Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

738 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases
(170) a. De conferentie wordt om het ( ?? andere) jaar gehouden.
the conference is around the other year held
‘The conference is organized every other year.’
b. De vergadering wordt om de twee maanden/het half jaar gehouden.
the meeting is around the two months/the half year held
‘The meeting takes place every two months/half year.’
II. Definite and indefinite articles construed with numerals
The previous subsection has shown that definite articles exhibit peculiar behavior in
the domain of measure phrases. The uses of definite and indefinite articles decribed
in the present subsection have a natural link with the preceding in that they, too,
involve measure phrases, namely noun phrases containing numerals.
A. Preposition + definite article de + NUMERAL
This subsection discusses phrases like in/tegen de duizend boeken in (171), which
consist of a preposition followed by a plural noun phrase containing the definite
article de and a numeral. Phrases like these are spurious PPs: they have the
distribution of a noun phrase, which is clear from the fact illustrated in the primed
examples that they cannot extrapose; see also the discussion of (174) below.
(171) a. dat hij in de duizend boeken heeft.
that he into the thousand books has
‘that he has more than a thousand books.’
a′. *dat hij heeft in de duizend boeken.
b. dat hij tegen de duizend boeken heeft.
that he against the thousand books has
‘that he has almost a thousand books.’
b′. *dat hij heeft tegen de duizend boeken.
The use of the definite article de in examples like (171) is special because no
definite meaning aspect seems to be contributed by the determiner: the paraphrases
in (172) make clear that the phrases are semantically indefinite.
(172) a. dat hij ruim duizend boeken heeft.
that he over thousand books has
‘that he has over a thousand books.’
b. dat hij bijna duizend boeken heeft.
that he nearly thousand books has
‘that he has nearly a thousand books.’
In fact, the indefiniteness of the phrases in (171) can readily be established without
appealing to the paraphrases in (172). First, the “have” sentences in (171) seem to
favor a permanent possession/ownership reading, and these do not allow definite
direct objects. This is shown in (173): since birthmarks are permanently possessed,
the use of the definite determiner leads to a semantically weird result in (173a).
Similarly, (173b) is weird on the intended reading that Jan is the owner of the
books.