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Absolute indefinite nominal quantifiers

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Absolute indefinite nominal quantifiers could be separated from the partitive adjective accompanying them in older Frisian, but not in Modern Frisian. In addition, it must be mentioned that these quantifiers have been very much affected by the influence of the dominant Dutch language.

The meaning of absolute quantifiers can be absolutely; it does not involve comparison with a standard of relative evaluation as required by relative quantifiers such as folle many, much or genôch enough. The table below presents the absolute quantifiers which appear in the partitive adjective construction:

Table 1

Type of absolute quantifier

Existential: wat, eat, yts something

Negated: niks, neat nothing

Comparison: sokssawat, sayts something like that

In addition, information about the sociolinguistic status of these absolute quantifiers is provided. This is useful as it may affect grammaticality judgments:

Table 2

Item	Usage
wat something	Unmarked
eat something	Formal
yts something	Spoken, interference
neat nothing	Formal
niks nothing	Spoken
sokssawat something like that	Formal
sayts something like that	Spoken

Niks nothing, yts something, and sayts something like that have been borrowed from Dutch recently; wat is an 18th-century borrowing which replaced the now obsolete het it. Niks nothing, though barred from most written Frisian, is generally accepted in spoken Frisian as the negation of wat something. Yts something is even more barred than niks nothing from written language according to the Language Corpus Frisian, but it is often heard in spoken Frisian.

Sokssawat something like that is a complex expression consisting of soks + so + wat such + so + what which behaves as one word. Soks such is derived from the quantifier sok such. The spelling suggest that the first element of sokssawat something like that is soks such, perhaps a partitive adjective in itself originally. However, the first element could also have been sok such, seeing that spellings are sometimes prescriptive artefacts. The Dutch equivalent is zoiets something like that, originally derived from zo so + iets something.

The definite quantifier al all may not appear in the indefinite partitive adjective construction. It is found in the definite PA construction. As in Dutch, but unlike English, human quantifiers are barred from this construction, presumably because they count as quantifiers:

*Immen aardich-s

someone nice.PA

Someone nice

*Ien aardich-s

someone nice.PA

Someone nice

Dropping the PA-inflection does not yield grammatical sentences either:

*Immen aardich

someone nice

Someone nice

*Ien aardich

someone nice

Someone nice

Absolute quantifiers cannot be separated from their accompanying partitive adjectives:

*Moai-s ha ik dêr faak [wat ] sjoen

nice.PA have I there often something seen

I often have seen something nice over there

?Wat ha ik dêr faak [moais] sjoen

something have I there often [nice.PA] seen

Something nice I have seen there often

Wat moais ha ik dêr faak [ ] sjoen

something nice.PA have I there often seen

I have often seen something nice there

In older Frisian, sentences of this type actually occur, involving a discontinuous partitive adjective of which the nominal part is a relative pronoun which has an quantifier for its antecedent; the adjective is invariably subjective in such examples:

Het is 'er tygge-s yn dit libben dearme so Jamck nei beheart to janckjen? (1666)

what is there good.PA in this life which.one so much for is.supposed to strive

What good is there in this life that one is supposed to strive so much for?

æf het iz 'er quead-z ynne deade datme so æng beheart to ontflechtjen? (1666)

or what is there bad.PA in.the death which.one so afraid is.supposed to flee.from

Or what evil is there in this life that one is supposed to flee so fearfully from?

Al het men winsklijk-s kin bitinze, Zil, hoopje ik, jo dij Hijmel schinze (1780)

all what one desirable.PA can think.of shall hope I you the heaven grant

May heaven grant you all desirable things which one can think of

De Bistetûn, end hwet de Haedstêd fierder bilangryk-s hie is troch de Arabyske Sjeik bisjoen (1876)

the zoo and what the capital further important.PA had is by the Arabian sheik seen

The zoo and other important things that the capital had to offer were visited by the Arabian sheik

References

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About this article

Author(s): Eric Hoekstra

Category: Frisian Syntax

Keywords: absolute quantifiers

Version: 1.0, December 2015

Version history:

version	editor(s)	date	remarks
1.0	Eric Hoekstra	December 2015

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