Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

820 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases
The introduction to this section on pronouns (5.2) has shown that the
possessive pronouns can be divided into approximately the same semantic
subclasses as the personal pronouns, although there is no set of reflexive possessive
pronouns. The semantic subclassification given there is shown in (402a-e). We will
see, however, that we need to add the demonstrative possessive pronoun diens in
(402f) to this classification.
(402) • Semantic subcategories of possessive pronouns
a. Referential: Zijn broer is ziek. ‘His brother is ill.’
b. Interrogative: Wiens broer is ziek? ‘Whose brother is ill?’
c. Quantificational: Iemands broer is ziek. ‘Someone’s brother is ill.’
d. Relative: de jongen wiens broer ziek is ‘the boy whose brother is ill’
e. Reciprocal: Zij wassen elkaars broer. ‘They wash each other’s brother.’
f. Demonstrative: Jan en diens hond ‘Jan and his dog’
5.2.2.1.1. Referential possessive pronouns
As with the referential personal pronouns, discussed in Section 5.2.1, the form of
the referential possessive pronouns depends on person, number and gender. With
the exception of the second person polite form uw, the singular forms can be either
STRONG or WEAK. In the former case the nucleus of the pronoun is a long vowel or a
diphthong and can be stressed, whereas in the latter case the nucleus is a schwa and
hence necessarily unstressed. The plural forms, on the other hand, do not have a
weak form, with the exception of the second person plural form je: we will turn to
this form in Section 5.2.2.3, where we will discuss the distinction between the weak
and strong forms more extensively. Table 10 gives the full set of strong and weak
possessive pronouns.
Table 10: Referential possessive pronouns
SINGULAR PLURAL
STRONG WEAK STRONG WEAK
1 ST PERSON mijn m’n/me ons/onze —
2 COLLOQUIAL jouw je jullie (je)
ND
PERSON POLITE uw — uw —
3 MASCULINE zijn z’n/ze
FEMININE haar d’r/’r
RD
hun —
PERSON
NEUTER zijn z’n/ze
For completeness’ sake, note that Haeseryn et al. (1997: 290) suggest that d’r/’r is
also used as a weak plural third person possessive pronoun, although no examples
are given. According to us, using d’r/’r in this way is not possible; in Die meisjes
hebben hun/ # d’r boeken verkocht ‘those girls/boys have sold their books’, the strong
pronoun hun can take the subject of the clause as its antecedent, whereas the weak
form d’r cannot and must refer to some other female person in domain D.
Observe that there is no special possessive counterpart for the indefinite/generic
personal pronoun men, but example (403b) shows that the weak singular second
person possessive pronoun je can be used generically, just like the weak second