Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

856 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases
Distal demonstratives and referential personal pronouns also exhibit differences
in distribution. First, the distal demonstrative is often preferred in contrastive
contexts. When the question in (491a) is answered by means of (491b), it is strongly
suggested that the person answering the question did see some other person that
may be relevant for the given context; a natural continuation would be a report of
what Jan has said. The answer in (491b′), on the other hand, is neutral in this
respect. Recall that weak pronouns never occur in clause-initial position: die in
(491b) can therefore only be replaced by the strong pronoun haar. Replacement of
the weak pronoun ’r in (491b′) by a distal demonstrative again seems to trigger a
contrastive reading.
(491) a. Heb je Mariei nog gesproken? [question]
have you Marie PRT spoken
‘And, did you talk to Marie?’
b. Nee, diei heb ik niet meer gezien (maar wel Jan). [answer A]
no that.one have I no more seen but AFF. Jan
‘No, I didn’t see her again, but I did see Jan.’
b′. Nee, ik heb ’r i niet meer gezien. [answer A′]
no I have her no more seen
‘No, I haven’t seen her again.’
Second, the anaphoric behavior of distal demonstratives and referential
personal pronouns differs when they occur unstressed in clause-initial position; cf.
Haeseryn (1997:307-8) and Van Kampen (2009). In (492), the distal demonstratives
cannot refer to the subject of the preceding clause but must refer to the object,
whereas the referential pronouns are not restricted in this way.
(492) a. Jani ontmoette Elsj en hiji/*diei vertelde haarj dat ...,
Jan met Els and he/that.one told her that
b. Jani ontmoette Elsj en zej/diej vertelde hemi dat ...,
Jan met Els and she/that.one told him that
This is not related to the syntactic function of the antecedent but instead depends on
the information structure of its clause. Consider the following discourse chunk,
where the continuations in (493b) and (493b′) differ in that in the former but not the
latter the distal demonstrative in the second conjunct can refer to the subject de
leraar ‘the teacher’ of the first conjunct.
(493) a. Ik zat in de klas.
I was in the classroom
b. Plotseling kwam de leraari binnen en diei/ ? hiji zei dat ...
suddenly came the teacher inside and that.one/he said that
‘Suddenly, the teacher entered and he said that ...’
b′. De leraari was nog steeds kwaad en hiji/*diei zei dat ....
the teacher was still angry and he/that.one said that
‘The teacher was still angry and he said that ...’
This difference seems related to the fact that de leraar is preferably interpreted as
part of the °focus (new information) of the first conjunct in (493b), but as part of