Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

850 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases
Table 13: Interrogative demonstrative pronouns
D-
LINKED
NON-D-
LINKED
COUNT NOUNS
SINGULAR PLURAL
[-NEUTER] welke vrouw
which woman
[+NEUTER] welk meisje
which girl
[-NEUTER] wat voor vrouw
what kind of woman
[+NEUTER] wat voor meisje
what kind of girl
welke vrouwen
which women
welke meisjes
which girls
wat voor vrouwen
what kind of women
wat voor meisjes
what kind of girls
NON-COUNT NOUNS
welke wijn
which wine
welk bier
which beer
wat voor wijn
what kind of wine
wat voor bier
what kind of beer
The table shows that the form of the D-linked interrogative demonstrative welke
depends on the gender and number of the head noun in the same way as the
attributive adjectives. With count nouns, welk ‘which’ is used with singular neuter
nouns, whereas welke ‘which’ is used in the remaining cases. With non-count
nouns, the form depends on the gender of the noun: welk is used with neuter, and
welke is used with non-neuter nouns. The interrogative counterpart of the non-Dlinked
demonstratives is the same for all genders and numbers: wat voor (een) ‘what
kind of’. The semantic difference between the two interrogative forms is again
related to D-Linking: the D-linked demonstrative solicits an answer like “this or that
N”, which fully identifies the relevant token(s), whereas the non-D-linked one
rather solicits an answer like “an N like this or that”, which provides a description
of the relevant type(s).
The conclusion that welke and wat voor (een) are the interrogative counterparts
of the demonstratives in Table 12 can be used to justify our earlier decision to
characterize noun phrases headed by demonstratives by means of the notion of
D-linking rather than by means of the notion of definiteness. The fact that
(nonspecific) definite noun phrases normally cannot be used as the subject in an
°expletive construction shows that it would be improper to call the interrogative
demonstrative welke ‘which’ definite: the optional presence of er in (477) shows
that noun phrases headed by this demonstrative can be indefinite.
(477) a. Welke vrouw heeft (er) tegen die wet geprotesteerd?
which woman has there against that bill protested
‘Which woman protested against that bill?’
b. Welke kinderen zijn (er) nog niet ingeënt?
which children are there not yet vaccinated
‘Which children have not been vaccinated yet?’
The preceding discussion of the interrogative forms in Table 13 suffices for our
present purposes. It must be noted, however, that the wat voor phrases have
received (relatively) much attention in the literature. For a more extensive
discussion of the construction, see Section 4.2.2.