Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

784 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases
I. Emphasis
Despite the fact that using the weak forms is preferred in speech, it is generally the
strong form that is used in written text (a convention that we follow in our examples
when the distinction between the weak and strong form does not play a role). In
speech, the strong form is more or less restricted to contrastive contexts, unless, of
course, a weak form is not available: in Standard Dutch, this holds for all forms of
the polite second person pronoun u ‘you’, the subject and object form of the second
person plural pronoun jullie ‘you’, and the object form of the first person plural
pronoun ons ‘us’; cf. Table 5.
II. Pronouns in clause-initial position
Topicalized phrases are normally stressed. As a result of this, topicalized object
pronouns must have the strong form; topicalization of a weak object pronoun results
in a degraded result. Some examples are given in (301).
(301) a. Mij/*Me heeft hij gisteren uitstekend geholpen.
me has he yesterday excellently helped
‘He helped me very well yesterday.’
b. Jou/*Je heeft hij toch ook gezien.
you has he PRT also seen
‘He saw you as well, didn’t he?’
c. Hem/*’m heeft hij niet bezocht.
him has he not visited
‘He didn’t visit him.’
d. Hen/*ze heeft hij niet bezocht.
them has he not visited
The third person neuter object pronoun het is special in that it is normally
pronounced in its reduced form ’t and therefore resists accent. The only exceptions
are cases like Ze hebben ’t/het gedaan ‘They had sex’, where the strong pronoun het
receives contrastive accent and refers to a sexual activity, especially the act of
copulating; the weak pronoun can also refer as a regular deictic pronoun. Example
(302) shows that, due to this special property, the third person neuter object
pronoun never occurs in clause-initial position.
(302) *Het/’t heb ik op de tafel gelegd.
it have I on the table put
Intended meaning: ‘I have put it on the table.’
The requirement that the clause-initial constituent be stressed does not hold for
subjects. As a result, both the weak and the strong pronouns can be used in clauseinitial
position. As a result of this, the neuter subject pronoun het in (303c′) differs
from the object pronoun het in that it is possible in clause-initial position.
(303) a. Ik/’k heb een boek gekocht.
I have a book bought
b. Jij/je bent een lieverd.
you are a darling