/ instituut voor de Nederlandse taal / Taalportaal
bibliography glossary about
  • Dutch
  • Frisian
  • Saterfrisian
  • Afrikaans
Show all
    Attributive
    quickinfo

    In an attributive construction, the past participle assigns the same thematic role as the one an active verb assigns to its direct object in a sentence in the active voice.

    readmore

    The external argument of a predicate is the one assigned external to the phrase containing the predicate. A minimal pair is given below:

    1
    a. De [troch de kompjûter opsleine] gegevens
    the by the computer stored data
    The data stored by the computer
    b. De [gegevens opslaande] kompjûter
    the data storing computer
    The (data storing) computer

    The past participle opsleine stored assigns the direct object thematic role to its external argument, the noun gegevens data. In contrast, the present participle opslaande storing assigns the subject thematic role to its external argument, the noun kompjûter computer. It is generally the case that:

    1. The nominal argument of an attributive past participle receives the direct object thematic role
    2. The direct object thematic role is the one assigned by a verb in the active voice to its direct object.
    The following pair makes it clear that the same thematic role is assigned in the predicative construction and in the attributive construction:

    2
    a. De gegevens binne opslein
    the data are stored
    The data have been stored
    b. De opsleine gegevens
    the stored data
    The stored data

    Intransitive verbs have only one argument. Some verbs assign a direct object thematic role to their single argument, as signalledd by the use of wêze be in the perfect tense, whereas other assign the subject thematic role, as signalledd by the use of hawwe have in the perfect tense:

    3
    a. It iis is doe brutsen
    the ice is then broken
    The ice is then broken
    b. It nôt hat hinne en wer widze
    the grain has to and fro waved
    The grain has waved to and fro

    Correspondingly, the past participle of brekke break can appear in the attributive construction, whereas the past participle of widzje waved cannot:

    4
    a. It brutsen iis
    the broken ice
    The broken ice
    b. *It widze nôt
    the waved grain
    The waved grain
    References
      About this article
      Author(s): Eric Hoekstra
      Category: Frisian Syntax
      Keywords: external argumenttransitive activitythematic role
      Version: 1.0, December 2015
      Version history:
      version editor(s) date remarks
      1.0 Eric Hoekstra December 2015
      printreport errorcite
      Jump to:
      X