Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

Numerals and quantifiers 933
This section will discuss a number of properties of constructions with quantitative
er. Since some of these properties have been illustrated earlier in this chapter, the
discussion will sometimes be relatively brief.
I. The antecedent of the interpretative gap [e]
An important condition on the occurrence of expletive er is that the gap in the
associate noun phrase can be assigned an interpretation on the basis of information
made available by the domain of discourse or the context. This is ensured in the
examples in (191) by providing this information in the first conjunct of a coordinate
structure, so that the interpretative gap [e] in (191) is construed as boeken ‘books’;
but in the examples below we will simply tacitly assume that this condition is met.
The examples in (192) show that, when the interpretative gap is interpreted on
the basis of a previously mentioned noun phrase, the gap and its antecedent may
exhibit a mismatch in number: in (192a) the antecedent is singular whereas the gap
is plural, and in (192b) we are dealing with the reverse situation.
(192) a. Jan heeft één boek en Piet heeft er [drie [e]].
Jan has one book and Piet has ER three
b. Jan heeft twee boeken en Piet heeft er [één [e]].
Jan has two books and Piet has ER one
The antecedent of the interpretative gap must be a count noun: example (191b) has
shown that the quantifiers veel and weinig are compatible with quantitative er and
example (193a) shows that these quantifiers can modify non-count nouns like wijn
‘wine’, but nevertheless example (193b) is excluded (although it has been reported
that some Flemish varieties do allow examples of this sort).
(193) a. Jan heeft veel/weinig wijn.
Jan has much/little wine
b. *Jan heeft veel wijn maar Piet heeft er [weinig [e]].
Jan has much wine but Piet has ER little
In the examples discussed so far the antecedent of the gap corresponds to the
head of a noun phrase. The antecedent can, however, also be a larger nominal
projection; cf. Blom (1977). Example (194a), for instance, shows that complements
of nouns must be omitted in the quantitative er construction; the example is
ungrammatical when the complement clause dat de maan om de aarde draait is
present. This shows that the antecedent is not just the head noun bewijs but the
lexical projection bewijs dat de aarde rond is. Example (194b) shows that the same
thing holds for attributively used adjectives: the example is ungrammatical when
the attributive modifier witte ‘white’ is present.
(194) a. Jan gaf [een bewijs dat de aarde rond is] en
Jan gave a proof that the earth round is and
Piet gaf er [drie [e] (*dat de maan om de aarde draait)].
Piet gave ER three that the moon around the earth circles
b. Jan heeft [twee zwarte katten] en Marie heeft er [drie (*witte) [e]].
Jan has two black cats and Marie has ER three white