- Dutch
- Frisian
- Saterfrisian
- Afrikaans
-
- Phonology
- Segment inventory
- Phonotactics
- Phonological processes
- Phonology-morphology interface
- Word stress
- Primary stress in simplex words
- Monomorphemic words
- Diachronic aspects
- Generalizations on stress placement
- Default penultimate stress
- Lexical stress
- The closed penult restriction
- Final closed syllables
- The diphthong restriction
- Superheavy syllables (SHS)
- The three-syllable window
- Segmental restrictions
- Phonetic correlates
- Stress shifts in loanwords
- Quantity-sensitivity
- Secondary stress
- Vowel reduction in unstressed syllables
- Stress in complex words
- Primary stress in simplex words
- Accent & intonation
- Clitics
- Spelling
- Morphology
- Word formation
- Compounding
- Nominal compounds
- Verbal compounds
- Adjectival compounds
- Affixoids
- Coordinative compounds
- Synthetic compounds
- Reduplicative compounds
- Phrase-based compounds
- Elative compounds
- Exocentric compounds
- Linking elements
- Separable complex verbs (SCVs)
- Gapping of complex words
- Particle verbs
- Copulative compounds
- Derivation
- Numerals
- Derivation: inputs and input restrictions
- The meaning of affixes
- Non-native morphology
- Cohering and non-cohering affixes
- Prefixation
- Suffixation
- Nominal suffixation: person nouns
- Conversion
- Pseudo-participles
- Bound forms
- Nouns
- Nominal prefixes
- Nominal suffixes
- -aal and -eel
- -aar
- -aard
- -aat
- -air
- -aris
- -ast
- Diminutives
- -dom
- -een
- -ees
- -el (nominal)
- -elaar
- -enis
- -er (nominal)
- -erd
- -erik
- -es
- -eur
- -euse
- ge...te
- -heid
- -iaan, -aan
- -ief
- -iek
- -ier
- -ier (French)
- -ière
- -iet
- -igheid
- -ij and allomorphs
- -ijn
- -in
- -ing
- -isme
- -ist
- -iteit
- -ling
- -oir
- -oot
- -rice
- -schap
- -schap (de)
- -schap (het)
- -sel
- -st
- -ster
- -t
- -tal
- -te
- -voud
- Verbs
- Adjectives
- Adverbs
- Univerbation
- Neo-classical word formation
- Construction-dependent morphology
- Morphological productivity
- Compounding
- Inflection
- Inflection and derivation
- Allomorphy
- The interface between phonology and morphology
- Word formation
- Syntax
- Preface and acknowledgements
- Verbs and Verb Phrases
- 1 Characterization and classification
- 2 Projection of verb phrases I:Argument structure
- 3 Projection of verb phrases II:Verb frame alternations
- Introduction
- 3.1. Main types
- 3.2. Alternations involving the external argument
- 3.3. Alternations of noun phrases and PPs
- 3.3.1. Dative/PP alternations (dative shift)
- 3.3.1.1. Dative alternation with aan-phrases (recipients)
- 3.3.1.2. Dative alternation with naar-phrases (goals)
- 3.3.1.3. Dative alternation with van-phrases (sources)
- 3.3.1.4. Dative alternation with bij-phrases (possessors)
- 3.3.1.5. Dative alternation with voor-phrases (benefactives)
- 3.3.1.6. Conclusion
- 3.3.1.7. Bibliographical notes
- 3.3.2. Accusative/PP alternations
- 3.3.3. Nominative/PP alternations
- 3.3.1. Dative/PP alternations (dative shift)
- 3.4. Some apparent cases of verb frame alternation
- 3.5. Bibliographical notes
- 4 Projection of verb phrases IIIa:Selection of clauses/verb phrases
- 5 Projection of verb phrases IIIb:Argument and complementive clauses
- Introduction
- 5.1. Finite argument clauses
- 5.2. Infinitival argument clauses
- 5.3. Complementive clauses
- 6 Projection of verb phrases IIIc:Complements of non-main verbs
- 7 Projection of verb phrases IIId:Verb clusters
- 8 Projection of verb phrases IV: Adverbial modification
- 9 Word order in the clause I:General introduction
- 10 Word order in the clause II:Position of the finite verb (verb-first/second)
- 11 Word order in the clause III:Clause-initial position (wh-movement)
- Introduction
- 11.1. The formation of V1- and V2-clauses
- 11.2. Clause-initial position remains (phonetically) empty
- 11.3. Clause-initial position is filled
- 12 Word order in the clause IV:Postverbal field (extraposition)
- 13 Word order in the clause V: Middle field (scrambling)
- 14 Main-clause external elements
- Nouns and Noun Phrases
