Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

Binominal constructions 613
(100) a. *een boel de/die/mijn boeken [count noun]
a lot [of] the/those/my books
a′. een boel van de/die/mijn boeken
a lot of the/those/my books
b. *een glas de/deze/zijn cognac [non-count noun]
a glass [of] the/this/his cognac
b′. een glas van de/deze/je cognac
a glass of the/this/your cognac
One might suggest that the ungrammaticality of the primeless examples is due to
the fact that the determiners make the projection headed by N2 definite. It must be
noted, however, that an indefinite article cannot be used either, as is shown by
(101a); compare this QC with the partitive construction in (101b), in which the
indefinite article must be expressed.
(101) a. Ik kreeg van Peter een glas (*een) uitgelezen cognac.
I got from Peter a glass [of] an exquisite cognac
b. Ik kreeg van Peter een glas van *(een) uitgelezen cognac.
I got from Peter a glass of an exquisite cognac
II. Proper nouns and pronouns
Another reason for assuming that N2 does not head a DP is that substituting a
pronoun for the projection of N2 yields an unacceptable result. The ungrammaticality
of (102a&b) is not conclusive since we are dealing with definite pronouns.
Example (102c) shows, however, that existential quantifiers are excluded as well.
By way of comparison, the primed examples give the corresponding partitive
constructions; note that van het/ze ‘of it/them’ is not possible, but this is due to the
general rule that replaces the inanimate pronouns het/ze ‘it/them’ with the
°R-pronoun er in this syntactic context.
(102) a. *een fles het a′. een fles ervan
a bottle [of] it a bottle of.it
b. *een doos ze b′. een doos ervan
a box [of] them a box of.it
c. *een fles iets (lekkers) c′. een fles van iets (lekkers)
a bottle [of] something tasty a bottle of something tasty
III. Complementation and modification
Although the examples above support the idea that N2 does not head a DP, we
cannot conclude that N2 is a bare noun. This is clear from the fact that it may take
an argument, as is shown for the relational noun vriendjes ‘friends’ in (103a).
Further, N2 can be modified by all sorts of modifiers: an attributive adjective in
(103b), an appositive phrase in (103c), an °adjunct PP in (103d), and a restrictive
relative clause in (103e).