Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

Pre-determiners 1029
7.2.2.2.1 will start with a discussion of adjectival heel, and show that it behaves like
an ordinary attributive adjective in its syntactic distribution. Section 7.2.2.2.2
subsequently focuses exclusively on quantificational heel. Whereas bare heel was
seen to correspond closely to bare al, the schwa-inflected form hele is different
from both bare heel and schwa-inflected alle. From the former it differs in being
capable of combining with plural noun phrases on its adjectival use; from the latter
it is different in not being in complementary distribution with the determiners.
7.2.2.2.1. Adjectival heel
Adjectival heel ‘whole’ occurs in singular and plural count noun phrases, as
illustrated in Table 13. This form of post-determiner heel often alternates with
adjectives denoting completeness/totality; examples include compleet ‘completely’,
totaal ‘totally’, and geheel ‘completely’. The adjective geheel (which is derived
from heel by means of the prefix ge-) is discussed in Section 7.2.2.3.
Table 13: Adjectival heel in noun phrases headed by a count noun
DEFINITE
ARTICLES
DEMONSTRATIVE
PRONOUNS
POSSESSIVE
PRONOUNS
SINGULAR
[-NEUTER] [+NEUTER]
de hele taart
the whole cake
die hele taart
that whole cake
deze hele taart
this whole cake
mijn hele taart
my whole cake
het hele glas
the whole glass
dat hele glas
that whole glass
dit hele glas
this whole glass
mijn hele glas
my whole glass
PLURAL
de hele taarten/glazen
the whole cakes/glasses
die hele taarten/glazen
those whole cakes/glasses
deze hele taarten/glazen
these whole cakes/glasses
(?)
mijn hele taarten/glazen
my whole cakes/glasses
Although adjectival heel can readily be combined with plural count nouns, it is
difficult to find pragmatically felicitous examples with pluralia tantum; example
(250a) may work reasonably well on an interpretation of heel as gaaf
‘unscathed/intact/unaffected’; the status of (250a) is the same as that of the relative
clause paraphrase in (250b), where heel is a predicate.
(250) a. # de hele hersenen
the whole brains
‘the whole/intact brain’
b. # de herseneni [diei (nog) heel zijn]
the brains that still whole are
‘the brain that is (still) intact’
For formal plurals that denote a conventionally fixed unit, no context can be found
in which adjectival heel can plausibly be used as a modifier meaning “whole,
intact”; the next section will show that heel receives a quantificational reading in
this context. The lexical semantics of adjectival heel also makes it impossible for it
to be combined with non-count nouns.