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    1.2.4.Intransitive adpositions
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    This section discusses intransitive adpositions. Subsection I shows that these adpositions probably do not form a homogeneous group, but must be divided into two groups, viz., locational adpositions and verbal particles. Subsection II provides a small sample of particle verbs and Subsection III discusses some syntactic differences between intransitive adpositions and verbal particles. Subsection IV, finally, is devoted to P + V compounds, which can be easily confused with verbs taking an intransitive adposition or a particle.

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    [+]  I.  Intransitive adpositions and particles

    Adpositions can sometimes be used without a complement, in which case they are often called intransitive adpositions or (verbal) particles. It may be the case that intransitive adpositions and particles do not form a homogeneous group. Consider example (71).

    71
    Jan zet zijn hoed op (zijn hoofd).
      Jan puts  his hat  on   his head

    Example (71) shows that the particle op can be used in the same function as the predicative PP op zijn hoofd; substituting one for the other does not affect the core meaning of the example, which expresses that the hat is undergoing a change of location. It seems plausible that the fact that op can be used as an intransitive adposition is related to the fact that the information conveyed by the complement of the preposition op is more or less superfluous; when it is dropped, our knowledge of the world enables us to reconstruct the full event and to determine the new location of the moved entity. Regardless of how one would like to account for this intuition, it is at least clear that there is a close relation between the use of op as a preposition and its use as an intransitive adposition. In this respect the intransitive use of op resembles the pseudo-intransitive use of transitive verbs like eten'to eat'; if no direct object is present, it is inferred that some canonical object (an entity that is edible) is involved. Intransitive adpositions are generally locational in nature, and are mostly used with verbs denoting activities involving dressing and personal hygiene, as in (72a&b), or refer to pragmatically determinable locations, as in (72c). See Section 1.3.1.5, sub I, for more discussion.

    72
    a. Jan doet zijn sjaal om (zijn nek).
      Jan puts  his shawl  around  his neck
    b. Jan smeert zonnebrandolie op (zijn lichaam).
      Jan smears  suntan oil  on   his body
    c. Het postkantoor is dicht bij (mijn huis).
      the post office  is close to   my house

          The adposition af in (73a) also seems to perform a function similar to the PP op zijn hoofd in (71). The main difference is that whereas the intransitive use of op in (71) has implications concerning the new location of the hat, (73a) identifies the original location of the hat. It is, however, less clear whether af can indeed be considered an intransitive adposition. If it is one, it must have the lexical property that it can only be used as such, given that it cannot take the noun phrase zijn hoofd as its complement. Alternative, one might of course speculate that the particle af is somehow related to its use in the circumposition van .. af; cf. (73b).

    73
    a. Jan zet zijn hoed af (*zijn hoofd).
      Jan puts  his hat  off     his head
    b. Jan zet zijn hoed (?van zijn hoofd) af.
      Jan puts  his hat    from his head  off

          Often, there is no apparent semantic relation between the use of intransitive adpositions and their prepositional counterparts. In such cases, we will use the term (verbal) particle. These particles normally form a more or less fixed semantic unit with their associated main verb and they cannot be replaced by a full PP without affecting the core meaning of the construction. Despite the fact that Dutch orthography requires the particle and the verb to be written as a single word if they are adjacent, the combination probably cannot be considered a morphological compound since the finite form of the verb can be placed in the second position of main clauses while stranding the particle in clause-final position. Illustrations of this split pattern are given in the primed examples in (74).

    74
    a. Jan wil wat achterstallig werk inhalen.
      Jan wants  some overdue work  prt.-catch
      'Jan wants to catch up on some overdue work.'
    a'. Jan haalde snel wat achterstallig werk in.
      Jan caught  quickly  some overdue work  prt.
      'Jan caught up on some overdue work quickly.'
    b. De minister wou cruciale informatie achterhouden.
      the minister  wanted  crucial information  prt.-keep
      'The minister wanted to withhold crucial information.'
    b'. De minister hield cruciale informatie achter.
      the minister  kept  crucial information  prt.
      'The minister was withholding crucial information.'

