Nederlandse Taalkunde - Volume 28, Issue 3, 2023

Abstract This paper offers a corpus-based investigation of the diachronic evolution of the Dutch modal verbs zullen ‘shall/will’ and willen ‘want’. Although they show considerable differences in their developments, neither of these verbs participates in the marked tendency to regain grammatical autonomy characterizing the ‘central’ modals kunnen ‘can’, mogen ‘may’, moeten ‘must’ and hoeven ‘need’. While the latt Read More

Abstract In general linguistics, a paucal is a specific construction that only allows for insertion of the lowest numerals (num), e.g. the Russian num + N.gen.sg, which only allows the numerals 2-4 (Pesetsky 2009). In this paper it is argued that also Dutch shows paucal effects in at least three constructions with numerals: (i) the alle + num + de + N construction, (ii) the num + diminutive construction, and (iii) the historical num Read More

Abstract This paper aims to revisit the Dutch Binominal Expressive Construction (cf. een schat van een kind) through an extensive corpus study and to explore its comparability with a potential morphological counterpart in the form of a [N1 N2]N2 compound. We focus on four positively-connotated N1s, namely schat ‘treasure’, droom ‘dream’, pracht ‘splendor, beauty’ and wonder ‘miracle’, three of which occur in both t Read More