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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 latter verbs from New Dutch onwards occur increasingly often without an additional main verb in the clause, this evolution is largely absent in zullen and willen. The paper attempts to offer an explanation on the basis of the developments in the semantic profile of the modal verbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper discusses the VP-topicalization and the mirror effect. According to the Syntax of Dutch (Broekhuis & Corver 2016), these two tests can make a reliable, non-intuitive distinction between the postfield and the afterthought, as well as between the middle field and the postfield, which is often not noticeable in main clauses with only a finite verb. Although these tests seem valuable indeed, even to non-generative studies, there are also some limitations, and especially for prepositional phrases (PPs) which can be either placed in the middle field or in the postfield. Furthermore, this paper also aims at refining the motivations of extraposition, and more particularly extraposition of PPs. We therefore rely on empirical corpus-based research, which can fine-tune the theoretical framework of extraposition in the Syntax of Dutch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the morphological part of the Taalportaal website, which gives access to a comprehensive, scientific grammar of Dutch, Frisian and Afrikaans. More particularly, we investigate how separable verbs are dealt with in Taalportaal. We evaluate the structure of that part of the website, and try to find an answer to three questions regarding this type of verbs, viz. (i) what are separable verbs, (ii) what is their grammatical status and (iii) what are their semantic properties? By doing so, we are able to identify strengths and weaknesses of the Taalportaal website, which are related to consistency and accessibility of the information as well as to the quality of the illustrations and the explanation for non-native speakers. In general, we conclude that Taalportaal provides an introduction to Dutch morphology rather than giving an exhaustive overview of the different word formation possibilities in Dutch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reconsiders the syntax of indefinite quantitative er and its definite counterpart ze. Quantitative er 'there' is obligatory in Dutch when the only visible element in a nominal group is a numeral. I argue that quantitative er is the pronominalization of a lower projection of the nominal group (DP-low) that contains directly modifying adjectives and complements of N but not relative clauses and PP-adjuncts. Quantitative ze is the pronominalization of a higher projection of the nominal group (DP-high) that contains DP-low and the layers to which PP-adjuncts and relative clauses attach. Both quantitative er and ze are weak pronouns that, like all weak pronouns, move to the left- hand part of the middle field. This analysis explains the parallel syntactic distribution of quantitative er and ze and the differences in modifiability of the two pronouns. New evidence for the claim that quantitative er involves pronominalization, not ellipsis, comes from the obligatory lack of gender agreement between the nominal group and the relative pronoun in an associated relative clause. New evidence for the parallel analysis of er and ze comes from optional haplology when there are two instances of quantitative ze in one clause. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dependent verb-first clauses have received a fair amount of interest from a functionalist perspective. In this paper, I argue that their conceived unity as a grammatical construction might be overstated. I do so on the basis of both categorical and probabilistic differences in the distributions of the various types that I discern. The shared functional properties of the various dependent verb-first clauses are best seen as non-conventional tendencies rather than as a conventional symbolic function, that may have driven the development historically, but is not a part of the inventory of linguistic knowledge of a language user synchronically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]