Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

790 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases
to enable the addressee to place the information expressed by the main clause in its
proper context.
(321) Hij (,) die hier gisteren was (,) is vandaag naar Rome vertrokken.
he who here yesterday was is today to Rome left
‘He (,) who was here yesterday (,) has left for Rome today.’
Occasionally, however, the use of a relative clause has a special effect. The
modified pronoun in example (322a), for example, can be interpreted as
semantically equivalent to the free relative construction in (322b). For more
discussion of these and other cases involving relative clauses, see Section
3.3.2.3.2.1, sub ID.
(322) a. Hij die zich tijdig ingeschreven heeft ontvangt in mei een brochure.
he who REFL in time prt.-registered has receives in May a booklet
b. Wie zich tijdig ingeschreven heeft, ontvangt in mei een brochure.
who REFL in time prt.-registered has receives in May a booklet
‘Those who registered in time will receive a booklet in May.’
The use of prenominal modifiers seems categorically impossible, which, in fact,
supports our earlier claim that referential personal pronouns are determiners. Note
that examples like (323b) are only apparent counterexamples: the fact that the form
ik is preceded by a determiner indicates that the pronoun is simply used as a noun
comparable in meaning to the noun aard ‘nature’.
(323) a. *Aardig(e) hij gaf me een fles wijn voor de moeite.
kind he gave me a bottle of wine for the effort
b. mijn ware ik/aard
my true nature
5.2.1.2. Interrogative personal pronouns
The [+HUMAN] pronoun wie ‘who’ and [-HUMAN] pronoun wat ‘what’ can be
considered the interrogative counterparts of the third person personal pronouns. The
examples in (324) show that the two interrogative pronouns can be used both as a
subject and as an object.
(324) a. Wie heeft hem geslagen? a′. Wat ligt daar?
who has him hit what lies there
‘Who hit him?’ ‘What is lying there?’
b. Wie heeft hij geslagen? b′. Wat heb je gekocht?
who has he hit what have you bought
‘Who did he hit? ‘What did you buy?’
When the pronoun is part of a PP, the behavior of the two pronouns diverges:
whereas wie can readily occur as the complement of a preposition, wat behaves like
the referential personal pronoun het ‘it’ in that it triggers °R-pronominalization.
Most likely, this is related to the semantic distinction with respect to the feature
[±HUMAN].