Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

928 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases
(174) a. Er was werkelijk NIEmand/geen MENS aanwezig.
there was literally nobody/no person present
b. Er was NIEmand maar dan ook (werkelijk) NIEmand aanwezig.
there was nobody but DAN OOK really nobody present
c. Er was GEEN, maar dan ook ?? (werkelijk) geen MENS aanwezig.
there was no, but DAN OOK really no person present
III. Degree quantifiers
Uninflected high/low degree quantifiers veel and weinig can also be modified by
means of degree modifiers, and in this respect these quantifiers pattern more or less
like gradable adjectives. The inflected forms vele and weinige, on the other hand,
defy modification, regardless of whether they are preceded by a determiner or not.
This is shown by the examples in (175).
(175) a. erg/heel/te veel/weinig boeken
very/very/too many/few books
b. *(de) erg/heel/te vele/weinige boeken
the very/very/too many/few books
This restriction on modification of the inflected forms seems to coincide with the
restrictions on comparative formation: whereas meer ‘more’ can be readily used in
(176a), it gives rise to an ungrammatical result in (176b); note that de mindere
boeken is acceptable under the, here irrelevant, reading “the books of lower
quality”.
(176) a. meer/minder boeken
more/less books
b. *(de) mere/mindere boeken
the more/less books
Like most gradable adjectives, veel and weinig have an interrogative counterpart,
namely hoeveel ‘how many/much’. Although hoeveel is normally written as a single
word, the fact that it contains the element veel suggests that veel is the neutral form
of the antonym pair veel:weinig. Finally, it can be observed that weinig can be
coordinated with the quantified pronoun niets ‘nothing’ or with the negative article
geen ‘no’, with the resulting meaning “hardly any(thing)”.
(177) a. Hij heeft weinig of geen boeken gelezen.
he has few or no books read
‘He has read hardly any books.’
b. Hij heeft weinig of niets gelezen.
he has little or nothing read
‘He has read hardly anything.’
The quantifier voldoende ‘enough’ can be modified by ruim ‘amply’, which
indicates that the implicit norm is satisfied to more than a sufficient extent. The
degree quantifiers genoeg ‘enough’ and zat ‘plenty’ lack this possibility. Both
voldoende and genoeg, but not zat, can be modified by net ‘just’, which indicates
that lower bound of the implicit norm has just been met.