          The examples above suggest that there is a gradient scale by which intransitive adpositions are related to their prepositional counterparts. In some cases the relation is quite tight, whereas in other cases the relation is looser or perhaps even nonexistent. Although the distinction between intransitive adpositions of the type in (71) and the verbal particles in (74) is often not very clear-cut as a result, we will nevertheless make this distinction. In doing so, we will rely heavily on whether the adposition has retained its original spatial meaning and can appear in the same environment as a predicative PP, or whether it has (partly) lost its meaning and cannot be replaced by a predicative PP (without affecting the core meaning of the construction). Subsection III will discuss a number of syntactic differences between intransitive adpositions and verbal particles, but first we want to discuss the particle verbs in more detail.

    [+]  II.  Particle verbs

    Dutch has numerous particle verbs, that is, more or less fixed combinations of verbs and particles. The meanings of these particle verbs are generally not compositionally determined; they are to a certain extent unpredictable and must therefore be listed in the lexicon. This is especially clear from the fact that there are several particle verbs that seem to be derived not from a verb, but from an adjective or noun. Table (75) provides some examples of such cases.

    75
    Particle verbs derived from adjectives/nouns
    adjective/noun verb particle verb
    sterkA'strong' *sterken aan + sterken'to recuperate'
    zwakA'weak' *zwakken af + zwakken'to tone down'
    diepA'deep' *diepen op + diepen'to bring out'
    brief'letter' *brieven over + brieven'to pass on'
    disN'meal/dining table' *dissen op +dissen'to dish up (a story)'
    beenN'bone' *benen uit + benen'to bone'

    The fact that the meaning of the particle verbs in (75) must be listed in the lexicon suggests that we are dealing with complex words. Subsection IV will show, however, that particle verbs cannot be considered complex words in the normal, morphological sense of the term. For this reason, we will often choose to not follow the orthographic rule according to which the particle and the verb are written as a single word (if they are adjacent). Note that the fact that particle verbs are not regular compounds is also recognized by Dutch traditional grammar, which uses the term scheidbaar samengesteld werkwoord “separable compound verb” for these verbs in order to distinguish them from real compounds of the type P + V that do not allow the “split” pattern. A brief discussion of the differences between the particle verbs and these so-called onscheidbaar samengestelde werkwoorden “inseparable compound verbs” can also be found in Subsection IV.
          Table 9 provides a small sample of particle verbs that are derived from existing verbs; cf. De Haas & Trommelen (1993: Chapter 2, sub 6) for many more examples. Broadly speaking, the particles can be said to constitute a subset of the spatial prepositions. There are only three exceptions, which are marked with an asterisk in the table. First, the particle af has no prepositional counterpart in colloquial Standard Dutch at all (but see the remark above Table 7 in Section 1.2.3). Second, the particle mee, which is homophonous to the stranded counterpart of the preposition met used in instrumental and comitative phrases, is clearly not spatial. Finally, the particle na cannot be used as a spatial preposition (as a preposition it expresses a temporal meaning); perhaps it is an abbreviation of the complex spatial particle achterna'after/behind', which can be used as a postposition, as in Hij liep de jongen achterna'He followed the boy'. The fact that the meanings of the particle verbs are not compositionally determined does not mean that the original spatial meanings of the particles are completely undetectable; many of the particles in Table 9 can still be recognized as–that is, still feel like–spatial adpositions. Consequently, some of the examples in the table come semantically rather close to the examples involving intransitive adpositions discussed in Subsection I.

