Syntax of Dutch: Verbs and Verb Phrases. Volume 1

Syntax of Dutch: Verbs and Verb Phrases consists of three volumes. Volume 1 opens with a general introduction to verbs, including a review of various verb classifications and discussions on inflection, tense, mood, modality and aspect. This is followed by a comprehensive discussion of complementation (argument structure and verb frame alternations). Volume 2 continues the discussion of complementation, but is more specifically focused on clausal complements: the reader will find detailed discussions of finite and infinitival argument clauses, complex verb constructions and verb clustering. Volume 3 concludes with a description of adverbial modification and the overall structure of clauses in relation to, e.g., word order (verb placement, wh-movement. extraposition phenomena, scrambling, etc.)

Adverbial '-s' as last resort: n and a get their support

This article examines the grammatical behavior of Dutch adverbs featuring so-called adverbial -s. This will be done on the basis of three questions: Firstly, what is the grammatical nature of adverbial -s? Secondly, in which structural configurations does it appear? Thirdly, what does adverbial -s tell us about the existence of adverbs as a separate part of speech? The article provides the following three answers to these questions: Firstly, adverbial -s is an affixal manifestation of the categorizing heads n and a (so-called -s-Support). Secondly, n and a externalize as -s when the raised root that forms an amalgam with the categorizing head is silent or a bound root. Thirdly, “adverbs” featuring adverbial -s are nominal, adjectival or adpositional expressions with an articulated syntactic structure. Some of these syntactic structures correspond to the so-called construct state. In short, linguistic expressions featuring adverbial -s do not support the idea that adverbs form a separate part of speech

Double comparatives and the comparative criterion

In this paper, I (re)consider a number of facets of adjectival comparative (and related) constructions as discussed in Corver (1997a,b). Rather than taking comparative words like more and less to be functional heads that head some Degree Projection, I claim that they are phrases (i.e. XPs) that undergo displacement within the adjective phrase to a Spec-position of a functional head that encodes ‘comparison’. In the spirit of Rizzi (1991), this Spec position is characterized as a criterial position. The empirical basis for my proposal is the phenomenon of Comparative Doubling, i.e. the co-occurrence of the bound comparative morpheme (-er) and the comparative word more in expressions like more safer

Decomposing adverbs and complementizers: A case study of Dutch 'hoe' (how)

This chapter examines the syntax of the Dutch wh-element hoe ‘how’ in two of its grammatical uses: its use as an interrogative manner ‘adverb’ (hoeQ(uestion)), and its use as a non-interrogative conjunctive element (referred to as hoeE(ventive)). It is proposed that the two instances of hoe can be reduced to a single linguistic expression, namely a nominal expression. HoeQ starts out as the complement of a silent adposition which heads a PP. This PP is moved to the clausal left periphery, specifically to the Spec-position of a dummy adpositional ‘conjunction’ that surfaces as of ‘if/whether’ or remains silent. HoeE is base-generated in [Spec, CP] and assigns substantive contents (‘manner/way’) to the clause. This nominal clause-marker moves to the specifier position of an adpositional conjunction within the clausal left periphery. Thus, although the base positions of the nominal expressions hoeQ and hoeE are configurationally asymmetric, their derived positions are configurationally symmetric