrastic constructions in both languages originated from the same 17th century Dutch constructions. Therefore, the Afrikaans progressive periphrastic constructions are expected to be more similar to their Dutch counterparts in historical corpus data and that the differences that are currently visible have since developed due to grammaticalisation and language contact in South Africa. This article addresses the gap within the literature on this topic by following a diachronic approach to establish if these constructions were in fact more similar in late 17th century linguistic data from the Cape colonies than they currently are. A diachronic corpus study is undertaken in order to identify when these differences between the Afrikaans and Dutch progressive constructions became visible in the corpora over a period of nearly 300 years. The Tracing History Trust corpus (2011) consisting of handwritten dairy entries by the early Dutch settlers at the Cape, dating from the late 17th century to the late 18th century, is used as the primary corpus. The secondary corpus is the Historical corpus of Standard Afrikaans (2017) which is a stratified corpus containing Afrikaans texts from the 20th and early 21st centuries. Results show that, contrary to the expectation set forth by the synchronic publications, the progressive periphrastic constructions in Afrikaans and Dutch were not more similar in the 17th and 18th century than they currently are. Although many of the differences noted in synchronic studies were clearly visible in the corpora, it was found that some of these constructions had alternative forms in the past and some even had other functions and usage parameters than they currently have in either Afrikaans or Dutch. The dominant findings of each progressive periphrastic construction are: a) The aan het PREP-constructions were still primarily locative constructions and had yet to grammaticalise to aspectual markers denoting progressiveness, whilst the aan't-progressive was already becoming more specialised in the 17th and 18th century Cape-Dutch (or early Afrikaans); b) The besig met-construction was the most common progressive periphrastic construction in the 17th and 18th century and is most commonly spelled without the "z" characteristic of Dutch, whilst the popularity that the besig om te-progressive construction currently enjoys in Afrikaans is found to be a much more recent development than expressed in synchronic studies; c) Contrary to expectation, the CPV-progressive constructions do not commonly occur in the 17th and 18th century corpus data and take on a much more Afrikaans form than expected, especially considering that these are the most popular progressive periphrastic constructions in 21st century Dutch. This raises the possibility that the CPV-progressive constructions were incorporated into Dutch post 1652 via language contact in the Cape colony. This hypothesis provides interesting possibilities for future research.

In this article, we examine impersonal constructions in Afrikaans, i.e. constructions without a referential subject or, put differently, constructions where the (implicit) subject can be paraphrased as "people in general", "someone" or "some people". This topic has already received considerable attention in the literature but the focus has generally been on a limited number of strategies, such as human impersonal pronouns (e.g. mens leef net een keer "one only lives once") and the passive construction (e.g. my kar is gesteel "my car has been stolen"). In our view, this narrow focus in the literature is at least partly due to the limitations of the language-based methods (e.g. corpus studies and questionnaires) currently used in the research. These methods essentially facilitate a deductive approach by investigating a predetermined set of more or less established impersonal constructions. The present study, by contrast, adopts a more open-ended approach in order to get a better sense of the range of possible strategies that speakers of Afrikaans can use in different impersonal contexts and of the constructions that they prefer to employ in those various impersonal uses. We therefore draw on a visual questionnaire with few linguistic cues. Each scene in this questionnaire depicts a particular impersonal context - based on the distinguishing criteria found in the existing semantic maps of the domain of impersonalisation (such as quantification, perspective and veridicality) and respondents are encouraged to provide a sentence that captures the situation. The questionnaire was published online, promoted via social media and completed by more than 400 respondents. The findings show first of all that there exist numerous alternatives to the well-known strategies of impersonalisation. In addition to pronouns (e.g. jy "you" in wat gebeur as jy die knoppie druk? "what happens when you press that button?") and passives (e.g. is gepluk "were picked" in terwyl jy geslaap het, is al die appels gepluk "while you were asleep, all the apples were picked"), the types of constructions identified in our study include but are not restricted to: nouns with the meaning "people" and an extra evaluative connotation (e.g. morsjorse "litterbugs" in morsjorse het gister hier gesit en drink "litterbugs were drinking here yesterday"), the generic use of the imperative (e.g. onthou "remember" in onthou om altyd jou sitplekgordel vas te maak! "remember always to fasten your seat belt!"), nominalisations (e.g. koud kry "getting cold" in die winter is vir koud kry gemaak "winter is made for getting cold") and free-choice constructions (e.g. wie ook al "whoever" in wie ook al gister hier sokker gespeel het, het hul bal vergeet "whoever played soccer here yesterday forgot their ball"). Our results are furthermore suggestive of the impersonal constructions that are clearly favoured by speakers of Afrikaans. They indicate, for instance, that the established but still comparatively under-researched strategy of passivisation is used across all impersonal contexts and is even regularly preferred to the better-studied pronouns in certain uses (e.g. daar is al weer terreuraanvalle uitgevoer "terror attacks have again been carried out" instead of hulle het al weer terreuraanvalle uitgevoer "they have again carried out terror attacks"). Indefinite pronouns too are found to be among the most common constructions - especially, though not only, in contexts assuming the existence of a particular unidentified person responsible for some event (e.g. iemand "someone" in iemand het al die appels gepluk "someone has picked all the apples"). Nouns with the meaning "people", finally, also appear to be quite favoured by speakers of Afrikaans and they occur in a variety of impersonal uses, such as statements about people in general that do not, however, include the speaker or the addressee (e.g. mense "people" in in China eet mense rys "in China, people eat rice").