    Table 9: Particle-verb combinations
    particle example translation
    aan een kaars aan steken
    drie kilo aan komen    		 to light a candle
    to increase three kiloʼs in weight
    achter achter blijven
    informatie achter houden    		 to stay behind
    to withhold information
    *af af gaan
    een band af spelen
    af studeren    		 to fail/lose face
    to play a tape
    to graduate
    bij bij blijven
    de literatuur bij houden
    drie euro bij betalen    		 to keep up to date
    to keep up to date with the literature
    to pay three Euros as extra charge
    binnen binnen sijpelen
    een subsidie binnen halen    		 to seep inside
    to obtain a subsidy
    boven boven komen
    boven liggen    		 to come upstairs/on top
    to lie on top
    buiten buiten komen
    buiten sluiten    		 to come outside
    to shut out
    door iets door snijden
    door lopen
    de vakantie ergens door brengen    		 to cut something through
    to continue to walk
    to spend the vacation somewhere
    in iets in brengen
    iets in dienen
    iets in schatten    		 to insert something
    to submit something
    to estimate something
    langs bij iemand langs gaan
    iets ergens langs brengen    		 to briefly visit someone
    to deliver something somewhere
    *mee iets aan iemand mee delen
    aan iets mee doen
    iets meenemen    		 to inform someone of something
    to partake in something
    to take something along
    *na iemand na lopen
    over iets na praten
    iemand na praten    		 to run after someone
    to talk something over
    to parrot
    om iets om draaien
    iemand om kopen
    om komen    		 to turn something around
    to bribe someone
    to die in an accident or a calamity
    onder iets onder binden
    ergens onder duiken
    iets onder verdelen    		 to fasten something (under the feet)
    go into hiding somewhere
    to classify something
    op iets op schrijven
    op houden
    kinderen op voeden    		 to put down (on paper)
    to stop
    to raise children
    over over stromen
    over steken
    een tekst over schrijven    		 to flood
    to cross
    to copy a text
    rond rond rijden
    een nieuwtje rond vertellen
    rond draaien    		 to drive around
    to spread an item of news around
    to turn/spin (around)
    tegen iets tegen houden
    iets tegen spreken
    iemand tegen komen    		 to stop something
    to object to/argue with something
    to meet someone
    toe toe stromen
    iemand toe dekken
    iets toe geven     		to crowd towards
    to tuck something in
    to admit something
    tussen iets tussen werpen to interpolate
    uit iets uit kotsen
    iets uit sluiten
    iets uit zenden    		 to throw up
    to exclude something
    to broadcast
    voor iets voor binden
    iets voordoen    		 to put on something
    to demonstrate
    voorbij voorbij lopen/rijden/vliegen
    iemand voorbij streven    		 to pass
    to outstrip someone

          Besides the particles in Table 9, which clearly have an adpositional counterpart, Dutch has many other elements that are traditionally considered adverbs but that resemble particles in that they may occur in a fixed combination with certain verbs. Moreover, many of them resemble adpositional phrases in that they may express a change of location or direction. A small sample is given in (76); we refer to De Haas & Trommelen (1993:ch.2, sub 6.3.2) for more cases.

    76
    a. heen gaan 'to die'
    b. weg lopen 'to walk away'
    c. neer dalen 'to come down'
    d. terug gaan 'to go back'
    e. thuis komen 'to come home'
    f. verder komen 'to make headway'
    g. verder lopen 'to continue to walk'
    h. voort lopen 'to continue to walk'
    i. vooruit komen 'to make headway'
    j. weer keren 'to return'
    k. Jan komt in de gevangenis terecht.
      Jan comes  in the prison  terecht
      'Jan will end up in prison.'

    In addition, De Haas & Trommelen (1993:ch.2, sub 6.3.3) give a large set of complex particles. Since these complex forms behave just like the simple ones, we will not discuss them here, but confine ourselves to giving a list. The first subset involves particles that are formed with achter/voor +P as their first member and that denote a location, direction or time. All forms can also be used as prepositions with the exception of the particles in (77b). Note that the particles achteraf/vooraf in (77a) are temporal in nature.

    77
    Complex locational/temporal and directional particles
    a. achteraan/vooraan 'in the back/front'
    achterin/voorin 'in the back/front'
    achterom/voorom 'around the back/front'
    achterop/voorop 'on the back/front'
    achteruit/vooruit 'backwards/forwards'
    b. achteraf/vooraf 'afterwards/beforehand'
    achterna 'after'
    omhoog/omlaag 'upwards/downwards'

    The second subset in (78) involves particles denoting a state. The particles P + een in (78a) alternate with the construction P + elkaar'each other'; cf. Hij frommelde de papieren in elkaar/ineen'He crumpled the papers.'

