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In:Dutch and Contact Linguistics: The Dutch language outside the Low Countries
Edited by Christopher Joby and Nicoline van der Sijs
[IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society 55] 2025
► pp. 559–580

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Chapter 18
Language contact in online spaces

Multiple sources of non-finite causal constructions in Dutch

ORCiD logo with link | Freie Universität Berlin
Published online: 4 July 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.55.18kon
Abstract
In this chapter, I analyse the two Dutch non-finite causal constructions want X ‘because X’ and omdat X ‘because X’ from historical and comparative perspectives. I particularly focus on the relationship between language-internal and language-external factors in their development. To that end, I show how these constructions have developed in Dutch from causal clauses while also discussing their use in the multilingual context of computer-mediated communication. Against this backdrop, I conclude that they cannot be explained solely as resulting from processes within Dutch nor as merely structural borrowings from other languages, such as English. Instead, these constructions should be analysed as multiple-source constructions. In other words, language contact as a factor cannot be ignored and must always be considered.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Non-finite causal constructions in Dutch
    • 2.1Form
    • 2.2Function
    • 2.3Data
  • 3.Development of non-finite causal constructions in Dutch
    • 3.1Language-internal development of want X
    • 3.2Non-finite causal constructions and the recency illusion
    • 3.3Omdat follows want
  • 4.Language contact in online spaces
  • 5.Summary and concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
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