ABSTRACT Although a lot of research has been done on the use of pronouns to express impersonal meaning in West Germanic languages, relatively little is known about the use of other possible impersonalization strategies. This article therefore examines the agentless passive as a possible impersonalizing strategy in Afrikaans and Dutch. On the basis of corpus data, we show that the agentless passive is a productive strategy for impersonalization in both Afrikaans and Dutch –in that it is used in the entire range of impersonal contexts. However, it is more typically employed for corporate contexts and existential contexts where the subject is vague and number-neutral. Some variation in the use of the agentless passive in different genres are also seen. On the whole, however, the agentless passives behave very similarly in the two languages as an impersonalizing strategy.

Within the blended learning environment, it is important to consolidate expert content and pedagogy inside and outside the classroom. Subject experts who serve as content developers play a vital role by contributing quality controlled subject content covered by the curriculum, which can be made available to students on digital platforms. However, in developing countries and in communities where resources are limited, good and complementary digital content may not be accessible to all learners. Teachers are often left to their own devices to develop teaching content. When considering Afrikaans language teaching in South Africa specifically, there is a great need within the language community for learning and teaching support. This chapter reports on the role that the Virtual Institute for Afrikaans (VivA) is playing as a content provider of quality Afrikaans linguistic material in the blended learning environment. The aim is to present VivA as a case study or prototype of an independent organisation acting as a key stakeholder in the blended learning ecosystem.

Within the blended learning environment, it is important to consolidate expert content and pedagogy inside and outside the classroom. Subject experts who serve as content developers play a vital role by contributing quality controlled subject content covered by the curriculum, which can be made available to students on digital platforms. However, in developing countries and in communities where resources are limited, good and complementary digital content may not be accessible to all learners. Teachers are often left to their own devices to develop teaching content. When considering Afrikaans language teaching in South Africa specifically, there is a great need within the language community for learning and teaching support. This chapter reports on the role that the Virtual Institute for Afrikaans (VivA) is playing as a content provider of quality Afrikaans linguistic material in the blended learning environment. The aim is to present VivA as a case study or prototype of an independent organisation acting as a key stakeholder in the blended learning ecosystem.

This article investigates the human impersonal pronouns (HIPs) in Dutch by using a double questionnaire-based approach. It involves two different questionnaires, which firstly measures the acceptability of the different HIPs in the twelve possible impersonal contexts, and secondly, determines the preferred impersonal strategy in these same contexts. For this purpose, the study involves two different questionnaires, namely an acceptability questionnaire (AQ) and a completion task (VT). The results are interpreted in two ways: Firstly, a language-specific comparison is made between the results of the Dutch AQ and CT. Secondly, the Dutch results are compared to the results of a similar investigation into the Afrikaans HIPs. There is a correlation between the acceptability (from the AQ) and use (from the CT) of 'je' and 'ze' in universal-internal and non-internal uses respectively. However, there is little correlation between the acceptability of 'men' and the actual usage of this pronoun. The use of 'men' is considered acceptable in all twelve contexts, but the actual frequency of use is very low in all of the contexts. 'Ze' (Du) is used more frequently than 'hulle' (Afr), and 'ze' is more acceptable than 'hulle' in number-neutral existential contexts. Unlike 'men' (Du), which can be used in all twelve contexts, '('n) mens' (Afr) can only be used in internal-universal contexts. 'je' (Du) and 'jy' (Afr) are both acceptable and frequently used in internal-universal contexts.