    78
    Complex particles denoting a state
    a. aaneen'on end'
    bijeen'together'
    dooreen'higgledy-piggledy'
    opeen'on each other'
    uiteen'apart'
    b. achterover(liggen) 'to lie on the back'
    voorover (liggen)'to lie on the front'
    onderuit (liggen)'to lie flat'
    omver (duwen)'to push over'

          Although the meanings of the particles are sometimes quite remote from predicatively used adpositional phrases, they share at least one syntactic property with them. First, Section 1.1.2.2, sub IIA, has discussed that the addition of a predicative PP may turn a regular intransitive verb into an unaccusative verb. As a general rule, the particles in Table 9 have the same effect. Take the case of af studeren'to graduate'. While studeren'to study' in (79a) has all the characteristics of a regular intransitive verb, the particle verb afstuderen'to graduate' in (79a') has the properties of an unaccusative verb: the (b)-examples show that whereas studeren takes the auxiliary hebben in the perfect tense, afstuderen takes zijn; the (c)-examples show that whereas the past/passive participle gestudeerd cannot be used as an attributive modifier of a noun that corresponds to the subject of the clause, af gestudeerd can; the (d)-examples, finally, show that whereas studeren allows impersonal passivization, afstuderen does not.

    79
    a. Jan studeert vlijtig.
      Jan studies  diligently
    a'. Jan studeert snel af.
      Jan graduates  quickly  prt.
    b. Jan heeft/*is vlijtig gestudeerd.
      Jan has/is  diligently  studied
    b'. Jan is/*heeft snel afgestudeerd.
      Jan is/has  quickly  prt.-graduated
    c. * de vlijtig gestudeerde jongen
      the  diligently studied  boy
    c'. de snel afgestudeerde jongen
      the  quickly  prt.-graduated  boy
    d. Er wordt vlijtig gestudeerd.
      there  is diligently  studied
    d'. *? Er wordt snel afgestudeerd.
      there  is  quickly  prt.-graduated

    In (80) we give similar examples involving weg'away', which is taken from the set of particles in (76): like predicative pre- or postpositional phrases, the particle changes the intransitive verb lopen into an unaccusative verb.

    80
    a. Jan liep snel.
      Jan walked  fast
    a'. Jan liep snel weg.
      Jan walked  quickly  away
    b. Jan heeft/*is snel gelopen.
      Jan has/is  fast  walked
    b'. Jan is/*heeft snel weg gelopen.
      Jan is/has  quickly  away  walked
    c. * de snel gelopen jongen
      the  fast  walked  boy
    c'. de snel weg gelopen jongen
      the quickly  away  walked  boy
    d. Er wordt snel gelopen.
      there  is  fast  walked
    d'. *? Er wordt snel weg gelopen.
      there  is  quickly  away walked

    Second, the addition of a predicative PP may license as its logical subject an argument that is not selected by the verb; cf. Section 1.1.2.2, sub IIB. The examples in (81) show that the addition of a particle may have the same effect, and therefore show that the particle is also predicative in nature, despite the fact that it is not always clear what property the particle denotes; see Section 1.3.1.5, sub II, for a more extensive discussion of the semantics of particles.

    81
    a. Jan speelt de band *(af).
      Jan plays  the tape    prt.
      'Jan parrots the girl.'
    b . Jan praat het meisje *(na).
      Jan talks  the girl    prt.
      'Jan Jan parrots the girl.'
    c. Jan kots zijn eten *(uit).
      Jan throws  his food    prt.
      'Jan throws his food up.'
    d. Jan vocht zijn ontslag *(aan).
      Jan fought  his dismissal    prt.
      'Jan challenged his dismissal.'

          There are other elements that are sometimes considered verbal particles that do not have an adpositional counterpart, like the element samen'together' in (82a). It does not seem to be the case, however, that samen acts as a particle in the same sense as the elements discussed above, since it differs not only in meaning but also exhibits a different syntactic behavior. In contrast to the particles in (79) and (80), the addition of samen does not change a regular intransitive verb like werken'to work' into an unaccusative one: the verb selects the auxiliary hebben in the perfect-tense construction in (82b), the past/passive particle in (82c) cannot be used as an attributive modifier of a noun that corresponds to the subject of the clause, and the impersonal passive construction in (82d) is fully acceptable.

