Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

780 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases
Further, impersonal het occurs in numerous more or less fixed expressions. Two
examples, adapted from Haeseryn et al. (1997: 259), are given in (291).
(291) a. Het botert niet tussen hen. [boteren ‘to turn into butter’]
it BOTERT not between them
‘They don't hit it off.’
b. Mijn auto heeft het begeven.
my car has it given.up
‘My car broke down.’
Another typical non-referential use is the use of het as an °anticipatory pronoun,
that is, in its syntactic function of “place-holder” of a sentential complement. Given
that het triggers °R-pronominalization when it functions as the complement of a
preposition, it does not come as surprise that the pronominal part of the PP er ... P
has a similar impersonal use.
(292) a. Jan ontkende het dat hij het boek had.
Jan denied it that he the book had
b. Jan zeurde er over dat hij niet uitgenodigd was.
Jan nagged there-about that he not prt.-invited was
‘Jan nagged about it that he was not invited.’
What the examples above have in common is that none of the occurrences of het
can be replaced by a noun phrase or some other pronoun.
5.2.1.1.3. Nominal features
This section focuses on the role of the nominal features person, number and gender.
I. First and second person pronouns
As was already discussed in 5.2.1.1.2, the singular first person pronoun is used to
refer to the speaker, the plural one to refer to a referent set including the speaker
(and possibly the addressee). The singular second person pronoun is used to refer to
the addressee, the plural one is used when there is more than one addressee, or to
refer to a referent set including the addressee (but not the speaker). Third person
pronouns always exclude the speaker and addressee. Table 6 illustrates this for the
subject pronoun; the elements between square brackets indicate whether the
reference set indicate the speaker(s) [1], the addressee [2] or entities that are neither
speaker nor addressee [3]. The plural first person pronoun wij is often called
inclusive when it also refers to the addressee, and as exclusive when the addressee
is not included.
Table 6: referential properties of subject pronouns
SINGULAR PLURAL
1ST PERSON ik ‘I’ [1] wij ‘we’ (exclusive)
wij ‘we’ (inclusive)
wij ‘we’ (exclusive)
[1]
[1,2]
[1,3]
2ND PERSON jij ‘you’ [2] jullie ‘you’ [2] or [2,3]