Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

Pre-determiners 971
formal lexicon: in everyday spoken language, these forms are typically replaced by
the invariant forms allemaal and allebei, as in the primed examples of (76).
(76) • Discourse topic: a number of children
a. Zij/Ze zijn allen/beiden erg slim.
they are all/both very smart
a′. Zij/Ze zijn allemaal/allebei erg slim.
they are all/both very smart
b. Allen/Beiden zijn zij/ze erg slim.
all/both are they very smart
b′. Allemaal/Allebei zijn zij/ze erg slim.
all/both are they very smart
Although the pronouns and the floating quantifiers do not form a single constituent
in (76), they do in the examples in (75). In (75a), this is evident from the fact that
the string zij allen/beiden occupies the position to the left of the finite verb (the
°constituency test). The single-constituent status of hen allen/beiden in (75b) is also
undisputed, given that it functions as the complement of a preposition. The same
thing holds for the quantified possessive pronouns in (77), where the quantifier
takes the genitival case-form aller/beider.
(77) a. Ons aller/beider vriend Jan is gisteren overleden.
our all/bothgen friend Jan is yesterday died
‘Jan, a friend of all/both of us, died yesterday.’
b. U aller/beider medewerking wordt zeer op prijs gesteld.
youpolite all/bothgen cooperation is very on price put
‘The cooperation of all/both of you will be greatly appreciated.’
c. Dit is het feest van de heilige Hubertus, hun aller/beider schutspatroon.
this is the feast of the holy Hubertus their all/bothgen patron saint
‘This is the feast of Saint Hubert, the patron saint of all/both of them.’
The fact that aller and beider are marked with genitive case again shows that we are
dealing with constructions that are not part of the present-day vernacular but with
relics of older stages of the language. Note in passing that the fact that (77b) has the
form u instead of the possessive pronoun uw suggests that the pronouns in these
examples are not (or, rather, no longer) genitival forms; the fact that hun is used in
(77c), and not hen, further suggests that we are dealing with dative forms. If so, this
would also account for the fact that the pronoun ons in (77a) is always uninflected
(*onze aller vriend): unlike the genitival/possessive pronoun, the object pronoun
ons has no schwa-inflected form; for more information on this genitival
construction see www.onzetaal.nl/taaladvies/advies/uw-u-beider-aanwezigheid.
That it is possible for allen/beiden to quantify and form a single constituent
with pronouns provides evidence that allen/beiden is not the result of contraction of
al/bei and a definite article, since pronouns never combine with articles in Dutch
(*de zij/hen/hun ‘the they/them/their’). For completeness’ sake, it can be added that
the independently used neuter singular demonstratives dit and dat can be combined
with al into a single constituent; the form used then is alles.