Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

1112 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases
(163) a. Dat boek kost tien euro.
that book costs ten euro
b. De voorstelling duurt twee uur.
the show lasts two hours
‘The show will last two hours.’
The use of measure phrases is very productive in examples like (164a) and (164b)
where they act as modifiers of the PP naast het doel and the AP diep, respectively.
Examples like these are extensively discussed in Chapter P3 and Section A3.1.4.2.
(164) a. Jan schoot de bal drie meter naast het doel.
Jan shot the ball three meter next.to the goal
b. De schat ligt drie meter diep.
the treasure lies three meter deep
Finally, we want to note the idiomatic example in (165a), where the phrase een uur
in de wind seems to be used as an °intensifier of the verb stinken ‘to stink’. In the
Van Dale dictionary, the meaning of een uur in this construction is described as “as
far as one can go in an hour”, so that the meaning of (165a) is something like “One
can even smell Jan if one travels an hour against the wind”. Therefore, een uur
seems to act here as a measure phrase modifying the PP in de wind. Another
example of a similar kind is given in (165b).
(165) a. Jan stinkt een uur in de wind.
Jan stinks an hour in the wind
‘Jan stinks extremely badly.’
b. Er is hier een uur in de omtrek geen café te vinden.
there is here an hour in the surroundings no bar to find
‘In whatever direction one goes from here, one will not be able to find a bar
for an hour.’
8.4. Bibliographical notes
The literature on wh-movement and topicalization is vast, and we will only be able
to mention to some of the most prominent contributions to the discussion here. The
core properties of these movements have been described by Chomsky (1977). An
extensive discussion of the so-called °complementizer-trace phenomenon can be
found in Chomsky & Lasnik (1977), and the object-subject asymmetry has played
an important role in the formulation of the Empty Category Principle in Chomsky
(1981). The °Superiority Condition is taken from Chomsky (1973), and has later
been subsumed under the Relativized Minimality Condition proposed in Rizzi
(1990). This section did not fully discuss all of the intricacies involved in these
movements. For example, we barely scratched the issue related to the domain from
which long wh-movement is possible (cf. Huang 1982). For the moment we confine
ourselves to making reference to the papers collected in Cheng & Corver (2006) for
a review of the current state of the art. We will return more extensively to issues
concerning these movements in Broekhuis & Corver (in prep).
The literature on scrambling is also vast but, unlike the case of wh-movement
and topicalization, it has not yet led to a clear consensus on the nature of the