    82
    a. Marie en Jan werken al jaren samen.
      Marie and Jan  work  already  for.years  together
      'Marie and Jan are already cooperating for years.'
    b. Jan en Marie hebben/*zijn al jaren samen gewerkt.
      Jan and Marie  have/are  already  for.years  together  worked
    c. * de samengewerkte vrienden
      the  cooperated  friends
    d. Er wordt al jaren samen gewerkt.
      there  is  already  for.years  together  worked

    The element samen also crucially differs from run-of-the-mill verbal particles in that it can readily be separated from the verbs in clause-final position: dat Jan en Peter samen aan dit project hebben gewerkt'that Jan and Peter worked on this project together'. It therefore seems safe to dismiss the claim that samen functions as a verbal particle in examples such as (82a).

    [+]  III.  Differences between intransitive adpositions and particles

    The following subsections discuss several differences between intransitive adpositions and verbal particles.

    [+]  A.  Position with respect to the verbs in clause-final position

    The most conspicuous difference between intransitive adpositions and verbal particles is that the former must precede the verbs in clause-final position, whereas the latter may intervene between these verbs. Example (83a), for example, is ambiguous between a reading in which voor is used as an intransitive adposition meaning “in front (of something)”, and a reading in which voor is used as a particle, in which case the combination voor staan means “to be leading (in a game)”. Example (83b) can only have the latter meaning.

    83
    a. dat Jan voor lijkt te staan.
    intransitive adposition or particle
      that  Jan  in.front  seems  to stand
      'Jan seems to be standing in front (of, e.g., the house).'
      'Jan seems to be leading in the game.'
    b. dat Jan lijkt voor te staan.
    particle only
      that  Jan  seems  in.front  to stand
      'Jan seems to be leading in the game.'
    [+]  B.  PP-over-V

    The examples in (84) show that, like adverbially used prepositional phrases, adverbially used intransitive adpositions may undergo PP-over-V, albeit that the result is somewhat marked for some speakers due to “lightness” of the intransitive adposition achter; PP-over-V is normally applied to relatively “heavy” constituents.

    84
    a. dat Jan graag <achter het huis> speelt <achter het huis>.
      that  Jan gladly    behind the house  plays
      'that Jan likes to play in the back/behind the house.'
    b. dat Jan graag <achter> speelt <%achter>.
      that  Jan gladly    behind  plays
      'that Jan likes to play in the back/behind (e.g., the house).'

    The examples in (85) , on the other hand, show that particles like voor behave like predicatively used adpositional phrases like voor het huis in that they must precede their verbal associate: this is not really surprising, of course, given that the examples in (79) to (81) have already shown that particles are in fact predicative phrases, which must likewise precede the verb they are selected by.

    85
    a. dat Jan <voor het huis> staat <*voor het huis>.
      that  Jan in.front.of the house  stands
      'that Jan is standing in front of the house.'
    b. dat Jan <voor> staat <*voor>.
      that  Jan    prt.  leads
      'that Jan is leading the game.'
    [+]  C.  Topicalization

    It is easier to topicalize intransitive adpositions than particles, which is probably related to the fact that particles have little semantic content of their own and topicalization is normally used to emphasize some constituent, as in example (86a), in which contrastive accent is indicated by small capitals. But even when particles may induce meaning differences, topicalization seems to be disfavored; this is clear from the fact that voor and achter are preferably interpreted as locational intransitive adpositions in example (86b).

    86
    a. Voor heb ik een woonkamer en achter een werkkamer.
      in.front  have  I  a living.room  and  behind  an office
      'The living room is in the front and the office in the back (of the ground floor).'
    b. # Voor staat Jan en achter staat Marie.
      in.front  stands  Jan and  behind  stands  Marie
      Intended reading: 'Jan is leading the game and Marie isnʼt leading the game.'

    Nevertheless, if the locational interpretation is unlikely and the context is sufficiently contrastive, topicalization seems to give rise to a fully acceptable result; cf. Hoeksema (1991a/1991b) and Bennis (1991).

    87
    a. Op komt de zon in het oosten; onder gaat hij in het westen.
      up  comes  the sun  in the east  down  goes  he  in the west
      'The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.'
    b. In ademen we zuurstof (en uit kooldioxide).
      in breathe  we  oxygen  and  out  carbon dioxide
      'We inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide.'

    Note that the acceptability of the topicalization is clearest when the particle verb is finite and the verbal part thus occupies the second position of the clause. If the second position of the clause is filled by an auxiliary, as in (88), VP-topicalization seems preferred to topicalization of the particle.

    88