Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

Pre-determiners 973
7.1.3.2. Distribution as predicates
The distribution of al and its alternants is rather restricted within predicative noun
phrases. It seems that nominal predicates containing a form of al are more or less
restricted to identificational copular constructions, with the singular demonstrative
dit/dat ‘this/that’ or the singular neuter personal pronoun het ‘it’ as subject. Note
that replacing the demonstrative in the primeless examples in (80) with the personal
pronoun zij ‘they’, which is expected to be acceptable since it agrees in number with
the predicative noun phrase, gives rise to systematically more degraded results. This
is shown by the primed examples. Example (80b) shows that, even with the
demonstrative pronoun as the subject of the copular construction, it is difficult to
construct pragmatically felicitous examples for allebei. This is presumably
unrelated to syntax, given that noun phrases quantified by means of the otherwise
identical alle + Num quantifier can be used as predicates, and that replacing alle
drie with alle twee also gives rise to a marked result.
(80) a. Dat zijn al de beurspromovendi van onze vakgroep.
that are all the bursary.students of our department
a′. ?? Zij zijn al de beurspromovendi van onze vakgroep.
they are all the bursary.students of our department
b. Dat zijn alle drie/ ?? allebei de beurspromovendi van onze vakgroep.
that are all three/all-both the bursary.students of our department
b′. *? Zij zijn alle drie/allebei de beurspromovendi van onze vakgroep.
they are all three/all-both the bursary.students of our department
c. Dat zijn alle/*beide beurspromovendi van onze vakgroep.
that are all/both bursary.students of our department
c′. Zij zijn ? alle/*beide beurspromovendi van onze vakgroep.
they are all/both bursary.students of our department
Two remarks are needed regarding (80c&c′) with beide. First, these examples show
that beide is impossible as a quantifier of a predicate nominal. Instead, de beide
must be used in contexts of this type: Dat/ ?? Zij zijn de beide beurspromovendi van
onze vakgroep. This shows that, in contrast to what is the case in the templates in
(79), beide and de beide do not freely alternate when they are construed as
quantifiers of a predicative noun phrase. Second, example (80c) with beide must not
be confused with (81), where beiden is construed as a °floating quantifier of the
pronominal subject.
(81) Dat/Zij zijn beiden beurspromovendi van onze vakgroep.
they are both bursary.students of our department
‘They are both bursary students of our department.’
The two examples differ in intonation pattern: whereas beide beurspromovendi in
(80c) forms a single intonation phrase, beiden in (81) is followed by a brief
intonation break. Further, since the associate of the floating quantifier is [+HUMAN],
the rules of orthography demand that an -n be added to beide in (81); cf. the
introduction to Section 7.1.4.