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    7.1.2.2.Inflected alle'all'
    quickinfo

    This section presents a survey of the distribution of inflected alle inside the noun phrase. We will distinguish two cases: alle followed by a numeral, and “simplex” alle, that is, alle without a numeral. Since alle followed by a numeral is close in behavior to pre-determiner bare al discussed in Section 7.1.2.1, we will start with this case.

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    [+]  I.  Inflected alle + numeral

    This subsection discusses instances of alle that occur as a subpart of the quantificational pre-determiners in (41). The second part of these pre-determiners consists of a numeral greater than one or the morpheme – bei, which can perhaps be considered a short form of beide'both'.

    41
    a. alle + Numeral: alle twee'all two', alle drie'all three', etc.
    b. allebei'both' (lit.: all-both)

    Before we start our survey, we want to make a note on the spelling of the forms in (41a). Though spelling alle and the numeral as two separate words is the norm, it is also possible to spell alle + Num as one single word, especially if the numeral denotes a very small quantity: alletwee'all-two' alongside alle twee, alledrie'all-three' alongside alle drie. However, a survey on the internet shows that starting from alle vier'all four' the frequency of writing the sequence as a single word rapidly decreases: allezes'all-six' is already rare, alleacht is virtually non-existent, and allenegen'all-nine' does not occur at all. Allebei is always spelled as one single word. The form allemaal'all' (lit.: all-together) partially patterns with the forms in (41), but it will not be discussed here because its exceptional properties would blur the picture to be sketched for alle + Num and allebei; we therefore refer the reader to Section 7.1.5 for a discussion of this form.

    [+]  A.  Pre-determiner alle and noun phrase types

    Like bare al, the forms in (41) can only occur in plural noun phrases; this is illustrated for alle twee in Table 4, but the judgments remain the same if this modifier is replaced by allebei. The ill-formedness of the singular nouns in Table 4 is due to the fact that the pre-determiners in (41) are built up of alle and a numeral of a cardinality greater than 1; for the same reason, pre-determiner alle cannot precede noun phrases headed by non-count nouns. Note further that the plural examples with the proximate demonstrative deze'these' are marked.

    Table 4: Pre-determiner alle in noun phrases headed by a count noun
      singular [-neuter]/[+neuter] plural [-neuter]/[+neuter]
    definite
    articles    		 *alle twee de man/het huis
    all two the man/the house    		 alle twee de mannen/huizen
    all two the men/houses
    demonstrative
    pronouns    		 *alle twee die man/dat huis
    all two that man/that house    		 alle twee die mannen/huizen
    all two those men/houses
      *alle twee deze man/dit huis
    all two this man/this house    		 ?alle twee deze mannen/huizen
    all two these men/houses
    possessive
    pronouns    		 *alle twee mʼn man/huis
    all two my man/house    		 alle twee mʼn mannen/huizen
    all two my men/houses

    As with bare al, it is not possible for pre-determiner alle to be combined with the pluralia tantum in (42a) or with plurals which denote a conventionally fixed unit, like Verenigde Staten'US' in (42b).

    42
    a. * alle + Num/allebei de hersenen/tropen
      all + Num/all-both  the brains/tropics
    b. * alle + Num/allebei de Verenigde Staten
      all + Num/all-both  the United States
    [+]  B.  Restrictions on accompanying determiners and quantificational elements

    This subsection investigates the restrictions that alle + Num and allebei pose on the presence of determiners and quantificational elements. As in the case of bare al, the syntax of the constituents following alle + Num or allebei largely mirrors that of the same constituents lacking these quantifiers. For example, adjectival modification of the noun is not affected by the presence of these quantifiers, as is illustrated in (43); the attributive modifiers, of course, always carry an inflectional schwa, due to the fact that noun phrases like these are plural.

    43
    alle tien/allebei de/die/??deze eenzame mensen
      all/both  the/those/these  lonely  people
    [+]  1.  Determiners

    Table 4 has already shown that pre-determiner alle + Num can precede the definite article de and the distal demonstrative die with equal ease; the relevant examples are repeated here as (44a&b), and supplemented with the corresponding allebei'both' examples. The proximate demonstrative deze in (44c), however, is rather marked in a position linearly following the pre-determiner alle + Num and allebei, and sequences like these are also relatively rare on the internet. In this regard pre-determiner alle differs from al, which is perfect to the left of the proximate demonstrative, and instead resembles pre-determiner heel'all/whole'; cf. Section 7.2.2.1, sub I.

