Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

Pre-determiners 955
phrases either, which is illustrated in the primed examples for, respectively, bare
non-count nouns and bare plurals.
(28) a. (*al) een ellende a′. (*al) ∅ ellende/wijn
all a misery all misery/wine
b. (*al) een gedoe b′. (*al) ∅ verdriet/water
all a fuss all sorrow/water
c. (*al) een boeken dat hij heeft! c′. (*al) ∅ steden/huizen
all a books that he has all towns/houses
An example like één en al ellende ‘nothing but misery’ may look deceptively
similar to the non-count singular in (28a), but the complex modifier één en al (lit.:
one and all) differs from the pre-determiner al in that the noun is always singular.
Eén en al also differs from al in making an entirely different semantic contribution,
which is comparable to that of modifiers like volledig ‘complete(ly)’, alleen maar
‘only’ or niets dan ‘nothing but’, not to that of a universal quantifier like al.
B. Indefinite determiner-like elements
The indefinite determiner-like elements dat/dit soort ‘such’ (lit.: that/this kind),
which were discussed in Section 4.1.2, are compatible with al to their left. The
demonstrative modifiers zulk/dergelijk ‘such’ exhibit essentially the same behavior
as dat/dit soort, but because most speakers find constructions of the type ? al
zulke/dergelijke boeken ‘all such books’ somewhat archaic, we will not illustrate
such examples in the remainder of this subsection.
(29) a. (al) dat/dit soort ellende a′. (al) dat/dit soort verdriet
all that/this sort misery all that/this sort sorrow
b. (al) dat/dit soort wijn b′. (al) dat/dit soort fruit
all that/this sort wine all that/this sort fruit
c. (al) dat/dit soort boeken
all that/this sort books
It is likely that in constructions of the type in (29), al is not construed with the
larger noun phrase directly, but forms a constituent with dat/dit soort. Predeterminer
bare al phrases generally pattern with strong noun phrases, which was
supported in Section 7.1.1, sub IV, by showing that these noun phrases cannot occur
as the associate of er ‘there’ in expletive constructions like (30a). Adding al to
dat/dit soort N, which is itself a weak noun phrase, does not result in a strong noun
phrase, however, which leads to the conclusion that al is only construed with the
smaller definite noun phrase dat/dit soort.
(30) a. *Er komt daar (al) de ellende voor.
there comes there all the misery prt.
b. Er komt daar (al) dat/dit soort ellende voor.
there comes there all that/this sort misery prt.
‘All such misery is found there.’
The indefinite determiner-like element van die ‘such’ in pseudo-partitive
constructions, which was discussed in Section 4.1.1.6.1, does not allow bare al to its