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5.1.3.Definite articles with acronyms and abbreviations

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Definite articles are not normally construed with proper nouns, unless they are part of the name as such (cf. Section 5.1.2.1, (83)), which especially holds for names of companies and organizations. Some examples of this sort are given in (126). The difference between (126c) and (126d) serves the purpose of showing that the presence of the definite article is largely idiosyncratic. In many cases, proper nouns of this sort have acronyms. The primed examples show that the definite article is generally retained when an acronym is used instead of the full name. Example (126d') further shows that the acronyms of names that do not contain an article also lack an article.

126

a.		de	Nederlandse	Spoorwegen
		the	Dutch	Railways

a'.

de NS

b.		de	Verenigde	Staten	(van Amerika)
		the	United	States	of America

b'.

de VS

c.		de Centrumdemocraten
		the Center Democrats (political party)

c'.

de CD

d.		(?de) Democraten ’66
		Democrats ʼ66 (political party)

d'.

(*de) D66

In (126), we selected plural names for the reason that the full nouns and the acronyms may differ in the number agreement they trigger on the finite verb of a clause. Consider first the examples in (127). Here we see that abbreviations of a formal plural can, and typically do, externally behave like a singular. Example (127b) shows that de NS can trigger either singular of plural agreement on the finite verb, where the former is the more colloquial form and the latter the more formal form. Note that the company itself prefers to use the acronym without the article, in which case plural agreement is no longer possible: a typical example taken from the website of NS is given in (127c).

127

a.	De Nederlandse Spoorwegen	maken	weer	winst.
	the Dutch Railwayspl	makepl	again	profit
	'Dutch Railways are turning a profit again.'

b.		De NS	maakt/maken	weer	winst.
		the NS	makes/make	again	profit

c.	NS staat/*staan	in de Top 3	van de best	op tijd	rijdende	spoorwegbedrijven	in Europa.
	NS stands/stand	in the top 3	of the best	on time	driving	railway.companies	in Europe
	'NS is in the top 3 of most punctual railway companies in Europe.'

With the acronym of de Verenigde Staten in (128b) singular and plural agreement alternate as well, unlike in American English, where the noun phrase the US normally triggers singular agreement (Carole Boster, p.c.). Article drop is not possible in (128b), which suggests that article drop is confined to companies, but establishing this requires more research. For completeness’ sake, note that although it is sometimes claimed that the full form de Verenigde Staten in (128a) always triggers plural agreement (onzetaal.nl/advies/vs.php), it is easy to find examples on the internet in which it functions as a singular noun phrase, as is also common in American English.

128

a.	De Verenigde Staten	hebben/%heeft	tegen de resolutie	gestemd.
	the United Statespl	have/has	against the resolution	voted
	'The United States voted against the resolution.'

b.		De VS	heeft/hebben	tegen	de resolutie	gestemd.
		the US	has/have	against	the resolution	voted

While (127) and (128) are evidence that abbreviations of formal plurals can outwardly behave like plurals, the examples in (129) show that this is not always the case. Though both CD and D66 correspond to formal plurals (both featuring the plural noun Democraten as their head), plural agreement with de CD is very awkward. Plural agreement with D66 is entirely out of the question. The latter seems to be linked to the fact that D66 obligatorily occurs without an article; cf. the fact that article-less NS in (127c) also triggers singular agreement.

129

a.		De Centrumdemocraten	*heeft/hebben	tegen	gestemd.
		the Center Democrats	has/have	against	voted

a'.

De CD heeft/??hebben tegen gestemd.

b.		Democraten '66	heeft/??hebben	tegen	gestemd.
		Democrats '66	has/have	against	voted

b'.

D66 heeft/*hebben tegen gestemd.

Acronyms exhibit special behavior not only with respect to number agreement, but also with respect to gender. The examples in (130) are representative cases of acronyms whose full form is headed by the non-neuter singular onderzoekschool. We see, however, that the acronym LOT is preferably construed with the neuter article het. One may speculate that this is due to interference from the fact that the lexical item lot'fate/lottery ticket' is also a neuter noun, but this cannot be the whole story given that the neuter article is also used with the acronym FNV in (130b') for which no corresponding lexical item can be found.

130

a.	De/*Het	Landelijke Onderzoekschool Taalkunde	zetelt	in Utrecht.
	the	National Research-school Linguistics	is.seated	in Utrecht
	'The National Graduate School in Linguistics has its seat in Utrecht.'

a'.		Het/%De	LOT	zetelt	in Utrecht.
		the[-neuter]/[+neuter]	LOT	is.seated	in Utrecht

b.		de/*het	Federatie	Nederlandse	Vakbeweging
		the	Federation	Dutch	trade.union

b'.

de/het FNV

In many cases, acronyms start to behave like proper nouns themselves in the sense that the public is no longer familiar with the original name the acronym stands for. A good example is the ASN bank: the acronym ASN stands for Algemene Spaarbank Nederland (literally: General Savings Bank of the Netherlands) but apparently the acronym has become so opaque that the company felt it necessary to add the noun bank to the acronym. It should be clear by now that once acronyms get to this stage they may start to exhibit all kinds of unexpected behavior.

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About this article

Author(s): Hans Broekhuis, Marcel den Dikken

Category: Dutch Syntax

Publication date: 22 November 2023

Keywords: AcronymAgreementNounProper NounProper Noun preceded by an articleSubject-verb Agreement

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