    44
    a. alle twee/allebei de mannen/huizen
      all two/both  the men/houses
    b. alle twee/allebei die mannen/huizen
      all two/both  those men/houses
    c. ? alle twee/allebei deze mannen/huizen
      all two/both  these men/houses

    The marked proximate demonstrative cases improve to a certain degree in contexts of the type in (45), in which the demonstrative receives contrastive accent. The acceptability of examples of this type improves further under backward conjunction reduction, as in the primed examples. By contrast, NP-ellipsis in the second conjunct leads to ungrammaticality, as is shown in the doubly-primed examples. The ungrammaticality of these examples is due entirely to the presence of the pre-determiners alle tien and allebei; with these quantifier elements removed, the sentences are perfect. Replacing these pre-determiners with bare al also leads to a somewhat better result, as can be seen in Section 7.1.2.1, sub IIA.

    45
    a. (?) Ik ken wel alle tien deze mannen, maar niet alle tien die mannen.
    a'. Ik ken wel alle tien deze ∅, maar niet alle tien die mannen.
    a''. * Ik ken wel alle tien deze mannen, maar niet alle tien die ∅.
      I  know  aff  all ten  these men  but  not  all ten  those [men]
    b. ? Ik ken wel allebei deze mannen, maar niet allebei die mannen.
    b'. Ik ken wel allebei deze ∅, maar niet allebei die mannen.
    b''. * Ik ken wel allebei deze mannen, maar niet allebei die ∅.
      I  know  aff  both  these men  but  not  both  those [men]

          Possessive pronouns can be placed between alle + Num/ allebei and the projection of the noun, provided that they are prosodically weak: the reduced forms of the pronouns in (46a) are fine, whereas the full forms in (46b) are marked to varying degrees — in particular onze'our' and hun'their', which do not have a weak form, are relatively acceptable, but jullie, which can only be reduced under the strict conditions discussed in Section 5.2.2.3, seems completely unacceptable. Example (46c) shows that stressed possessive pronouns are impossible. The (semi-)genitival possessors in (46d) are acceptable in this position roughly to the same marginal degree as full possessive pronouns, but, for some unclear reason, proper nouns like those in (46e) give rise to an unacceptable result.

    46
    a. alle tien/allebei mʼn/je/zʼn/dʼr boeken
      all ten/all-both  my/your/his/her  books
    b. alle tien/allebei ??mijn/*jouw/??zijn/??haar/?onze/*jullie/?hun boeken
      all ten/all-both    my/yoursg/his/her/our/yourpl/their  books
    c. * alle tien/allebei mijn boeken
      all ten/all-both  my  books
    d. ?? alle tien/allebei mʼn vaders/mʼn vader zʼn boeken
      all ten/all-both  my fatherʼs/my father his  books
    e. * alle tien/allebei Jans/Jan zʼn boeken
      all ten/all-both  Janʼs/Jan his  books

          The alle + Num examples in (46) alternate with constructions in which bare al precedes and the numeral follows the possessor of the noun: al mʼn tien boeken'al my ten books'; cf. Section 7.1.2.1, sub IIC. This syntactic alternation does not seem semantically innocuous, though judgments are subtle. Consider the pair in (47), used in a context in which a selection committee is finalizing a short list, and each of the committee members has drawn up a list of his three top candidates. In this context, alle drie onze kandidaten primes a reading in which all committee members selected the same three candidates (hence the total number of candidates figuring on the committee members’ lists is exactly three), while al onze drie kandidaten seems more felicitously used in a situation in which not all committee members selected the same three candidates (hence the total number of candidates figuring on the committee members’ lists exceeds three).

    47
    a. Alle drie onze kandidaten (*vormen samen een groep van zeven man).
      all three our candidates     form  together  a group of seven people
    b. Al onze drie kandidaten (vormen samen een groep van zeven man).
      all our three candidates   form  together  a group of seven people

          For completeness’ sake, it should be noted that alle + Num and allebei can also be used with nominalized possessive pronouns. The article preceding the noun must be de, because alle + Num and allebei do not combine with singular noun phrases; this excludes the article het, which is only found in singular noun phrases.

    48
    a. alle twee/allebei de mijne/jouwe/zijne/hare/onze/hunne
      all two/both  the mine/yourssg/his/hers/ours/theirs
    b. * alle twee/allebei het mijne/jouwe/zijne/hare/onze/hunne
      all two/both  the mine/yourssg/his/hers/ours/theirs

          Pre-determiner alle + Num cannot be construed with noun phrases containing the indefinite article een, not even in contexts in which, in the absence of the pre-determiner, the indefinite article can combine with a plural noun phrase.

