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7.1.2.2.Inflected alle'all'

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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.

I. Inflected alle + numeral
- A. Pre-determiner alle and noun phrase types
- B. Restrictions on accompanying determiners and quantificational elements
II. Inflected simplex alle
- A. Simplex alle and noun phrase types
- B. Restrictions on accompanying determiners and quantificational elements

[+] 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'.

alle + Numeral: alle twee'all two', alle drie'all three', etc.

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).

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.

		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.

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.

(?)

ken

wel

alle tien

deze mannen,

maar

niet

alle tien

die mannen.

a'.

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]

ken

wel

allebei

deze mannen,

maar

niet

allebei

die mannen.

b'.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

		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'.

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'.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

ken

wel

déze beide mannen,

maar

niet

dié beide mannen.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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 al(le), heel, ieder en elkElffers, 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 al(le), heel, ieder en elkElffers, 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

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About this article

Author(s): Hans Broekhuis, Marcel den Dikken

Category: Dutch Syntax

Keywords: Attributive -e endingConjunctionConjunction ReductionDativeDemonstrative PronounN(P)-EllipsisNounPluralia tantumPossessive PronounPre-determinerPronounProper NounPseudo-Partitive Construction

Version: 1.0, December 2015

Version history:

version	editor(s)	date	remarks
1.0	Hans Broekhuis, Marcel den Dikken	December 2015

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