- 1 Characterization and classification
- 2 Projection of noun phrases I: complementation
- Introduction
- 2.1. General observations
- 2.2. Prepositional and nominal complements
- 2.3. Clausal complements
- 2.4. Bibliographical notes
- 3 Projection of noun phrases II: modification
- Introduction
- 3.1. Restrictive and non-restrictive modifiers
- 3.2. Premodification
- 3.3. Postmodification
- 3.3.1. Adpositional phrases
- 3.3.2. Relative clauses
- 3.3.3. Infinitival clauses
- 3.3.4. A special case: clauses referring to a proposition
- 3.3.5. Adjectival phrases
- 3.3.6. Adverbial postmodification
- 3.4. Bibliographical notes
- 4 Projection of noun phrases III: binominal constructions
- Introduction
- 4.1. Binominal constructions without a preposition
- 4.2. Binominal constructions with a preposition
- 4.3. Bibliographical notes
- 5 Determiners: articles and pronouns
- Introduction
- 5.1. Articles
- 5.2. Pronouns
- 5.3. Bibliographical notes
- 6 Numerals and quantifiers
- 7 Pre-determiners
- Introduction
- 7.1. The universal quantifier al 'all' and its alternants
- 7.2. The pre-determiner heel 'all/whole'
- 7.3. A note on focus particles
- 7.4. Bibliographical notes
- 8 Syntactic uses of noun phrases
- Adjectives and Adjective Phrases
- 1 Characteristics and classification
- 2 Projection of adjective phrases I: Complementation
- 3 Projection of adjective phrases II: Modification
- 4 Projection of adjective phrases III: Comparison
- 5 Attributive use of the adjective phrase
- 6 Predicative use of the adjective phrase
- 7 The partitive genitive construction
- 8 Adverbial use of the adjective phrase
- 9 Participles and infinitives: their adjectival use
- 10 Special constructions
- Adpositions and adpositional phrases
- 1 Characteristics and classification
- Introduction
- 1.1. Characterization of the category adposition
- 1.2. A formal classification of adpositional phrases
- 1.3. A semantic classification of adpositional phrases
- 1.3.1. Spatial adpositions
- 1.3.2. Temporal adpositions
- 1.3.3. Non-spatial/temporal prepositions
- 1.4. Borderline cases
- 1.5. Bibliographical notes
- 2 Projection of adpositional phrases: Complementation
- 3 Projection of adpositional phrases: Modification
- 4 Syntactic uses of the adpositional phrase
- 5 R-pronominalization and R-words
- 1 Characteristics and classification
- Phonology
-
- General
- Phonology
- Segment inventory
- Phonotactics
- Phonological Processes
- Assimilation
- Vowel nasalization
- Syllabic sonorants
- Final devoicing
- Fake geminates
- Vowel hiatus resolution
- Vowel reduction introduction
- Schwa deletion
- Schwa insertion
- /r/-deletion
- d-insertion
- {s/z}-insertion
- t-deletion
- Intrusive stop formation
- Breaking
- Vowel shortening
- h-deletion
- Replacement of the glide w
- Word stress
- Clitics
- Allomorphy
- Orthography of Frisian
- Morphology
- Inflection
- Word formation
- Derivation
- Prefixation
- Infixation
- Suffixation
- Nominal suffixes
- Verbal suffixes
- Adjectival suffixes
- Adverbial suffixes
- Numeral suffixes
- Interjectional suffixes
- Onomastic suffixes
- Conversion
- Compositions
- Derivation
- Syntax
- Verbs and Verb Phrases
- Characteristics and classification
- Unergative and unaccusative subjects
- Evidentiality
- To-infinitival clauses
- Predication and noun incorporation
- Ellipsis
- Imperativus-pro-Infinitivo
- Expression of irrealis
- Embedded Verb Second
- Agreement
- Negation
- Nouns & Noun Phrases
- Classification
- Complementation
- Modification
- Partitive noun constructions
- Referential partitive constructions
- Partitive measure nouns
- Numeral partitive constructions
- Partitive question constructions
- Nominalised quantifiers
- Kind partitives
- Partitive predication with prepositions
- Bare nominal attributions
- Articles and names
- Pronouns
- Quantifiers and (pre)determiners
- Interrogative pronouns
- R-pronouns
- Syntactic uses
- Adjective Phrases
- Characteristics and classification
- Complementation
- Modification and degree quantification
- Comparison by degree
- Comparative
- Superlative
- Equative