    49
    a. Een boeken dat hij heeft!
      a books  that  he  has
      'He has a lot of books/very nice books!'
    b. * Alle tien/allebei een boeken dat hij heeft!
      all ten/both  a books  that  he  has

    As is shown in (50a), the pre-determiner allebei cannot combine with bare plurals either. Alle + Num, on the other hand, can be construed with bare plurals, although this depends on the numeral in question. The empirical generalization seems to be that with “high” numerals, like vijfentwintig in (50d), the determiner de is preferably dropped (although some speakers find (50d) with the determiner de perfectly acceptable), whereas with “low” numerals the pattern without the determiner de is awkward, to a degree which varies somewhat from speaker to speaker and from case to case (Perridon 1997: 184). A rough search on the internet has shown that in examples like (50a&b), with allebei and alle twee/drie/vier, use of the article de is clearly preferred. In cases such as (50c), with alle vijf/zes both options have about the same frequency. In examples such as (50d) with high numbers, dropping the article seems obligatory: the string [ alle vijfentwintig de] resulted in no relevant hits, whereas the string [ alle vijfentwintig] provided many cases of the relevant construction; see also taaladvies.net/taal/advies/vraag/48.

    50
    a. allebei/alle twee de/*∅ boeken
      all-both/all two  the  books
    c. alle vijf/zes/... de/∅ boeken
      all  five/six/...  the  books
    b. alle drie/vier de/*∅ boeken
      all  three/four  the  books
    d. alle vijfentwintig ∅/%de boeken
      all twenty five  ∅/the  books

          If the numeral is modified by an adverb, construing alle + Num with a bare plural is the only possibility; adding the article de gives rise to an unacceptable result, even with relatively “low” numerals like vijf.

    51
    alle ongeveer/bijna/ruim honderd/vijf (*de) deelnemers
      all  approximately/almost/well over  hundred/five     the  participants
    [+]  2.  Indefinite determiner-like elements

    Example (52a) shows that the indefinite determiner-like elements dat/dit soort'such', discussed in Section 4.1.2, are not compatible with alle + Num/ allebei to their left. Example (52b) shows that the same thing holds for pseudo-partitive noun phrases, discussed in Section 4.1.1.6, sub I, with the indefinite determiner-like element van die'such'.

    52
    a. * alle tien/allebei dat/dit soort boeken
      all ten/all-both  that/this sort  books
    b. * alle tien/allebei van die boeken
      all ten/all-both  of such  books
    [+]  3.  Quantifiers and numerals

    Since the pre-determiners allebei and alle + Num already contain a cardinal number, the addition of other quantificational elements to the noun phrase is impossible; the examples below are all ungrammatical. Numerals are, of course, excluded since this would either result in unwanted redundancy or in a contradiction: *alle vier de drie/vier boeken'all four the three/four books'.

    53
    a. * alle tien/allebei enige/sommige boeken
      all ten/all-both  some  books
    b. * alle tien/allebei veel boeken
      all ten/all-both  many  books
    c. * alle tien/allebei de vele/weinige mensen in de zaal
      all ten/all-both  the  many/few  people in the room
    d. * alle twee/allebei de twee/beide boeken
      all two/all-both  the two/both  books
    [+]  4.  Personal pronouns and proper nouns

    Alle + Num and allebei can form a constituent with a plural personal pronoun, provided that the pronoun is realized in its strong, unreduced form and that it precedes the quantifier. That the string zij alle tien/allebei in (54) is a constituent is clear from the fact that it can precede the finite verb zijn in the main clauses (the constituency test). Note, though, that (54b), in which the pronoun has an inanimate referent, is much worse than (54a), in which the pronoun is animate. This may be related to the fact that strong pronouns are normally interpreted as +human; cf. Section 5.2.1.1, sub V.

    54
    a. (Wat die kinderen betreft,) zij/*ze alle tien/allebei zijn zeer slim.
      what those children concerns  they  all ten/both  are  very smart
      'As far as those children are concerned, they are all ten/both very smart.'
    b. (Wat die problemen betreft,) ??zij/*ze alle tien/allebei zijn zeer ernstig.
      what those problems concerns    they  all ten/both  are very serious
      'As far as those problems are concerned, they are all ten/both very serious.'

    It must also be noted that, while grammatical, example (54a) is marked compared to the variants in (55), in which the pronoun and the quantifier do not form a constituent; this use as floating quantifier is more extensively discussed in Section 7.1.4.

