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Introduction
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This chapter will be concerned with a number of distinctive semantic, morphological and syntactic properties of verbs. Section 1.1 gives a brief characterization of the category of verbs and verb phrases by describing some of their more conspicuous properties. This will help users to identify verbs and verb phrases in Dutch on the basis of their form, function and position in the sentence. Section 1.2 presents a syntactic and semantic classification of verbs. Given that meaning and form of linguistic expressions are two sides of the same coin, this section will also attempt to link the proposed classifications. Sections 1.3 and 1.4 continue with the most characteristic morphological features of verbs, their inflection. Dutch Inflection comes in three kinds depending on whether the verb is in the indicative, the imperative or the subjunctive mood. Section 1.3 confines itself to the discussion of the unmarked, indicative forms of the verb; Section 1.4 discusses the more special imperative and subjunctive forms of the verb, as well as their uses. Section 1.5 continues with a discussion of the temporal, modal and aspectual properties encoded within the verbal system by means of inflection and non-main verbs, and shows how they interact in providing a wide range of temporal and non-temporal interpretations of verbal sequences. Like nouns and adjectives, verbs form an open class and, as such, cannot be exhaustively listed. New verbal elements are introduced into the language through derivation, compounding, loaning etc. We will not discuss this here but refer the reader to Booij (2002), De Haas & Trommelen (1993) and Haeseryn et al. (1997) for a comprehensive overview of derivation and compounding. We also refer the reader to Section 3.3 for a discussion of the syntactic effects of affixation of verbs by means of the prefixes be-, ver-, and ont-.

References:
  • Booij, Geert2002The morphology of DutchOxfordOxford University Press
  • Haas, Wim de & Trommelen, Mieke1993Morfologisch handboek van het Nederlands. Een overzicht van de woordvormingSDU Uitgeverij
  • Haeseryn, Walter, Romijn, Kirsten, Geerts, Guido, Rooij, Jaap de & Toorn, Maarten C. van den1997Algemene Nederlandse spraakkunstGroningenNijhoff
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