Taalportaal - the digital language portal

Dutch
Frisian
Saterfrisian
Afrikaans

Show all

3.4.Pronominalization of the adjective

quickinfo

Section 2.4 has briefly discussed pronominalization of the adjective (phrase). Some of the examples given there are repeated here as (317). In (317a) the pronoun het'it' performs the same function as the full AP bang voor honden'afraid of dogs', whereas in (317b) it replaces the smaller phrase bang'afraid', which is evident from the fact that the PP voor spinnen'of spiders' functions as the PP-complement of the pronominalized adjective. If the adjective is modified by means of an intensifier, pronominalization is also possible. As will become clear below, however, many aspects of this construction are in need of further investigation in order to arrive at a clearer and more coherent description of the relevant facts.

317

		Jan is [AP	bang	voor honden] ..
		Jan is	afraid	of dogs ..

a.		.. en	ik	ben	het	ook.
		.. and	I	am	it	too

b.		.. en	ik	ben	het	voor spinnen.
		.. and	I	am	it	of spiders

Consider the examples in (318). In (318a) the pronoun het performs the same function as the complete constituent vrij bang voor honden'rather afraid of dogs', and in (318b) it replaces the smaller phrase vrij bang. In both cases the result is fully acceptable.

318

		Jan is vrij	bang	voor honden ..
		Jan is rather	afraid	of dogs ..

a.		.. en	ik	ben	het	ook.
		.. and	I	am	it	too

b.		.. en	ik	ben	het	voor spinnen.
		.. and	I	am	it	of spiders

The pronominalizations in (318) do not seem to exhaust the possibilities. Two alternative options are given in (319a&b), which are perhaps somewhat marked but do not seem to be unacceptable. The pronoun het in (319a) seems to replace the phrase bang voor honden given that the intensifier zeer'very' is interpreted as a modifier of this phrase, and in (319b) it only replaces the adjective bang given that both the PP-complement and the intensifier are overtly realized. For reasons that will become clear shortly, it is important to note that the addition of the element erg'much' leads to an ungrammatical result; cf. the primed examples of (319).

319

		Jan is vrij	bang	voor honden ..
		Jan is rather	afraid	of dogs ..

a.	?	.. en	ik	ben	het	zelfs zeer.
		.. and	I	am	it	even very

a'.	*?	.. en	ik	ben	het	zelfs zeer erg.
		.. and	I	am	it	even very much

b.	?	.. en	ik	ben	het	zeer	voor spinnen.
		.. and	I	am	it	very	of spiders

b'.	*	.. en	ik	ben	het	zeer	erg	voor spinnen.
		.. and	I	am	it	very	much	of spiders

Not all modifiers can occur in the pronominalization construction. The intensifier heel'very' in (320a), for instance, gives rise to an ungrammatical result. Observe, however, that the construction becomes fully grammatical if we add the adjective erg to the structure, as in (320b).

320

a.	*	Jan is vrij	bang	voor honden	en	ik	ben	het	zelfs	heel.
		Jan is rather	afraid	of dogs	and	I	am	it	even	very

b.	Jan is vrij	bang	voor honden	en	ik	ben	het	zelfs	heel	erg.
	Jan is rather	afraid	of dogs	and	I	am	it	even	very	much
	'Jan is rather afraid of dogs, and Iʼm even very much so.'

At first sight, example (320b) seems to be a special case of (319a). After all, the intensifier erg normally can be modified by the intensifier heel, as in heel erg bang, so (320b) may simply contain the complex intensifier phrase heel erg. There are, however, reasons for assuming that this is not the correct analysis, and that erg does not function as an intensifier in this example but as a “dummy" element (comparable to English much) that licenses the presence of the intensifier heel. This will become clear when we consider the examples in (321) with the modifiers te'too' and zo'so', which were discussed in Section 3.1.3. The examples in (321a&b) show that replacement of the AP bang voor honden by the pronoun het is normally impossible (although (321a) without erg improves considerably if the modifier te is assigned heavy accent); however, like in (320), the structure can be saved by inserting the element erg'much' after the modifier te'too'/zo'so'.

321

		Jan	is vrij	bang	voor honden.
		Jan	is rather	afraid	of dogs

a.	Hij	is het	eigenlijk	te	*(erg).
	he	is it	actually	too	much
	'Actually, he is too much so.'

b.	Hij	is het	zelfs	zo *(erg)	dat	hij	niet meer	naar buiten	durft.
	he	is it	even	so much	that	he	no longer	to outside	dares
	'Actually, heʼs even so much so that he doesnʼt dare to go outside.'