    55
    Discourse topic: a number of children
    a. Zij/Ze zijn alle tien/allebei zeer slim.
      they  are  all ten/all-both  very smart
      'They are all ten/both very smart.'
    b. Alle tien/allebei zijn zij/ze zeer slim.
      all ten/all-both  are  they  very smart

    Since proper nouns are normally uniquely referring singular expressions, it is correctly predicted that they do not co-occur with pre-determiner alle + Num, as shown by (56a). The exceptional case in (56b) is not a counter-example; here the plural proper noun is preceded by the definite article de, and therefore behaves as a count noun.

    56
    a. * alle tien Jan/Jannen
      all  ten  Jansg/pl
    b. alle tien de Jannen
      all  ten  the  Janpl
    [+]  II.  Inflected simplex alle

    The construction with pre-determiner al in (57a), discussed in Section 7.1.2.1, is semantically roughly on a par with the alle N construction in (57b), and the two constructions are therefore often considered to be surface variants, alle being assumed to be a fusion of bare al and the definite determiner. The investigation of the meaning contribution of alle and al de in Section 7.1.1 has already shown that there are semantic reasons to not follow this “fusion” approach, and the discussion in the following subsections will show that there are also distributional differences between them that make such an approach less plausible.

    57
    a. al de mannen
      all  the man
    b. alle mannen
      all  men

    This subsection will discuss the properties of alle inside the noun phrase. In conjunction with alle we will consider beide'both', which is syntactically virtually identical with alle except where noted otherwise.

    [+]  A.  Simplex alle and noun phrase types

    Table 5 shows that alle and beide cannot occur in singular count noun phrases, regardless of the grammatical gender of the noun. They do readily occur in plural noun phrases, which must be determinerless; see Subsection B for more discussion.

    Table 5: Inflected alle'all' and beide'both' in noun phrases headed by a count noun
      [-neuter] [+neuter] plural
    inflected alle *alle stad
    all town    		 *alle huis
    all house    		 alle steden/huizen
    all towns/houses
    beide *beide stad
    both town    		 *beide huis
    both house    		 alle/beide steden/huizen
    all/both towns/houses

    It should be noted, however, that in older stages of the language alle was possible with singular count nouns denoting a temporal interval like alle maand'each month', even when the noun was preceded by a numeral, as in alle vier maand (lit.: all four month) cf. Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal, lemma al. In present-day Dutch, elk(e) is used instead ( elke maand), although there are still some formal, idiomatic cases like in alle geval'in any case' and te allen tijde'at all times'. Finally, it should be noted that the form alleman with singular man exists as a compound, found in the fixed expression Jan en alleman'everybody' (lit.: Jan and everyman), and as the left-hand member of the larger compound allemansvriend'everymanʼs friend'.
          Though alle and beide precede plural noun phrases, they cannot be combined with the pluralia tantum in (58a) or with plurals like (58b) that denote a conventionally fixed unit.

    58
    a. * alle/beide hersenen/tropen
      all/both  brains/tropics
    b. * alle/beide Verenigde Staten
      all/both  United States

          Inflected alle can also be combined with non-count nouns, although there are many restrictions that are not well understood. Furthermore, the data are not always as clear as one would like. Let us start with mass nouns like vee'cattle' or meubilair'furniture'. Although many cases can be found on the internet, we have the impression that alle does not readily combine with such nouns: our feeling is that al het vee/meubilair'all the cattle/furniture' is much preferred to alle vee/meubilair.

    59
    a. al het/??alle vee
      all the/all  cattle
    b. al het/??alle meubilair
      all the/all  furniture

    It might be the case that the two forms differ in meaning and that the form with al het is D-linked, that is, refers to a contextually defined set of entities, whereas the form with alle is non-D-linked, but we leave this to future research to decide. Furthermore, there are more or less idiomatic examples involving alle + mass noun: example (60a) provides one involving the mass noun verkeer'traffic'. That noun phrases like these are not productively used outside their formulaic syntactic contexts is shown by the fact that, to our ear, (60b) seems pretty awkward with inflected alle.

    60
    a. gesloten voor alle verkeer
      closed  for all traffic
    b. Al het/*?Alle verkeer op de snelweg stond vast.
      all the/all  traffic  on the highway  stood  fast
      'All traffic on the highway was jammed.'

          With abstract non-count nouns gender may play a role: neuter nouns like verdriet'sorrow' and geluk'happiness' seem marked, whereas non-neuter nouns like moeite'trouble' and hoop'hope' seem completely acceptable with inflected alle. Our impression seems supported by a Google search (July 2008) on the nouns mentioned: the neuter nouns are more often preceded by al het'all the' than by alle'all', al de moeite'all the trouble' was about as frequent as alle moeite'all trouble', and alle hoop'all hope' far outnumbered al de hoop'all the hope'. It should be noted, however, that the results may not reflect that actual productive use of the sequence alle + abstract noun, given that abstract non-count nouns frequently occur in frozen expressions like those given in (61).

