indicatiebruiloft2015

(The) most in Dutch: Definiteness and Specificity
Koen Roelandt (KU Leuven / HUBrussel - CRISSP)
Introduction In this paper, evidence is provided that definiteness and specificity play a
crucial role in the distribution and possible readings of the Dutch quantifiers de meeste ‘(the)
most’ and het meeste ‘the most’.
De meeste and het meeste The Dutch quantifiers de meeste and het meeste both contain
definite determiners: de and het. When de meeste appears with a plural noun, it has two
possible readings: one proportional (1a) and the other comparative (1b). The determiner de
agrees with the plural head noun bergen.
(1) Jan heeft gisteren de (meeste) bergen
beklommen.
John has yesterday the most
mountains climbed
a. John climbed more than half of the mountains yesterday.
b. John climbed more mountains yesterday than the other climbers did.
Oddly enough, the quantifier het meeste also occurs with a plural noun (2), even though
the definite determiner het normally only combines with neuter singular nouns. In this case,
the sentence can only have a comparative reading.
(2) Jan heeft gisteren het *(meeste) bergen
beklommen.
John has yesterday the most
mountains climbed
a. John climbed more mountains yesterday than the other climbers did.
Definiteness The definiteness eﬀect context is a classic diagnostic for definiteness. Sentences that start with there is/are may contain indefinites, bare plurals and bare mass nouns
in the position immediately following the copular verb, but no definite DPs (Milsark [1974],
Szabolcsi [1986]). Het meeste can occur in this context (3a), but de meeste cannot (3b),
which is a strong indication that the former is indefinite and the latter definite.
(3)
a.
b.
Er
there
* Er
there
zijn
are
zijn
are
het
the
de
the
meeste
most
meeste
most
bergen
mountains
bergen
mountains
in
in
in
in
Canada.
Canada
Canada.
Canada
Specificity Specificity makes a further distinction between interpretations of indefinite
noun phrases. In Dutch, the direct object is base-generated in a position immediately preceding that of the verb. Definite, specific indefinite and non-specific indefinite DPs can
appear in this position (4a).
(4)
a. . . . dat
. . . that
. . . that
b. . . . dat
Jan
John
John
Jan
gisteren de/één/een auto gekregen heeft.
yesterday the/one/a car gotten has
got the/one/a car yesterday.
[de/één/*een auto] gisteren t gekregen heeft.
. . . that John the/one/a
car yesterday t gotten
. . . that John the/one/a car yesterday.
1
has
When the DP moves to a position to the left of the adverb, a slightly diﬀerent pattern
emerges. The definite and specific indefinite DPs are still correct when they are scrambled
(4b). The non-specific indefinite DP een ‘a’, however, is ungrammatical.
Example (1) already shows de meeste in base-generated position: it can have an proportional and a comparative reading. When the DP is scrambled, only the proportional reading
remains (5a).
(5)
a.
. . . dat Jan [de meeste bergen]
gisteren
t beklommen heeft.
. . . that John the most mountains yesterday t climbed
‘. . . that John climbed most mountains yesterday.’
b.
* . . . dat Jan [het meeste bergen]
. . . that John the most
gisteren
has.
(proportional)
t beklommen heeft.
mountains yesterday t climbed
has
The sentence with het meeste only had a comparative reading in example (2), but the
sentence with the scrambled DP is ungrammatical (5b). Whether a sentence has a proportional or comparative reading appears to be influenced by the (non-)specificity of the DP
containing de meeste/het meeste. This is not a problem if het meeste is indeed indefinite,
but it remains unclear whether de meeste can be non-specific if it is definite.
Analysis Following Hackl [2009], I argue that de/het meeste are superlative forms of
veel ‘many’. The empirical observations from Dutch involving DP (non-)specificity and
(in)definiteness form the basis of an analysis with two diﬀerent syntactic structures, one
where the determiner agrees with the head noun (6) and one where it does not (7).
(6)
(7)
DP
DP
D
h
de
Gender:_
Number:_
i
D
NP
[-st(e) C]k
?
AP
dk -veel
Agreement
NP
h
NP
DP
NP
D
bergen
Gender:masc
Number:pl
i
het
bergen
NP
[-st(e) C]
AP
dk -veel
NP
?
References Martin Hackl. On the grammar and processing of proportional quantifiers: Most
versus more than half. Natural Language Semantics, 17(1):63-98, 2009. Gary Milsark. Existential Sentences in English. PhD thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, 1974. Anna Szabolcsi. Comparative superlatives. In Elizabeth Sagey, Tova R.
Rapoport, and Naoki Fukui, editors, Papers in Theoretical Linguistics. MIT WPL 8. MIT, 1986.
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