In this case erg cannot be considered an intensifier for the simple reason that it cannot occur in APs modified by te and zo like (322). Consequently, erg must perform some other function.

322

a.		Hij	is eigenlijk	te	(*erg)	bang voor honden.
		he	is actually	too	much	afraid of dogs

b.		Hij	is	zelfs	zo	(??erg)	bang	voor honden	dat ...
		he	is	even	so	much	afraid	of dogs	that

The same conclusion can be drawn from pronominalization constructions that involve the interrogative modifier hoe'how'; in the second conjunct in (323) erg must be added despite the fact that the string *hoe erg bang is impossible.

323

weet

dat

Jan bang

voor honden

is,

maar

hoe *(erg)

is hij

het

eigenlijk?

know

that

Jan afraid

of dogs

but

how much

is he

actually

Example (323) suggests again that erg does not act as an intensifier, but performs some other function in the context of AP-pronominalization. Finally, note that not all modifiers require the addition of erg in the pronominalization construction. The examples in (324) show that the addition of erg is even prohibited in the case of the (complex) modifiers genoeg'enough' and voldoende'sufficiently'.

324

		Jan is niet	erg	intelligent ..
		Jan is not	very	intelligent ..

a.		.. maar	hij	is het	(*erg)	genoeg	voor deze taak.
		.. but	he	is it	much	enough	for this task

b.		.. maar	hij	is het	voldoende	(*erg)	voor deze taak.
		.. but	he	is it	sufficiently	much	for this task

The discussion above has shown that in some cases, the addition of erg is sometimes required to license pronominalization of the adjective, whereas in other cases the addition of erg leads to ungrammaticality. Here, we want to provide a speculative account of this fact, which is based on the analysis of comparable English cases featuring English much in Corver (1997a/1997b). Such an analysis assumes that the distribution of erg is determined by the relative position of the modifier in the structure. One of the standard assumptions of generative grammar is that modifiers occupy a position external to the immediate projection of the head of the phrase, which contains the complements of the phrase. This means that the base structure of a modified AP is as given in (325), in which PP stands for PP-complement; cf. Section 4.3.

325

[... MODIFIER [AP (PP) A (PP)]]

The modifiers of the adjective are, however, also ordered with respect to each other, which suggests that more structure is needed to provide a full account of the organization of the AP. For instance, there is reason for assuming that an example such as (326a), which involves modification by the complex modifier zo ... mogelijk'as ... as possible' may have a structure like (326a'), in which the adjective is moved from its base position into a position preceding the element mogelijk; cf. the discussion of example (147) in Section 4.3.1. If so, we should assume that the modifier zo is even more to the left. Furthermore, we may assume by analogy that example (326b) has the structure in (326b').

326

a.		zo	mooi	mogelijk
		as	beautiful	as.possible

a'.

[XP zo [YP mooii mogelijk [APti ]]]

b.		zo	vreselijk	aardig	dat ...
		so	terribly	kind	that

b'.

[XP zo [YP vreselijk [AP aardig]] dat ...]

Now assume that the head of the projection labeled YP must be somehow filled when the AP is pronominalized. If the modifier is itself part of YP, this requirement is fulfilled trivially, and this may account for the fact that the addition of erg is impossible in examples such as (327).

327

		Jan is vrij bang voor honden ..
		Jan is rather afraid of dogs ..

a.	??	.. en	ik	ben	het	vreselijk/geweldig	(erg).
		.. and	I	am	it	terribly/tremendously	much

b.		.. en	ik	ben	het	*wat/??tamelijk	(erg).
		.. and	I	am	it	somewhat	much

c.		.. maar/en	ik	ben	het	amper	?(*erg).
		.. but/and	I	am	it	hardly	much

However, if the modifier is the part of the projection labeled XP, the element erg must be inserted as a “dummy" to fill the head position of YP. It will be clear that the analysis suggested here, as well as the classification of modifiers that is implied by it, requires more research in the future.

References:

Corver, Norbert1997<i>Much</i>-support as Last ResortLinguistic Inquiry28119-164
Corver, Norbert1997The internal syntax of the Dutch extended adjectival projectionNatural Language and Linguistic Theory15289-368

⇑ Back to top

About this article

Author(s): Hans Broekhuis

Category: Dutch Syntax

Keywords: AdjectivePronominalization

Version: 1.0, December 2015

Version history:

version	editor(s)	date	remarks
1.0	Hans Broekhuis	December 2015

report errorprintcite

Jump to:

introduction
references
related articles