    61
    a. Straks komt er een eind aan alle verdriet.
      soon  comes  there  an end  to all sorrow
      'Soon, there will come an end to all sorrow.'
    b. Alle moeite is voor niets geweest.
      all trouble  is for nothing  been
      'All efforts were to no avail.'
    c. Hij had alle hoop al opgegeven.
      he  had  all hope  already  given.up
    d. Alle begin is moeilijk.
      all beginning  is difficult

          With substance nouns, gender may again play a role. Neuter nouns like water and gebak'confectionery' seem marked, whereas non-neuter nouns like wijn'wine' and kaas'cheese' are completely acceptable with inflected alle. Our impression again seems to be confirmed by a Google search (July 2008) on the nouns mentioned: the neuter nouns are more often preceded by al het'all the' than by alle'all', whereas the non-neuter nouns are more often preceded by alle'all' than by al de'all the'. Nevertheless, it might be the case that judgments differ from case to case, and from person to person. Although future research is needed to see whether this is justified, we will assume for the moment that the general pattern is that substance nouns can be preceded both by alle'all' and by al de/het'all the'.
          Table 6 aims at summarizing the findings above, and also shows that beide differs from inflected alle in that it never co-occurs with non-count nouns.

    Table 6: Inflected alle and beide in noun phrases headed by a non-count noun
      inflected alle beide
      [+neuter] [-neuter] [+neuter] [-neuter]
    substance
    nouns    		 ?alle water
    all water     		alle wijn/kaas
    all wine/cheese    		 *beide water
    both water    		 *beide wijn/kaas
    both wine/cheese
    abstract
    nouns    		 ?alle verdriet
    all sadness    		 alle moeite
    all trouble/hope    		 *beide verdriet
    both sadness    		 *beide moeite
    both trouble
    mass
    nouns    		 ??alle vee
    all cattle    		 ??alle politie
    all police    		 *beide vee
    both cattle    		 *beide politie
    both police

          Section 7.1.1 has shown that inflected alle need not express universal quantification, but may also have a high degree reading; the examples in (62a&b), illustrate again that alle phrases headed by an abstract non-count noun are quite common on this reading. Another context in which alle can combine with an abstract non-count noun is given in (62c); the adjective mogelijke seems to be the licenser of alle here; possibly, alle mogelijke should be analyzed as a constituent.

    62
    High degree alle
    a. alle lof
      all laudation
    a'. alle reden
      all reason (every reason)
    b. in alle ernst
      in all seriousness
    b'. voor alle zekerheid
      for all security
    c. alle mogelijke moeite/onzin/pracht/...
      all  possible  trouble/nonsense/beauty/...

          The universal quantifier alle gives rise to unacceptable or highly marked results if combined with a deverbal noun. A systematic class of exceptions to this rule is formed by ge-nominalizations, which can be construed relatively freely with alle (though the results may vary from case to case). This is shown in Table 7, which also shows that beide is never possible in this context.

    Table 7: Inflected alle and beide in noun phrases headed by a deverbal noun
      inflected alle beide
    bare stem ??alle werk (van deze week)
    all work of this week    		 *beide werk (van deze week)
    both work of this week
    nominal infinitive *alle werken
    all work    		 *beide werken
    both work
    ge-nominalization alle gedoe/gezeur/?gewerk
    all fuss/nagging/working    		 *beide gedoe/gezeur/gewerk
    both fuss/nagging/working

          This subsection has shown that there are various restrictions on the use of alle in combination with non-count nouns; cf. Table 6 and Table 7. Although the nature of these restrictions is far from clear, it is useful to point out that these restrictions are completely lacking in the case of pre-determiner bare al; cf. Table 2 and Table 3. This is unexpected on, and can therefore be seen as a problem for, the “fusion” approach, which considers alle a contracted form of pre-determiner bare al and the determiner following it.

    [+]  B.  Restrictions on accompanying determiners and quantificational elements

    This subsection investigates the restrictions that alle'all' and beide'both' pose on the presence of co-occurring determiners and quantificational elements. As in the case of bare al and the pre-determiner alle + Num, the syntax of the constituents modified by alle and beide largely mirrors that of the same constituents lacking these quantifiers. We will see later in this subsection that this fact provides a nice testing ground for the “fusion” approach, according to which alle is a contracted form of al and a definite determiner; cf. the discussion of example (70).

