Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

Determiners: articles and pronouns 833
(433) a. Peter zegt dat jullie volgende week je/jullie auto verkopen.
Peter says that youpl next week yourpl car sell
‘Peter says that you will sell your car next week.’
b. Peter zegt dat jullie je/ ?? jullie auto verkopen.
Peter says that youpl yourpl car sell
‘Peter says that you will sell your car.’
However, when the pronoun does not have an antecedent in its minimal clause, that
is, when the antecedent is in a matrix clause or not expressed within the sentence, as
in (434), the use of the weak plural pronoun je gives rise to severely degraded
results. Since, to our knowledge, this has not yet been extensively discussed in the
literature, we will not digress on this issue any further.
(434) a. Jullie vertelden me gisteren dat Peter jullie/ *? je auto wil kopen.
youpl told me yesterday that Peter yourpl car want buy
‘Youpl told me yesterday that Peter wants to buy yourpl car.’
b. Peter wil jullie/ *? je auto kopen.
Peter wants yourpl car buy
‘Peter wants to buy yourpl car.’
II. Generic and universally quantified antecedents
Just like third person personal pronouns, third person possessive pronouns have
special properties with regard to their antecedent. We start with a discussion of zijn
‘his’, which can take the indefinite/generic pronoun men ‘one’ as its antecedent.
This is followed by a discussion of third person possessive pronouns that take a
quantified or generic antecedent. We will show that the behavior of these third
person possessive pronouns is essentially identical to that of the reflexive personal
pronoun zichzelf ‘himself’ when the antecedent is in the same clause, and to that of
the personal pronoun hem ‘him’ in the remaining cases.
A. The indefinite/generic pronoun men
Example (435a) shows that the singular third person possessive pronoun zijn/z’n
‘his’ can take the indefinite/generic personal pronoun men ‘one’ as its antecedent.
This requires, however, that the antecedent of the possessive pronoun be in the same
clause; when it is more deeply embedded, as in (435b), the possessive pronoun can
only refer to a contextually determined referent. Note that the translation in (435b)
is the intended interpretation, and not the actual one with zijn referring to some
contextually determined person.
(435) a. Men moet zijn ouders eren.
one must his parents honor
‘One has to honor his parents.’
b. *Men is hier zeer gastvrij, zodat je altijd in zijn huis kan slapen.
one is here very hospitable so that you always in his house can sleep
‘People are very hospitable here, so that you can always sleep in their house.’
We can observe that the possessive pronouns behave similarly to the reflexive and
personal pronouns in this respect. The reflexive pronoun zich(zelf) in (436a) must