- Attribution
- Agreement
- Attributive adjectives vs. prenominal elements
- Complex adjectives
- Noun ellipsis
- Co-occurring adjectives
- Predication
- Partitive adjective constructions
- Adverbial use
- Participles and infinitives
- Adposition Phrases
- Characteristics and classification
- Complementation
- Modification
- Intransitive adpositions
- Predication
- Preposition stranding
- Verbs and Verb Phrases
-
- General
- Morphology
- Morphology
- 1 Word formation
- 1.1 Compounding
- 1.1.1 Compounds and their heads
- 1.1.2 Special types of compounds
- 1.1.2.1 Affixoids
- 1.1.2.2 Coordinative compounds
- 1.1.2.3 Synthetic compounds and complex pseudo-participles
- 1.1.2.4 Reduplicative compounds
- 1.1.2.5 Phrase-based compounds
- 1.1.2.6 Elative compounds
- 1.1.2.7 Exocentric compounds
- 1.1.2.8 Linking elements
- 1.1.2.9 Separable Complex Verbs and Particle Verbs
- 1.1.2.10 Noun Incorporation Verbs
- 1.1.2.11 Gapping
- 1.2 Derivation
- 1.3 Minor patterns of word formation
- 1.1 Compounding
- 2 Inflection
- 1 Word formation
- Morphology
- Syntax
- Adjectives and adjective phrases (APs)
- 0 Introduction to the AP
- 1 Characteristics and classification of APs
- 2 Complementation of APs
- 3 Modification and degree quantification of APs
- 4 Comparison by comparative, superlative and equative
- 5 Attribution of APs
- 6 Predication of APs
- 7 The partitive adjective construction
- 8 Adverbial use of APs
- 9 Participles and infinitives as APs
- Nouns and Noun Phrases (NPs)
- 0 Introduction to the NP
- 1 Characteristics and Classification of NPs
- 2 Complementation of NPs
- 3 Modification of NPs
- 3.1 Modification of NP by Determiners and APs
- 3.2 Modification of NP by PP
- 3.3 Modification of NP by adverbial clauses
- 3.4 Modification of NP by possessors
- 3.5 Modification of NP by relative clauses
- 3.6 Modification of NP in a cleft construction
- 3.7 Free relative clauses and selected interrogative clauses
- 4 Partitive noun constructions and constructions related to them
- 4.1 The referential partitive construction
- 4.2 The partitive construction of abstract quantity
- 4.3 The numerical partitive construction
- 4.4 The partitive interrogative construction
- 4.5 Adjectival, nominal and nominalised partitive quantifiers
- 4.6 Kind partitives
- 4.7 Partitive predication with a preposition
- 4.8 Bare nominal attribution
- 5 Articles and names
- 6 Pronouns
- 7 Quantifiers, determiners and predeterminers
- 8 Interrogative pronouns
- 9 R-pronouns and the indefinite expletive
- 10 Syntactic functions of Noun Phrases
- Adpositions and Adpositional Phrases (PPs)
- 0 Introduction to the PP
- 1 Characteristics and classification of PPs
- 2 Complementation of PPs
- 3 Modification of PPs
- 4 Bare (intransitive) adpositions
- 5 Predication of PPs
- 6 Form and distribution of adpositions with respect to staticity and construction type
- 7 Adpositional complements and adverbials
- Verbs and Verb Phrases (VPs)
- 0 Introduction to the VP in Saterland Frisian
- 1 Characteristics and classification of verbs
- 2 Unergative and unaccusative subjects and the auxiliary of the perfect
- 3 Evidentiality in relation to perception and epistemicity
- 4 Types of to-infinitival constituents
- 5 Predication
- 5.1 The auxiliary of being and its selection restrictions
- 5.2 The auxiliary of going and its selection restrictions
- 5.3 The auxiliary of continuation and its selection restrictions
- 5.4 The auxiliary of coming and its selection restrictions
- 5.5 Modal auxiliaries and their selection restrictions
- 5.6 Auxiliaries of body posture and aspect and their selection restrictions
- 5.7 Transitive verbs of predication
- 5.8 The auxiliary of doing used as a semantically empty finite auxiliary
- 5.9 Supplementive predication
- 6 The verbal paradigm, irregularity and suppletion
- 7 Verb Second and the word order in main and embedded clauses
- 8 Various aspects of clause structure
- Adjectives and adjective phrases (APs)
-
- General
- Phonology
- Afrikaans phonology
- Segment inventory
- Overview of Afrikaans vowels