    [+]  1.  Determiners

    In the present-day vernacular, simplex alle cannot be combined with the definite article de or the demonstratives die/deze'those/these' (although the sequence alle de/die/deze can still be found in archaic and very formal language). Beide differs from alle in that it can be used to the right, though not to the left, of these determiners. Note that the fact that beide is not in complementary distribution with the definite article indicates that beide cannot be treated as the result of “fusion” of the morpheme bei, also found in the pre-determiner allebei (see Section 7.1.2.2), and the definite article.

    63
    a. * alle/beide de/die/deze mannen
      all/both  the/those/these  men
    b. de/die/deze beide/*alle mannen
      the/those/these  both/all  men

    There is no way of salvaging the ungrammatical examples in (63a) with the aid of contrastive accent; the bad cases are bad, no matter what context they are inserted into. On the other hand, the contrastive example in (64a), a contextualized variant of grammatical (63b) with beide, is somewhat awkward but structurally well-formed. backward conjunction reduction is marginally possible in (64b) when applied to beide mannen, but highly awkward when applied to mannen alone. NP-ellipsis in the second conjunct strengthens this distinction; (64c) show that it is fine with beide mannen elided but unacceptable with just mannen undergoing ellipsis.

    64
    a. ? Ik ken wel déze beide mannen, maar niet dié beide mannen.
    b. Ik ken wel déze ?(??beide) ∅, maar niet dié beide mannen.
    BCR
    c. Ik ken wel déze beide mannen, maar niet dié (*beide) ∅.
    NP-ellipsis
      I  know  aff  these both men  but  not  those both [men]

           Alle does not occur in noun phrases that contain a possessive pronoun. Beide, on the other hand, is again possible if it appears to the right of the possessor, as is shown by (65b). The acceptability of these examples is unaffected by the complexity of the possessor; all variants of (65b) with beide in the right-hand slot are perfect, while all their counterparts with alle are unacceptable.

    65
    a. * alle/beide mijn/mijn vaders/mijn vader zʼn autoʼs
      all/both  my/my fatherʼs/my father his  cars
    b. mijn/mijn vaders/mijn vader zʼn beide/*alle autoʼs
      my/my fatherʼs/my father his  both/all  cars

          The examples in (66a) show that neither alle nor beide combine with nominalized possessive pronouns. The ungrammaticality of (66a) is striking in the light of the impeccability of (66b), involving the pre-determiner counterparts of alle and beide. This contrast between (66a&b) is a further indication that alle/beide are not the result of “fusion” of the pre-determiners in (66b) with the definite article following them. The difference between al and beide in (66b') is due to the fact that only the former can be combined with non-count nouns; the fact that het mijne is necessarily singular therefore excludes allebei; cf. the earlier discussion of example (48).

    66
    a. * alle/beide mijne/jouwe/zijne/hare/onze/hunne
      all/both  mine/yourssg/his/hers/ours/theirs
    b. al/allebei de mijne/jouwe/zijne/hare/onze/hunne
      all/both  the  mine/yourssg/his/hers/ours/theirs
    b'. al/*allebei het mijne/jouwe/zijne/hare/onze/hunne
      all/both  the  mine/yourssg/his/hers/ours/theirs

           Alle and beide cannot be construed with noun phrases containing the indefinite article een, not even in the exclamative context in (67b), in which, in the absence of the pre-determiner, the indefinite article can combine with a plural noun phrase.

    67
    a. * <alle/beide> een <alle/beide> ellende
      all/both  a  misery
    b. * <Alle/Beide> een <alle/beide> boeken dat hij heeft!
      all/both  a  books  that he has

          Earlier we saw that, next to beide mannen'both men', de beide mannen'the both men' is also grammatical. It should be noted, however, that the interpretation and concomitant syntactic distribution of the two forms are not identical. It seems to be the case that beide used without a determiner is semantically on a par with allebei + Det: allebei de mannen'both the men'. Post-determiner beide, on he other hand, is semantically distinct and behaves more like the numeral twee: de beide/twee mannen'the two men'. This difference between pre- and post determiner beide can be brought out by means of the examples in (68). While (68a) is preferably interpreted in such a way that the two Koreas have made a joint decision, the interpretation for (68b) is one in which each of the two Koreas has reached a decision on its own. In this regard (68b) seems to be on a par with (68b'), which, however, also allows an interpretation according to which there is one joint decision taken.

    68
    a. De beide/twee Koreaʼs hebben besloten de grenzen te openen.
      the both/two Koreas  have  decided  the borders  to open
      'The two Koreas have decided to open the borders.'
    b. Allebei de Koreaʼs hebben besloten de grenzen te openen.
      all-both the Koreas  have  decided  the borders  to open
      'Both Koreas have decided to open the borders.'
    b'. Beide Koreaʼs hebben besloten de grenzen te openen.
      both Koreas  have  decided  the borders  to open

    That (68b&b') pattern together and are distinct from the pair in (68a) seems confirmed by (69): whereas the two examples in (69a) are fully acceptable, those in (69b) are anomalous.

