Call for Papers

The renowned Dutch linguist C.B. van Haeringen showed in his 1956 book ‘Nederlands tussen Duits en Engels’ that Dutch not only holds the middle ground between German and English with respect to the area where it is spoken, but is also ‘in between’ these languages in a highly systematic way when it comes to its linguistic structure. Though Van Haeringen’s account of this ‘Germanic Sandwich’ pattern focused on how Dutch historically drifted towards more analytic structures, later comparative investigations expanded this work considerably, adding more linguistic phenomena, highlighting structural and typological patterns and differences, and exploring psycho- and sociolinguistic explanations as well.

2005 marked the start of a conference series devoted to the comparative study of Dutch, German and English, commemorating van Haeringen’s book. After this first “Germanic Sandwich” in Berlin, subsequent editions were held in Sheffield (2008), Oldenburg (2010), Leuven (2013), Nottingham (2015) and Münster (2017). The next meeting will take place in Amsterdam on May 23-24, 2019.

We invite abstracts for 20-minute talks (+10 minutes discussion), in which Dutch is compared to German and/or English (other Germanic languages may of course be included as well). We welcome typological and/or comparative studies dealing with questions about structural aspects of these languages, their history or their status. Studies from a language acquisition or psycholinguistic perspective are also welcome. Abstracts should be written in one of the conference languages (English, Dutch, German) and may be no more than 1 A4 in length, including all figures and references.

Click here to submit your abstract via EasyChair. The deadline for submitting abstracts has passed.

Note for poster presenters: Our poster boards can accommodate posters up to A0 in size in portrait orientation.

Important dates:

Deadline for abstract submission: Tuesday, January 15, 2019 (23:59)
Extended deadline: Monday, January 21, 2019.

Notification of acceptance: Tuesday, February 19, 2019 Monday, February 25th, 2019. (All notifications have been sent.)
Registration opening: Now!
Registration deadline: Friday, May 10, 2019 (23:59)
Conference dates: Thursday, May 23  & Friday, May 24, 2019