Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

774 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases
express that their referent is human or female, the demonstrative pronouns seem to
lack such descriptive content; the latter are mainly deictic elements that enable the
addressee to determine the referent of the noun phrase they modify.
(278) a. Personal pronouns: pronouns used as arguments
b. Possessive pronouns: pronouns used as modifiers of a noun phrase
c. Demonstrative pronouns: pronouns used either as arguments or as modifiers
of a noun phrase
The three groups in (278) can be divided into smaller subcategories based on
semantic criteria, such as whether the pronouns are referential, interrogative or
quantificational, or whether their reference is dependent on an antecedent, as is the
case with the relative, reflexive and reciprocal pronouns. Given that demonstrative
pronouns have virtually no descriptive content, it will not come as a surprise that
they do not have as many semantic subclasses as the other two main types. Note in
passing that these semantic criteria can also be applied to, e.g., adverbial phrases.
The following subsections will discuss the three main classes of pronouns
shown in Table 4: the personal pronouns are discussed in Section 5.2.1, the
possessive pronouns in Section 5.2.2, and the demonstrative pronouns in Section
5.2.3.
5.2.1. Personal pronouns
This section discusses pronouns that are used as arguments only, the personal
pronouns. Not all semantic subclasses of personal pronouns will be extensively
discussed here. For example, we can discuss the relative pronouns in a more natural
way in relation to the syntactic context in which they are found, relative clauses; we
therefore refer the reader to Section 3.3.2.2 for a more exhaustive discussion of
these pronouns.
5.2.1.1. Referential personal pronouns
This section will discuss the referential personal pronouns. Section 5.2.1.1.1 will
start by providing an overview of the different forms of these pronouns, followed in
5.2.1.1.2 by a brief discussion of the ways in which they are assigned an
interpretation. Section 5.2.1.1.3 will discuss the role of the nominal features person,
number and gender, followed in Sections 5.2.1.1.4 and 5.2.1.1.5 by a more
extensive discussion of the subject and object forms, and the conditions on the use
of the strong and weak forms.
5.2.1.1.1. The paradigm
Personal pronouns are sensitive to the nominal features number, person and gender,
which were discussed in Section 1.1.1, but this does not suffice to give a complete
classification of these pronouns; other criteria are also involved. A first division of
the pronouns can be made by appealing to number and person: all pronouns have a
singular and a plural form and are marked as either first, second or third person. The
third person pronouns are further divided into three groups on the basis of gender:
masculine, feminine and neuter. In order to come to a full classification we must
appeal to three additional distinctions. First, a distinction must be made between