    69
    a. Het overleg tussen de beide/twee Koreaʼs was vruchteloos.
      the consultation  between  the both/two  Koreas  was fruitless
    b. * Het overleg tussen allebei de/beide Koreaʼs was vruchteloos.
      the consultation  between  both the/both  Koreas  was fruitless

          To conclude this subsection on determiners, we want to pay some more attention to the “fusion” approach to alle, according to which it is a fused form of al and the definite determiner. The overall conclusion from the discussion above is that simplex alle combines only with plural bare noun phrases. The complementary distribution of alle and the determiners makes it possible to hypothesize that the former occurs in the determiner position, which would of course support the “fusion” approach to alle. The examples in (70), however, provide evidence against this approach, since they show that alle does not behave like a definite determiner when it comes to the determination of adjectival inflection. While the definite article in (70c) triggers the inflectional -e ending in the attributive modifier of the noun, the attributive modifier in the alle phrase in (70a), taken from Perridon (1997), inflects as in the indefinite noun phrase in (70b).

    70
    a. alle ?slim/*slimme geknoei in de handel
      all  clever  fiddling  in the commerce
    b. slim/*slimme geknoei
      clever  fiddling
    c. het slimme/*slim geknoei
      the  clever  fiddling

    Although noun phrase internal alle does not qualify as a definite determiner (which in turn may indicate that it does not occupy the determiner position in the DP), the noun phrase in (70a) has the outward appearance of a definite/strong noun phrase in the sense that it cannot be used as the associate of expletive er in existential or presentational constructions. Note that this holds for all alle phrases except for those in which alle has a high degree reading; cf. Section 7.1.1.

    71
    a. Er was slim geknoei in de handel.
      there  was  clever fiddling  in the commerce
    b. * Er was alle slim geknoei in de handel.
      there  was  all clever fiddling  in the commerce

    Though the adjectival inflection suggests that the noun phrase alle slim geknoei is internally indefinite, the same noun phrase behaves like a definite/strong noun phrase in its external syntactic distribution. This paradox has received little or no attention in the literature to date; we will not try to resolve the tension between these apparently irreconcilable characteristics of alle phrases here, but do repeat our earlier conclusion that alle does not behave as a contraction of al and the definite article.

    [+]  2.  Indefinite determiner-like elements

    The indefinite determiner-like elements dat/dit soort'such', discussed in Section 4.1.2, are not compatible with alle/beide, regardless of their position relative to the quantifiers. The same thing holds for the indefinite determiner-like element van die'such' (lit.: of those) in the pseudo-partitive construction.

    72
    a. * <alle/beide> dat/dit soort <alle/beide> boeken
      all/both  that/this sort  books
    b. * <alle/beide> van die <alle/beide> boeken
      all/both  of those  books
      'all such books'
    [+]  3.  Quantifiers and numerals

    Simplex alle and beide cannot co-occur with other quantifiers in a noun phrase. The examples in (73) are all ungrammatical. Word order patterns like alle honderd boeken'all hundred books' do yield a grammatical result with higher numerals, but alle does not directly quantify the noun phrase in such constructions, arguably forming a constituent together with the numeral; cf. the discussion in Subsection IB.

    73
    a. * alle/beide enige/sommige boeken
      all/both  some  books
    b. * alle/beide veel/vele mensen in de zaal
      all/both  many  people in the room
    c. * alle/beide weinig/weinige mensen in de zaal
      all/both  few  people in the room
    [+]  4.  Pronouns

    Another consideration concerning alle/beide that casts doubt on a “fusion” approach is the fact illustrated in the primeless examples in (74) that, in contradistinction to the pre-determiners al and allebei, alle and beide can be combined with animate personal pronouns into a single constituent, where the quantifier is obligatorily adorned with a mute, orthographic -n. As in the case of alle + Num, the pronoun must be realized in its strong form and precede the quantifier, which may account for the fact that the examples in (74a') are not acceptable, given that pronouns referring to non-human entities normally have the weak form; cf. Section 5.2.1.1, sub V.

