Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

Pre-determiners 969
That (69b&b′) pattern together and are distinct from the pair in (69a) seems
confirmed by (70): whereas the two examples in (70a) are fully acceptable, those in
(70b) are anomalous.
(70) a. Het overleg tussen de beide/twee Korea’s was vruchteloos.
the consultation between the both/two Koreas was fruitless
b. *Het overleg tussen allebei de/beide Korea’s was vruchteloos.
the consultation between both the/both Koreas was fruitless
To conclude this subsection on determiners, we want to pay some more
attention to the “fusion” approach to alle, according to which it is a fused form of al
and the definite determiner. The overall conclusion from the discussion above is
that simplex alle combines only with plural bare noun phrases. The complementary
distribution of alle and the determiners makes it possible to hypothesize that the
former occurs in the determiner position, which would of course support the
“fusion” approach to alle. The examples in (71), however, provide evidence against
this approach, since they show that alle does not behave like a definite determiner
when it comes to the determination of adjectival inflection. While the definite
article in (71c) triggers the inflectional -e ending in the attributive modifier of the
noun, the attributive modifier in the alle phrase in (71a), taken from Perridon
(1997), inflects as in the indefinite noun phrase in (71b).
(71) a. alle ? slim/*slimme geknoei in de handel
all clever fiddling in the commerce
b. slim/*slimme geknoei
clever fiddling
c. het slimme/*slim geknoei
the clever fiddling
Although noun phrase internal alle does not qualify as a definite determiner (which
in turn may indicate that it does not occupy the determiner position in the DP), the
noun phrase in (71a) has the outward appearance of a definite/strong noun phrase in
the sense that it cannot be used as the associate of expletive er in existential or
presentational constructions. Note that this holds for all alle phrases except for
those in which alle has a high degree reading; cf. Section 7.1.1.
(72) a. Er was slim geknoei in de handel.
there was clever fiddling in the commerce
b. *Er was alle slim geknoei in de handel.
there was all clever fiddling in the commerce
Though the adjectival inflection suggests that the noun phrase alle slim geknoei is
internally indefinite, the same noun phrase behaves like a definite/strong noun
phrase in its external syntactic distribution. This paradox has received little or no
attention in the literature to date; we will not try to resolve the tension between
these apparently irreconcilable characteristics of alle phrases here, but do repeat our
earlier conclusion that alle does not behave as a contraction of al and the definite
article.