It is common for verb frame alternations to affect the external argument of the verb. The three main classes are given in (1); they will be briefly introduced in the subsections below and more extensively discussed in Section 3.2.

A second major class of verb frame alternation involves the alternation between a noun phrase and a (locational) PP. The examples in (7) illustrate a well-known example of this, which is often referred to as dative shift given that the noun phrase that alternates with the PP is a dative (indirect) object. Although this is normally not noted by traditional grammars, it seems that the so-called periphrastic indirect object is spatial in nature: example (7a) contains a change of location verb and the aan-PP refers to the new location of the referent of the direct object; example (7b) contains the motion verb sturen'to send' and the naar-PP refers to the goal of the path covered by the referent of the direct object; example (7c) again involves a path but the van-PP refers to the source of the path covered by the referent of the direct object. For an extensive discussion of the distinction between the notions change of location and path we refer the reader to Section P1.3.1.1.

      Example (8) shows that it is also possible for an accusative noun phrase to alternate with a PP. There are several types of such transitive-oblique alternations that correspond to systematic meaning differences: in examples such as (8a), for example, the theme of the transitive verb is affected by the activity denoted by the verb, whereas the theme of the PO-verb in examples such as (8b) is not necessarily affected by the activity denoted by the verb.

A somewhat more complex DP-PP alternation is illustrated in example (9), in which the locational PP op de muur'on the wall' alternates with the accusative noun phrase de muur'the wall'. This alternation, which is known as the locative alternation, goes hand in hand with a number of other changes: the verb hangen is prefixed with be- and the original accusative phrase, de muur, is realized as the nominal part of a met-PP.

Finally, DP-PP alternations may also involve the subject (nominative argument) of the clause. Example (10) illustrates this by means of a second type of locative alternation. This construction resembles the adjunct middle mentioned in Subsection I but crucially differs from it in that the subject in (10a) is not a referential noun phrase but the non-referential pronoun het'it'.

These different forms of DP-PP alternation are discussed in Section 3.3.

Before we start our discussion of the verb frame alternations above, it is important to note that this chapter will not discuss a number of other verb frame alternations, because they are discussed elsewhere. The first type involves cases like (11a-c), in which a so-called cognate object is added to an otherwise intransitive clause or in which an internal argument of an otherwise (di-)transitive verbs is left implicit; these cases are discussed in Section 2.1. Cases in which a verb takes an optional PP-complement, like wachten in (11d), are discussed in Section 2.3.

Obviously, we will not be concerned with optional adverbial phrases either. This means that we will not discuss the Dutch counterpart of Levin's (1993:34) understood body part alternation given that in Dutch the body part is normally expressed by means of an adverbial PP, and not by an object (as in English).

The second type of alternation that will not be discussed in this chapter involves alternations that are triggered by the addition of complementives (including verbal particles). The (a)- and (b)-examples in (13) show that this may result in, respectively, transitivization (the addition of a nominal argument) or an intransitive-unaccusative alternation. Alternations of this sort are discussed in Section 2.2.

The third type of alternation that will not be discussed is illustrated by the examples in (14), which show that the introduction of a simplex reflexive leads to suppression of the external argument of the transitive verb as well as promotion of the object to subject. Cases of this type are discussed in Section 2.5.2.