    74
    a. (Wat die kinderen betreft,) zij/*ze allen/beiden zijn erg slim.
      what those children concerns  they  all/both  are  very smart
    a'. * (Wat die problemen betreft,) zij alle/beide zijn zeer ernstig.
      what those problems concerns  they all/both  are  very serious
    b. (Wat die kinderen betreft,) God zij met hen/*ze allen/beiden.
      what those children concerns  God be  with  them  all/both

    The examples in (74a) are marked compared to their variants in (75). These so-called floating quantifier constructions, which allow both the strong and the weak form of the pronoun (which can therefore also refer to non-human entities), are discussed in Section 7.1.4. Note further that the forms allen/beiden belong to the formal lexicon: in everyday spoken language, these forms are typically replaced by the invariant forms allemaal and allebei, as in the primed examples of (75).

    75
    Discourse topic: a number of children
    a. Zij/Ze zijn allen/beiden erg slim.
      they  are  all/both  very smart
    a'. Zij/Ze zijn allemaal/allebei erg slim.
      they  are  all/both  very smart
    b. Allen/Beiden zijn zij/ze erg slim.
      all/both  are  they  very smart
    b'. Allemaal/Allebei zijn zij/ze erg slim.
      all/both  are  they  very smart

    Although the pronouns and the floating quantifiers do not form a single constituent in (75), they do in the examples in (74). In (74a), this is evident from the fact that the string zij allen/beiden occupies the position to the left of the finite verb (the constituency test). The single-constituent status of hen allen/beiden in (74b) is also undisputed, given that it functions as the complement of a preposition. The same thing holds for the quantified possessive pronouns in (76), where the quantifier takes the genitival case-form aller/beider.

    76
    a. Ons aller/beider vriend Jan is gisteren overleden.
      our all/bothgen friend Jan  is  yesterday  died
      'Jan, a friend of all/both of us, died yesterday.'
    b. U aller/beider medewerking wordt zeer op prijs gesteld.
      youpolite all/bothgen cooperation  is  very on price  put
      'The cooperation of all/both of you will be greatly appreciated.'
    c. Dit is het feest van de heilige Hubertus, hun aller/beider schutspatroon.
      this  is  the feast of the holy Hubertus  their all/bothgen patron saint
      'This is the feast of Saint Hubert, the patron saint of all/both of them.'

    The fact that aller and beider are marked with genitive case again shows that we are dealing with constructions that are not part of the present-day vernacular but with relics of older stages of the language. Note in passing that the fact that (76b) has the form u instead of the possessive pronoun uw suggests that the pronouns in these examples are not (or, rather, no longer) genitival forms; the fact that hun is used in (76c), and not hen, further suggests that we are dealing with dative forms. If so, this would also account for the fact that the pronoun ons in (76a) is always uninflected (* onze aller vriend): unlike the genitival/possessive pronoun, the object pronoun ons has no schwa-inflected form; for more information on this genitival construction see onzetaal.nl/taaladvies/advies/uw-u-beider-aanwezigheid.
          That it is possible for allen/beiden to quantify and form a single constituent with pronouns provides evidence that allen/beiden is not the result of contraction of al/bei and a definite article, since pronouns never combine with articles in Dutch (* de zij/hen/hun'the they/them/their'). For completeness’ sake, it can be added that the independently used neuter singular demonstratives dit and dat can be combined with al into a single constituent; the form used then is alles.

    77
    Dit/Dat alles zou onnodig zijn geweest, als ...
      this/that all  would  unnecessary  have been  if
    'This/That would all have been unnecessary if ...'
    References:
    • Perridon, Harry1997Totaliteit. Over het gebruik van de woorden <i>al(le)</i>, <i>heel</i>, <i>ieder</i> en <i>elk</i>Elffers, Els, Horst, Joop van der & Klooster, Wim (eds.)Grammaticaal spektakel. Artikelen aangeboden aan Ina Schermer-Vermeer bij haar afscheid van de Vakgroep Nederlandse Taalkunde aan de Universiteit van AmsterdamDutch department, University of Amsterdam181-190
    • Perridon, Harry1997Totaliteit. Over het gebruik van de woorden <i>al(le)</i>, <i>heel</i>, <i>ieder</i> en <i>elk</i>Elffers, Els, Horst, Joop van der & Klooster, Wim (eds.)Grammaticaal spektakel. Artikelen aangeboden aan Ina Schermer-Vermeer bij haar afscheid van de Vakgroep Nederlandse Taalkunde aan de Universiteit van AmsterdamDutch department, University of Amsterdam181-190
    About this article
    Author(s): Hans Broekhuis, Marcel den Dikken
    Category: Dutch Syntax
    Publication date: 22 November 2023
    Keywords: Attributive -e endingConjunctionConjunction ReductionDativeDemonstrative PronounN(P)-EllipsisNounPluralia tantumPossessive PronounPre-determinerPronounProper NounPseudo-Partitive Construction
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