Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

(61) a. gesloten voor alle verkeer
closed for all traffic
b. Al het/ *? Alle verkeer op de snelweg stond vast.
all the/all traffic on the highway stood fast
‘All traffic on the highway was jammed.’
Pre-determiners 965
With abstract non-count nouns gender may play a role: neuter nouns like
verdriet ‘sorrow’ and geluk ‘happiness’ seem marked, whereas non-neuter nouns
like moeite ‘trouble’ and hoop ‘hope’ seem completely acceptable with inflected
alle. Our impression seems supported by a Google search performed in July 2008
on the nouns mentioned: the neuter nouns are more often preceded by al het ‘all the’
than by alle ‘all’, al de moeite ‘all the trouble’ was about as frequent as alle moeite
‘all trouble’, and alle hoop ‘all hope’ far outnumbered al de hoop ‘all the hope’. It
must be noted, however, that the results may not reflect that actual productive use of
the sequence alle + abstract noun, given that abstract non-count nouns frequently
occur in frozen expressions like those given in (62).
(62) a. Straks komt er een eind aan alle verdriet.
soon comes there an end to all sorrow
‘Soon, there will come an end to all sorrow.’
b. Alle moeite is voor niets geweest.
all trouble is for nothing been
‘All efforts were to no avail.’
c. Hij had alle hoop al opgegeven.
he had all hope already given.up
d. Alle begin is moeilijk.
all beginning is difficult
With substance nouns, gender may again play a role. Neuter nouns like water
and gebak ‘confectionery’ seem marked, whereas non-neuter nouns like wijn ‘wine’
and kaas ‘cheese’ are completely acceptable with inflected alle. Our impression
again seems to be confirmed by a Google search performed in July 2008 on the
nouns mentioned: the neuter nouns are more often preceded by al het ‘all the’ than
by alle ‘all’, whereas the non-neuter nouns are more often preceded by alle ‘all’
than by al de ‘all the’. Nevertheless, it might be the case that judgments differ from
case to case, and from person to person. Although future research is needed to see
whether this is justified, we will assume for the moment that the general pattern is
that substance nouns can be preceded both by alle ‘all’ and by al de/het ‘all the’.
Table 6 aims at summarizing the findings above, and also shows that beide
differs from inflected alle in that it never co-occurs with non-count nouns.