Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

Binominal constructions 665
(258) a. Wati hebben er [NP ti voor een vogels] je voedertafel bezocht?
what have there for a birds your feeding table visited
‘What kind of birds have visited your feeding table?’
b. ? Wati hebben [NP ti voor een vogels] je voedertafel bezocht?
Actually, (258b) is much better than might have been expected, as it seems to
involve movement and hence should invoke a freezing effect. However, it may be
the case that this example is ambiguous, because a definite direct object often
makes it possible to drop the expletive er. This is shown in (259): example (259a)
shows that in most varieties of Dutch the interrogative subject wie must be
accompanied by the expletive. However, when a definite direct object is present,
expletive er is preferably dropped; see Section 8.1.4 for more discussion.
(259) a. Wie rookt % (er)?
who smokes there
b. Wie rookt ( ? er) de sigaar?
who smokes there the cigar
So, in order to determine whether (258b) is excluded by the freezing principle, we
have to take the placement of adverbs into account: when the subject precedes the
adverb, it occupies the regular subject position, and the wat voor split is predicted to
be impossible; when it follows the adverb, it is probably in its base position, and the
wat voor split is predicted to be possible. As is shown by (260), the subject may
actually occupy either position, so we may indeed conclude that (258b) is
ambiguous. The judgments on the two examples are more or less as predicted.
(260) a. ? Wati hebben gisteren [NP ti voor een vogels] je voedertafel bezocht?
what have yesterday for a birds your feeding.table visited
‘What kid of birds visited your feeding table yesterday?’
b. *Wati hebben [NP ti voor een vogels]j gisteren tj je voedertafel bezocht?
III. Indirect objects
The primed examples in (261) show that wat voor split of nominal indirect objects
always leads to a degraded result; note that for some speakers, the primeless
examples are also somewhat degraded (a prepositional indirect object seems
preferred by most speakers).
(261) a. (?) Wat voor een meisje heb je een lolly gegeven?
what for a girl have you a lollipop given
‘To what kind of girl did you give a lollipop?’
a′. *? Wat heb je voor een meisje een lolly gegeven?
b. (?) Wat voor een mensen heb je je artikel toegestuurd?
what kind of people have you your paper prt.-sent
‘To what kind of people did you send your paper?’
b′. *? Wat heb je voor een mensen je stuk toegestuurd?