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Referential partitive constructions
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The referential partitive construction features two nouns: a concrete or referential noun designating a relative measure and a content noun. The example below features a bare partitive, that is, the two nouns are stringed together without an intervening preposition. The first noun pakkie packet is the concrete, referential measure noun and the second noun skyfies chips is the content noun:

1
'n pakkie skyfies
a packet chips
a packet of chips

The noun pakkie packet preserves its concrete referential meaning: an object in which something can be contained.

Three types of concrete or referential nouns can be distinguished, namely i) container nouns, ii) part nouns and iii) collective nouns. The type of referential noun correlates with the presence or absence of functional elements, such as prepositions, joining it to the content noun. Concrete partitive nouns can be modified by various elements. The content noun in the concrete partitive construction has limited possibilities for modification. Some nouns behave syntactically as concrete partitives while their meaning seems to be extensionally equivalent to that of quantified partitives as a result of their metaphorical interpretation.

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