A Germanic Sandwich is a series of workshops in which Dutch is compared with its closest Germanic neighbours, English and German. Consistent with its geographical intermediate location, Dutch has been argued to occupy a linguistic position in between German and English.
The 10th Germanic Sandwich workshop – the jubilee edition – will take place on Thursday 7 May and Friday 8 May 2026 at Freie Universität Berlin. The workshop series was founded in 2005, also at Freie Universität Berlin, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the appearance of Nederlands tussen Duits en Engels (‘Dutch between German and English)’, a study by the renowned Dutch linguist C.B. van Haeringen. Subsequent editions were held in Sheffield (2008), Oldenburg (2010), Leuven (2013), Nottingham (2015), Münster (2017), Amsterdam (2019), Cologne (2022), and Lancaster (2024).
As in previous editions, A Germanic Sandwich 10 welcomes studies of (dis)similarities between these three languages from a synchronic and/or a diachronic perspective and covering domains such as phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and/or pragmatics. In addition, it is open to contrastive work dealing with – among other things – psycholinguistics and language acquisition and to comparisons with other (West) Germanic languages like Afrikaans and Frisian.
We invite abstracts for talks of 20 minutes (+ 10 minutes discussion). Anonymous abstracts of 500 words should be sent to germanic-sandwich-2026@germanistik.fu-berlin.de. The workshop languages are English, Dutch, and German.
Important dates
- Abstract submission deadline: Monday 1 December 2025
- Notification of acceptance: Friday 30 January 2026
- Registration opens: Tuesday 10 March 2026
- Registration deadline: Sunday 26 April 2026
Program
Thursday, 7 May 2026
09:00-09:15
09:15-09:30
Registration
Welcome
09:30-10:30 Presentations
Matthias Hüning (Berlin)
Twenty Years of Sandwiches
Tanja Mortelmans (Antwerp)
Low Probability Adverbs in English, Dutch and German: Perhaps (misschien, vielleicht?) Another Germanic Sandwich?
10:30-11:00
Coffee break
11:00-12:30 Presentations
L115
Zuzanna Czerwonka-Wajda (Wrocław) & Rianne van Lieburg (Utrecht)
Germanic Sandwich but in a Slavic Head? Processing Short Oral and Written Instructions in an Unknown West Germanic Language by Native Speakers of Polish in Mediated Receptive Multilingualism Mode
L116
Fenna Bergsma (Leeuwarden)
Two Infinitives in Three Frisian Languages
Maria den Hartog (Nijmegen), Andreas Wölfle (Oldenburg) & Gert-Jan Schoenmakers (Utrecht)
Narrative Perspective across the Germanic Sandwich: Second Person Pronouns and Emotional Engagement
David Bolter (Berlin)
s-Plurals in the Lesser-Studied West Germanic Languages
Miriam L. Schiele (Tübingen)
Dutch Does Not Allow VP Ellipsis: No Exception for Modal Complement Ellipsis
Kerstin Hoge (Oxford)
When Can Pronouns Function as Demonstratives? Voldemort Phrases across West Germanic
12:30-13:30
Lunch Break
13:30-15:00 Presentations
L115
Carlotta Hübener (Leipzig)
Lichter te seggene ‘easier to say’: The History of Raising in English, Dutch, and German
L116
Livio Gaeta (Turin)
Expletives in the West Germanic Sandwich
Meg Smith (Leeuwarden)
An Old Frisian Approach to the West Germanic Directional-Locative Alternation
Berry Claus (Hanover)
Maar liefst drie plakken kaas tussen slechts twee sneetjes brood: Much in Dutch
Natalie Verelst (Dortmund) & Jeffrey Pheiff (Dortmund)
Great Expectations: The Diachronic Development of Anticausatives with vallen and stehen in Dutch and German
Anna Saller (Regensburg)
Verb additions (preverbs) in West and North Germanic languages compared
15:00-15:30
Coffee break
15:30-16:30 Presentations
L115
Roos Weijers (Oldenburg) & Esther Ruigendijk (Oldenburg)
The Interpretation and Processing of wh-questions in German and Dutch Speaking Children: The Role of Case Marking
L116
Geert Booij (Leiden)
The Nature and Use of Feminising Morphology
18:30
Conference dinner at Eierschale
(Podbielskiallee 50, 14195 Berlin)
