Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

Numerals and quantifiers 923
The examples in (156a&b) express that the cardinality of the set denoted by the
noun does not satisfy the lower bound of the contextually determined norm. It is
also possible to express that the cardinality exceeds the upper bound of this norm by
using the complex phrase meer dan genoeg/voldoende ‘more than enough’; zat
sounds somewhat marked (although we found a couple of cases on the internet). A
more extensive discussion of examples like (158a) can be found in Section 6.2.5.
(158) a. Hij heeft meer dan genoeg/voldoende boeken.
he has more than enough books
‘He has more than enough books.’
b. ? Hij heeft meer dan zat boeken.
he has more than plenty books
6.2.4.2. Use as argument
This section discusses the use of the degree quantifiers as independent arguments.
As in the previous section, we will discuss the high/low degree quantifiers veel and
weinig, and the degree quantifiers voldoende, genoeg and zat, which indicate that
some tacitly assumed norm is met, in separate subsections.
I. High and low degree quantifiers
This section will make a distinction between uninflected and inflected veel/weinig
and show that these two instances differ in several respects.
A. Uninflected veel and weinig
Like most existential quantifiers, the degree quantifiers veel and weinig are
normally not used as independent arguments: example (159b) is acceptable due to
the presence of °quantitative er, but example (159c), in which the quantifier is truly
independent, is unacceptable.
(159) a. Er lopen veel/weinig jongens op straat.
there walk many/few boys in the.street
b. Er lopen er [veel/weinig [e]] op straat.
there walk ER many/few in the.street
c. *Er lopen veel/weinig op straat.
there walk many/few in the.street
Things are different, however, when we are dealing with non-count nouns. Since the
quantitative er construction requires the empty noun to be plural, it does not really
come as a surprise that example (160b) is excluded. However, in contrast to (159c),
(160c) is acceptable. This example can be construed with a count noun interpretation,
in which case veel/weinig can refer to a certain quantity of wine.
Alternatively, veel/weinig may be construed as referring to a set of discrete entities
of a miscellaneous sort (“loads of different things”).