Top-Down Versus Bottom-Up Approaches to Aspect: The Case of the Dutch Prepositional Progressive

Progressive constructions in Germanic are usually studied as progressive constructions—that is, exclusively so. I characterize this as a top-down approach to aspect, which, I argue, harbors the risk of overlooking relevant language-specific structures that are similar in form and meaning. This paper, therefore, advocates taking a bottom-up approach. Based on a case study of the prepositional progressive in Dutch ( aan het -progressive), I claim that this approach is of added empirical and theoretical value. Drawing on construction-based theories, the relevant patterns—dubbed situational constr... Mehr ...