- The diphthongised long vowels /e/, /ø/ and /o/
- The unrounded mid-front vowel /ɛ/
- The unrounded low-central vowel /ɑ/
- The unrounded low-central vowel /a/
- The rounded mid-high back vowel /ɔ/
- The rounded high back vowel /u/
- The rounded and unrounded high front vowels /i/ and /y/
- The unrounded and rounded central vowels /ə/ and /œ/
- The diphthongs /əi/, /œy/ and /œu/
- Overview of Afrikaans consonants
- The bilabial plosives /p/ and /b/
- The alveolar plosives /t/ and /d/
- The velar plosives /k/ and /g/
- The bilabial nasal /m/
- The alveolar nasal /n/
- The velar nasal /ŋ/
- The trill /r/
- The lateral liquid /l/
- The alveolar fricative /s/
- The velar fricative /x/
- The labiodental fricatives /f/ and /v/
- The approximants /ɦ/, /j/ and /ʋ/
- Overview of Afrikaans vowels
- Word stress
- The phonetic properties of stress
- Primary stress on monomorphemic words in Afrikaans
- Background to primary stress in monomorphemes in Afrikaans
- Overview of the Main Stress Rule of Afrikaans
- The short vowels of Afrikaans
- Long vowels in monomorphemes
- Primary stress on diphthongs in monomorphemes
- Exceptions
- Stress shifts in place names
- Stress shift towards word-final position
- Stress pattern of reduplications
- Phonological processes
- Vowel related processes
- Consonant related processes
- Homorganic glide insertion
- Phonology-morphology interface
- Phonotactics
- Morphology
- Syntax
- Afrikaans syntax
- Nouns and noun phrases
- Characteristics of the NP
- Classification of nouns
- Complementation of NPs
- Modification of NPs
- Binominal and partitive constructions
- Referential partitive constructions
- Partitive measure nouns
- Numeral partitive constructions
- Partitive question constructions
- Partitive constructions with nominalised quantifiers
- Partitive predication with prepositions
- Binominal name constructions
- Binominal genitive constructions
- Bare nominal attribution
- Articles and names
- Pronouns
- Quantifiers, determiners and predeterminers
- Syntactic uses of the noun phrase
- Adjectives and adjective phrases
- Characteristics and classification of the AP
- Complementation of APs
- Modification and Degree Quantification of APs
- Comparison by comparative, superlative and equative degree
- Attribution of APs
- Predication of APs
- The partitive adjective construction
- Adverbial use of APs
- Participles and infinitives as adjectives
- Verbs and verb phrases
- Characterisation and classification
- Argument structure
- Verb frame alternations
- Complements of non-main verbs
- Verb clusters
- Complement clauses
- Adverbial modification
- Word order in the clause: Introduction
- Word order in the clause: position of the finite Verb
- Word order in the clause: Clause-initial position
- Word order in the clause: Extraposition and right-dislocation in the postverbal field
- Word order in the middle field
- Emphatic constructions
- Adpositions and adposition phrases
In Frisian, the adjective that precedes the noun may acquire a special form if the noun in a Noun Phrase (NP) is missing as a result of nominal ellipsis. Two suffixes are available, -en and -enien. Speaking about a black dog, we may describe it as in swarten or as in swartenien a black one. Generally, next to these special suffixes for ellipsis, the ordinary inflectional form may suffice, in this case in swarte. For the ellipsis suffixes to be added, two conditions have to be fulfilled. In the first place, the relevant NP has to be indefinite: *de swarten(ien) the black one is impossible. Secondly, the adjective should be in a position immediately before the elided noun: in the case of more adjectives in a row, only the last one may be suffixed. This causes the ungrammticality of *in grutten(ien) swarten(ien) a big black one. Besides these suffixes which occur in singular indefinite contexts, there is another ellipsis suffix -en, which is only found with plural NPs. The restriction of adjacency to the elided noun applies here as well. However, in contrast to the singular suffixes, this plural suffix is also allowed in definite contexts.
