Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

920 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases
like (149) makes the specific claim that of a contextually determined set of books
the cardinality of the set of books that contain printer’s errors is higher than some
tacitly assumed norm. Under the second, “generic” reading, the speaker makes the
more general claim that a relatively large proportion of all existing books contain
printer’s errors. Example (149b) exhibits the same type of ambiguity.
(149) a. Veel boeken bevatten honderden zetfouten.
many books contain hundreds.of printer’s.errors
b. Weinig boeken bevatten geen zetfouten.
few books contain no printer’s.errors
C. The adjectival nature of the quantifier
The quantifiers veel and weinig are adjectival in nature, which is clear from the facts
that these quantifiers can be modified by degree modifiers such as erg ‘very’ or te
‘too’, and that they can even be the input for comparative and superlative formation
(although the superlative form of weinig often gives rise to a marked result).
(150) Adjectival properties of veel and weinig
VEEL WEINIG
DEGREE MODIFICATION erg/te veel boeken
‘very/too many books’
COMPARATIVE FORMATION meer boeken
‘more books’
SUPERLATIVE FORMATION de meeste boeken
‘most books’
erg/te weinig boeken
‘very/too few books’
minder boeken
‘fewer books’
*?
de minste boeken
‘fewest books’
It therefore does not really come as a surprise that quantificational veel can be found
in the same position as the attributive adjectives, that is, in a position following the
plural determiner de ‘the’ in (151a). In this position veel must be inflected. When
the definite determiner is absent veel can either be inflected or uninflected: vele/veel
boeken. In order to account for these two possibilities, one may assume that the
form depends on the absence or presence of the phonetically empty indefinite article
∅: the two forms can then be assumed to correspond to (151b) and (151c),
respectively. The primed examples in (151) show that, although the inflected form
of weinig is at least marginally possible, it leads to a severely degraded result when
no overt article is present.
(151) a. de vele/*veel boeken a′. ? de weinige boeken
the many books the few books
b. ∅ vele boeken b′. *? ∅ weinige boeken
∅ many books ∅ few books
c. veel boeken c′. weinig boeken
many books few books
The differences in inflection may be taken to indicate that the quantifier may
occupy two different positions within the noun phrase: [DP D [QP Q [NP ... N ]]]. The
uninflected quantifier may be taken to occupy the regular quantifier position Q, as