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5.2.1.3.Quantificational personal pronouns

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The quantificational personal pronouns can also be divided into +human and -human forms. The former consist of the existential quantifier iemand'someone' and the universally quantified pronoun iedereen (in writing, the formal forms ( een)ieder and elkeen can also be found, the latter of which is generally considered archaic). The -human counterparts of these pronouns are iets'something', or its more colloquial alternate wat, and alles'all'. Both the +human and -human existential quantifiers have negative counterparts, which are, respectively, niemand'nobody' and niets or its more colloquial alternant, niks'nothing'.

Table 7: Quantificational personal pronouns

		[+human]	[-human]
existential	positive	iemand‘someone’	iets/wat‘something’
	negative	niemand‘nobody’	niets/niks‘something’
universal		iedereen‘everybody’	alles‘everything’

The following subsections will discuss some properties of the quantificational nouns shown in Table 7. Before we do this we want to note that in traditional grammar, forms like sommige(n)'some', vele(n)'many' and alle(n)'all' are also categorized as personal pronouns. However, since these forms can be considered nominalizations of the corresponding quantificational modifiers, they will be discussed in Section 6.2.

I. Meaning
II. Number
III. Nonspecific and specific readings of the existential pronouns
IV. Negative existential subject pronouns
V. Syntactic distribution
VI. Modification

[+] I. Meaning

The easiest way of explaining the core meaning of quantification personal pronouns is by using Figure 1 from Section 1.1.2, sub IIA, repeated below, to represent the subject-predicate relation in a clause. In this figure “A” represents the set denoted by the subject NP and “B” the set denoted by the verb phrase. The intersection A ∩ B denotes the set of entities for which the proposition expressed by the clause is claimed to be true. In an example such as Jan wandelt op straat, for example, it is claimed that the set denoted by A, viz. {Jan}, is properly included in set B, which is constituted by the people walking in the street. In other words, it expresses that A - (A ∩ B) = ∅.

Figure 1: Set-theoretic representation of the subject-predicate relation

In the discussion below we will not be interested in the fact that the +human and-human pronouns are associated with two mutually exclusive denotation sets: with the former, set A is a (possibly contextually defined) set of individuals, whereas with the latter set A is a (possibly contextually defined) set of non-human entities. We will rather focus on the implication of the pronouns for the intersection A ∩ B and the remainder of set A, that is, A - (A ∩ B).
The existential pronouns iemand and iets behave in a way similar to indefinite noun phrases in that they indicate that A ∩ B is not empty, and do not imply anything about the set A - (A ∩ B), which may or may not be empty.

339

a.	Er	loopt	iemand	op straat.
	there	walks	someone	in the.street
	'There is someone walking in the street.'

a'.

iemand: |A ∩ B| ≥ 1

b.	Er	zit	iets	in die doos.
	there	sits	something	in that box
	'There is something in that box.'

b'.

iets: |A ∩ B| ≥ 1

In contrast to what we did with singular indefinite noun phrases in Section 5.1.1.1, we follow the philosophical tradition here in assuming that these quantification pronouns have the cardinality ≥ 1. The reason for this is that the existential pronouns can be used in yes/no-questions without the implication that there is at most one individual/entity that satisfies the description provided by the verb phrase. This will be clear from the fact that the question-answers pairs given in () constitute a perfectly coherent piece of interaction.

340

a.	Komt	er	vanavond	iemand?	Ja,	Jan en Peter	met hun partner.
	comes	there	tonight	someone	yes	Jan and Peter	with their partner
	'Is there anyone coming tonight? Yes, Jan and Peter with their partner.'

b.	Zit	er	nog	iets	in die doos?	Ja,	een paar boeken.
	sits	there	still	something	in that box	yes	a couple of books
	'Is there still something in that box? Yes, a couple of books.'

Whereas the semantic contribution of the existential quantifiers resembles that of the indefinite noun phrases, the universal quantifiers instead resemble the definite noun phrase: they express that in the domain of discourse (domain D), all entities that satisfy the description of the pronoun (human/non-human) are included in the intersection A ∩ B, that is, that A - (A ∩ B) = ∅.