Friday, 8 May 2026
09:30-11:00 Presentations
Timothy Colleman (Ghent)
“Shifted” Prepositional Datives across Four West Germanic Languages
Adri Breed (North-West University), Lande Botha (North-West University) & Karien Redelinghuys (North-West University)
Tracing Epistemic-Evidential Shift in Afrikaans: Corpus Evidence from Dutch Cognates and English Calques
Daniel Van Olmen (Lancaster)
Connective Negation in Dutch and Afrikaans
11:00-11:30
Coffee break
11:30-12:30 Presentations
L115
Elnora ten Wolde (Graz) & Thomas Schwaiger (Vienna)
Classifier Constructions in English, German and Dutch: Compounds vs. Head-Classifiers
L116
Johan van der Auwera (Antwerp) & Hartmut Haberland (Roskilde)
The Disjunctive Indefinites of German, Dutch and English
Petra Campe (Ghent) & Hans Smessaert (Leuven)
Translating Complex Prepositions between German and Dutch
Juliette Kayenbergh (Leuven)
The Expression of Progressive Meaning and the Bounded-Unbounded Continuum in Germanic Languages
12:30-13:30
Lunch Break
13:30-14:30 Presentations
L115
Alexander Van Herpe (Antwerp) & Dirk Pijpops (Antwerp)
Argument Structure in the Germanic Sandwich: The Case of Nominal Objects
L116
Kerstin Dierolf (Eichstätt) & Sebastian Kürschner (Eichstätt)
Wieso? Weshalb? Warum? – Hoezo? Waarom? Form, Variation, and Function of Interrogative Adverbs in German-Dutch Contrast
Felix Frühauf (Hanover) & Erlinde Meertens (Amsterdam)
Towards a Better Analysis
Nanna Fuhrhop (Potsdam), Niklas Reinken (Leipzig), Reena Poeschel (Potsdam) & Torsten Leuschner (Ghent University)
Writing systems in comparison: German, Dutch, English
14:30-15:00
Coffee break
15:00-16:00 Presentations
Mirjam Schmuck (Copenhagen)
GET-Passives in German, Dutch and Danish – A Germanic Sandwich?
Arnout Devriesere (Ghent), Isabeau De Smet (Leuven) & Freek Van de Velde (Leuven)
Extending the Germanic Sandwich: The Weakening of Strong Verbs in Norwegian, Swedish, and Icelandic
16:00-16:15
Wrap up
Registration
You may register for the conference via the following link.
https://www.conftool.net/germanic-sandwich-2026
The conference fee for regular participants is 75€. For PhD students the fee is 40€.
Please indicate whether you will participate in the conference dinner (also vegetarian) on Thursday. The dinner is free of charge for registered participants.
Venue
The workshop will take place in the Seminarzentrum which is located on the ground floor of the Rost- und Silberlaube of Freie Universität opposite the canteen directly at the entrance on Otto-von-Simson-Straße. The nearest metro station is U Freie Universität / Thielplatz (U3). The nearest S-Bahn station is Lichterfelde West (S1). Further travel options using public transport can be viewed via the BVG.
Directions and map
You can find information on how to find Campus Dahlem and a map here. You can find a map of the Seminarzentrum here.
Address
Freie Universität Berlin
Silberlaube (Erdgeschoss)
Otto-von-Simson-Str. 26
14195 Berlin-Dahlem
Accommodation
One option for accommodation is the Seminaris conference hotel, which is just a few minutes‘ walk from the conference venue. For further accommodation options, please refer to the usual booking portals.
People
Organizing Committee
Matthias Hüning
Barbara Schlücker
Maximilian Frankowsky
Martin Konvička
Aleksandra Uttenweiler
Truus De Wilde
Scientific Committee
Jenny Audring, Leiden University
Timothy Colleman, Ghent University
Ad Foolen, Radboud University
Ann Marynissen, University of Cologne
Caitlin Meyer, University of Amsterdam
Tanja Mortelmans, University of Antwerp
Daniel Van Olmen, Lancaster University
Esther Ruigendijk, University of Oldenburg
Hans Smessaert, KU Leuven
Freek Van de Velde, University of Leuven
Arjen Versloot, University of Amsterdam
Gunther De Vogelaer, University of Münster
Ulrike Vogl, Ghent University
Ton van der Wouden, Leiden University
Supported by Taalunie, the Division of International Affairs of Freie Universität Berlin, and Niederlandistenverband.
Contact
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