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The partitive construction with a nominalised quantifier
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A nominalised quantifier may head a partitive construction, as in this example: sommige fan 'e feintsjes some of the boys Ssome of the boys.

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Of course, the quantifier may also directly take a Noun Phrase (NP) as its complement in a simple attributive construction:

1
Sommige feintsjes
some boys
Some boys

The attributive construction never features quantifiers in which nominalisation has been made morphologically visible by the addition of the suffix -n:

2
*Sommigen feintsjes
some boys
Some boys

The partitive construction occasionally features quantifiers in which nominalisation has been made morphologically visible by the addition of the suffix -n:

3
Sommigen fan 'e feintsjes
some of the boys
Some of the boys

Other quantifiers showing the same type of variation include: somlike some, inkelde (a) few. The quantifier ferskate several is never spelled with -n in the partitive construction.

Frisian orthography maintains a fairly strict one-to-one relation between writing the -n and pronouncing it. Dutch features complicated rules for writing the -n (which is generally not pronounced), which are often not adhered to. It is unclear whether variation in writing the -n in Frisian is due to Dutch influence of whether it reflects variation inherent to spoken Frisian, or both. The presence or absence of the -n correlates with at least three factors: the type of construction, the type of denotation (referring to persons or not) and the type of quantifier.

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Literature

More details can be found in Hoekstra (2013) (Unpublished)) and Popkema (1979).

References
  • Hoekstra, Eric2013Sommige or sommigen? Factors conditioning the written --e or --en of independently used quantifiers
  • Popkema, Jan1979Ienigen woene dit, inkelen dat en sommigen wer wat oarsDe Pompeblêden50212-216, 234-235
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