Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

600 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases
(66) a. vier liter melk
four liter [of] milk
b. vier liters melk
four liters [of] milk
For completeness’ sake, observe that some N1s are lexically restricted in the
sense that they can only be used when a cardinal numeral is present. An example is
given in (67). The N1 man must appear in its singular form.
(67) vier man/*mannen personeel
four man/men [of] personnel
‘a staff consisting of four members’
V. Attributive adjectives
On the basis of what we have seen so far, we may expect modification of N1 by
means of an attributive modifier to be impossible in the case of purely quantificational
nouns; attributive modifiers are used to restrict the set denoted by the
modified noun, but purely quantificational nouns do not denote any such set. As
shown in (68a), this expectation is indeed borne out. The remaining examples in
(68) show that modification of the other N1s is possible.
(68) a. *een klein paar fouten [QN]
a small couple [of] mistakes
b. een kleine kilo kaas [MN]
a small kilo [of] cheese
‘nearly a kilo cheese’
c. een groot glas bier [ConN]
a big glass [of] beer
d. een groot stuk kaas [PartN]
a big piece [of] cheese
e. een grote groep studenten [ColN]
a big group [of] students
There are, however, various restrictions on the use of the attributive adjectives
in constructions of this type. When we are dealing with a measure noun like kilo,
the adjective modifying N1 must be one of the following sorts: it can be quantificational,
as veel in (69a), have an adverbial meaning indicating approximation,
such as klein in (69b), or have a “partitive” meaning, such as half and heel in (69c).
(69) a. Er stroomden vele liters wijn.
there streamed many liters [of] wine
‘Many liters of wine were served.’
b. een kleine liter wijn
a small liter [of] wine
‘nearly a liter of wine’
c. een halve/hele liter wijn
a half/whole liter [of] wine