An overall condition for nominal ellipsis to apply is that the elided noun should be recoverable from the linguistic or pragmatic context. However, some adjectives with the suffix -en(ien) may occur independently. Almost without exception such formations describe a person.
Nominal ellipsis, also termed noun ellipsis, is the phenomenon that the noun head of an NP is elided. It is not necessarily so that only the noun is left out; one or more adjacent adjectives may be involved as well (the line in the glosses indicates the elided material):
In the first example, the noun auto car is missing. In the second, it is rather the NP white car which is involved.
A necessary condition is that the noun should be recoverable, either from the linguistic or pragmatic context. The examples in (1) are instances of the former: the first part of the utterance gives the clue that the concepts 'car' or 'white car' are involved. In addition, we can think of cases in which the situation provides enough clues to interpret an elliptic utterance: when you are in a baker's shop and you say in wite, graach a white-INFL ___, please a white one, please, then we can be assured that it is a white loaf that will be handed over, and not, say, a white pencil.
As can be seen from the examples in (1), the adjectives that remain on the surface and hence are part of the remnant NP keep their normal inflection suffix -e. This is what is to be expected in case of an unmarked strategy: delete what has to be deleted, and keep the rest intact. However, this strategy fails in those cases in which the adjective does not receive an inflectional ending in prenominal position. This applies especially to the context of neuter count nouns in indefinite contexts:
?in wyt hynder en in swart | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
a white horse.C and a black ___ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
a white horse and a black one |
Frisian offers an escape hatch to circumvent this problem since it can invoke suffixes that are exclusively used in elliptic contexts. These will be discussed in the next section. However, this escape strategy is not available everywhere. With neuter mass nouns, the ban on non-inflected adjectives before the elided noun is simply neglected:
gjin skjin wetter mar smoarch | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
no clean water.N but dirty | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
no clean water but dirty water |
In possessive contexts and in front of neuter nouns, adjectives are not inflected either, for example in syn brún hynder his brown horse.N his brown horse. In case of ellipsis, however, an inflected adjective is selected: syn brune his brown.INFL ___ his brown one.
As stated above, if a Frisian adjective occurs in the context of an elided noun, it may show a special form. A distinction should be made between singular and plural NPs. With plural NPs, the relevant suffix is -en. The suffix -en is also available for the singular, as is the suffix -enien.
If the noun is overt, use of the suffix is ungrammatical:
In example (4a), we have the full NP with a regularly inflected adjective. In case (4b) the adjective is suffixed by the special marker -en, which is illicit here since there is no ellipsis. In variant (4d) there is ellipsis, and hence the marker is allowed. Case (4c) exemplifies the regular inflection, which may be used irrespective whether the noun is overt as in (4a) or not.
An important condition is always that if the NP contains more than one adjective, only the last, i.e. the one that is closest to the elided noun, is subject to suffixation by these special endings. For instance, the following pattern may emerge:
It is striking that if the elliptic marker is in a different position from the last one before the elided noun, the variants are out. The marker -en is dependent on plurality. Whether the plural NP is definite or indefinite is not relevant, as can be seen in the examples in (5).
It is tempting to assume that the marker -en is the same as the morpheme -en found in numerals of nouns since it is used in connection with plural NPs. There is, however, an important difference. Frisian has two productive plural morphemes, dependent on the prosodic make-up of the singular noun. After syllables consisting of a schwa plus a sonorant, we see the plural morpheme -s. Thus the plural of skipper captain is skippers skipper-PL, and the plural of snipel snippet is snipels snippet-PL. However, in the realm of plural elliptic use we only encounter the suffix -en. Thus the adjective snipper graceful is snipperen in a plural elliptic context, and not *snippers. Likewise with an adjective like krigel diligent, which invariably shows the elliptic form krigelen, and not *krigels.
The occurrence of the elliptic endings is not dependent on the gender of the elided noun. What is important, though, is that this noun should also be countable: with mass nouns, although indefinite, the elliptic suffixes are not allowed:
*waarm wetter en kâlden/kâldenien | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
warm water and cold-ELL | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
warm and cold water |
There are also restrictions which have a morphological or phonological background. First, it appears that adjectives ending in the suffix -er refuse to take an elliptic ending: an adjective like Grinzer, from the place-name Grins Groningen will never appear as *Grinzeren or *Grinzerenien. The same applies to the adjectives lofter and rjochter, built on the basis of lofts left and rjochts right, respectively. This is a property of an individual suffix, since inherent endings -er of the adjectival stem and also the comparative suffix -er do not cause problems, as appears from forms like snipperen from snipper graceful or grienerenien from the griener green-COMP greener. It should be pointed out, however, that the relevant words do not allow regular inflection either: *Grinzer-e, *lofter-e, etc.
