Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

Determiners: articles and pronouns 783
forms as free alternates. According to the normative rule, hun can only be used as a
nominal indirect/dative object (and as a possessive pronoun), whereas hen is used in
all other cases. In (298), the forms that are excluded by this rule are marked with a
number sign. For more discussion and examples, we refer the reader to
www.onzetaal.nl/advies/hunhen.php.
(298) a. Ik ontmoet hen/ # hun morgen.
I meet them tomorrow
b. Ik geef hun/ # hen dat boek.
I give them that book
c. Ik geef het boek aan hen/ # hun.
I give the book to them
Despite normative pressure, the use of the pronoun hun as subject pronoun is fairly
common in order to refer to [+HUMAN] referents; cf. Van der Wal & Van Bree
(2008:414). Thus, an example like (299) can be used to refer to a number of friends
of the speaker but not to a set of books that he has ordered. Since hun normally also
refers to human (or animate) antecedents when used as an object pronoun or
complement of a preposition, it has been suggested that it is developing into an
omnipurpose third person, plural, [+HUMAN] pronoun; cf. Van Bergen et al. (2010).
(299) a. % Hun komen morgen.
they[+human] come tomorrow
‘They will be here tomorow.’
Given that the distinction betweenaccusative hen and dative hun is artificial and
mainly restricted to writing, it will not come as a surprise that (formal) Dutch does
not distinguish prepositions that require one of the two forms, which means that
Dutch is unlike German, where prepositions can be divided into subclasses
according to the case they assign. The only restriction that we find in this domain is
that the singular neuter object pronoun’t cannot occur as the complement of any
preposition but triggers R-pronominalization. R-pronominalization is also possible
with the other referential personal pronouns when the referent is not human (or at
least inanimate given that the acceptable primeless examples can also be used to
refer to, e.g., pets or pot plants).
(300) • R-pronominalization
a. op hem/’m[+animate] a′. er ... op
b. op haar/’r[+animate] b′. er ... op
c. *op het c′. er ... op
d. op hen/ze[+animate] d′. er ... op
5.2.1.1.5. Weak and strong forms
This section will discuss some conditions on the use of the weak and strong forms
of the referential personal pronouns.