Another case is adjectives ending in -en, be it a suffix or an inherent part of the stem. Addition of -en or -enien would result in a sequence of two instances of the cluster en /ən/. Then one of them is truncated, at least optionally. This results in a form like houten or houtenien, next to the regular houtenen or houtenenien, all on the basis of hout wood (see the material suffix -en). An example with a cluster -en that is inherent in the stem may be found in the adjective rimpen hasty. Elliptic suffixation results in the form rimpen, next to regular rimpenen.
It is assumed here that there are two suffixes for the singular: -en and -enien. The element ien always occurs in combination with en. It never shows up alone. For instance, next to grienen and grienenien green-ELL there is no such form as *grienien. One sometimes sees spellings like in grienen ien a green one, which suggests that ien is then interpreted as a single word, probably a pronoun. An important objection to such an analysis could be that in that case the adjective should show its normal inflectional ending, which is -e and not -en.
Of course it is tempting to consider ien as a pronoun, parallel to what is generally assumed with respect to English one, as in the green one. There are several arguments against such a parallellism. Two immediately come to mind: (i) English one is not restricted to indefinite contexts, and (ii), it may be pluralized to ones, as in the green ones. A Frisian pluralized cognate *-enienen does not exist.
Apart from their form, it seems impossible to discover further differences between the two suffixes -en and -enien. Maybe some speakers have individual preferences, but this has never been investigated. Hence, one may wonder what is the sense of this "doubling". In Dyk (2011) it is suggested, also in the light of the possibility of stacking relevant suffixes, that elliptic endings tend to be made more salient, and that the addition of the element ien might be an example of this tendency.
For a general condition that inflectional suffixes help to license nominal ellipsis, see Lobeck (1995). There have been a few attempts to relate the Frisian adjectival elliptic endings to functional syntactic entities. Barbiers (2005) analyses them as instantiations of number, and Corver & Van Koppen (2009) relate them to focus. In a later approach Corver & Van Koppen (2011) rather view the suffixes as being a pronoun, loosely comparable to English one. These syntactic approaches are criticised by Dyk (2011), who argues for a strict morphological analysis, couched in terms of Construction Morphology (see Booij (2010)).
Usually, the elliptic suffixes -en and -enien need a clear antecedent in order to provide a proper interpretation for the elided noun. This is not always necessarily so. In such as case the elliptic residue has an inherent interpretation, an instance of "absolute ellipsis", as this phenomenon is sometimes dubbed. It only occurs if various restrictions are obeyed. Firstly, the range of available syntactic constructions is limited. Typical instances are provided in (8):
Using such elliptic residues outside predicative constructions is out, or marginal at least: an NP like in minnen(ien) is unsuitable as a subject in a sentence such as (9):
?In minnen(ien) kaam ta de keamer yn | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
a bad-ELL came to the room in | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A bad person entered the room |
As in the preceding section, the NP should be indefinite. So *de minnenien the bad-ELL the bad person is ungrammatical.
Furthermore, the semantics of such cases is severely restricted: it is always a person that is implied. As a result, the range of possible basic adjectives is limited. Other instances are bêst good, gemien nasty, nuet meek and moai beautiful. Moai is mostly used ironically, with the effect that the meaning turns to 'unusual, strange'. This meaning also applies to formations with the adjectives nuver, apart and raar. In skjinnen(ien) a clear-ELL, which is a description of a glass of Schiedam gin, does not refer to a person.
In ordinary elliptic use, the suffixes -en and -enien do not form a new lexeme, and therefore these processes, which could probably best be interpreted as cases of transposition, are subsumed here under the morphological subsection of inflection. These cases of absolute ellipsis are less clear in this respect, however, although the restrictions discussed above are making it difficult to consider such formations as full-fledged new lexemes. In this respect, formations using the inflectional affix -e fare better, as they can also be used as definites (de rik-e the rich person) and may be pluralized (de rik-en the rich). More information on formations with the suffix -e can be found in formations with the suffix -e.
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