341

a.		Iedereen	loopt	op straat.
		everyone	walks	in the.street

a'.

iedereen: A - (A ∩ B) = ∅ & |A ∩ B| ≥ 1

b.		Alles	zit	in de doos.
		everything	is	in the box

b'.

alles: A - (A ∩ B) = ∅ & |A ∩ B| ≥ 1

Now that we have seen that the existential and the universal personal pronouns resemble noun phrases containing, respectively, an indefinite and a definite article, it will probably not come as a surprise that the negative existential personal pronouns resemble noun phrases containing the negative article geen: they express that the intersection (A ∩ B) is empty.

342

a.	Er	loopt	niemand	op straat.
	there	walks	no.one	in the.street
	'There is no one walking in the street.'

a'.

niemand: |A ∩ B| = ∅

b.	Er	zit	niets	in die doos.
	there	sits	nothing	in that box
	'There is nothing in that box.'

b'.

niets: |A ∩ B| = ∅

[+] II. Number

The examples in (343) and (344) show that the quantificational pronouns are, formally, third person, singular pronouns. This is clear from subject agreement with the finite verb, which must also be third person singular, and from the fact that the third person singular possessive pronoun zijn'his' can take these pronouns as its antecedent.

343

a.		Er	heeft/*hebben	iemandi	zijni auto	verkeerd	geparkeerd.
		there	has/have	someone	his car	wrongly	parked

b.		Er	heeft/*hebben	niemandi	zijni auto	verkeerd	geparkeerd.
		there	has/have	no.one	his car	wrongly	parked

c.		Iedereeni	heeft/*hebben	zijni auto	verkeerd	geparkeerd.
		everyone	has/have	his car	wrongly	parked

344

a.	Er	ligt/*liggen	ietsi	uit	zijni doos.
	there	lies/lie	something	out.of	his box
	'There is something out of its box.'

b.	Er	ligt/*liggen	nietsi	uit	zijni doos.
	there	lies/lie	nothing	out.of	his box
	'There is nothing out of its box.'

c.	Allesi	ligt/*liggen	in zijni doos.
	everything	lies/lie	in his box
	'Everything is in its box.'

[+] III. Nonspecific and specific readings of the existential pronouns

The fact that the existentially quantified subject pronouns in (343a) and (344a) co-occur with the expletive er'there' shows that they can be weak noun phrases. The examples in (345) show, however, that these quantificational pronouns can also be strong, that is, can also appear in the regular subject position.

345

a.	Er	heeft	iemand	gebeld.
	there	has	someone	called
	'Someone has called.'

b.	Er	is	iets	gevallen.
	there	is	something	fallen
	'Something has fallen.'

a'.

Iemand heeft gebeld.

b'.

Iets is gevallen.

The primed examples are marked, however, in the sense that they require a special intonation pattern: they are only natural if the quantificational pronoun is assigned accent. The pronouns in the primed examples then receive a specific indefinite reading, which can be paraphrased by means of een zeker persoon/ding'a certain person/thing'. The pronouns in the primeless examples, on the other hand, can be interpreted non-specifically, which is clear from the fact that they can be paraphrased by means of een of ander persoon/ding'some person/thing'. The examples in (346) show that the more colloquial existential pronoun wat differs from iets in that it can only occur with the expletive, which shows that wat can only be interpreted non-specifically.

346

a.	Er	is	wat	gevallen.
	there	is	something	fallen
	'Something has fallen.'

Wat is gevallen.

The fact that the quantificational pronouns in (345a&b) can be interpreted non-specifically does not mean that they must be interpreted this way. Actually, there is reason for assuming that they can have both a nonspecific and a specific reading. The two readings can be made prominent by adding a quantified adverbial phrase like verschillende keren'several times' to the sentence. If the existential quantifier follows the adverbial phrase, as in (347a), it can only be interpreted non-specifically, which is clear from the fact that the quantifier may then range over a non-singleton set of entities, that is, that several persons have called or several things have fallen. This reading is normally expressed by assuming that the existential quantifier is in the scope of the quantified adverbial phrase verschillende keren.

347

a.		Er	heeft	verschillende keren	iemand	gebeld.
		there	has	several times	someone	called

b.		Er	is	verschillende keren	iets/wat	gevallen.
		there	has	several times	something	fallen

If the existential quantifier precedes the adverbial phrase, on the other hand, it must receive a specific interpretation; in (348a) the phone calls were all made by the same person, the identity of whom is concealed by the speaker; in (348b) it is a certain thing, which is not further specified, which has fallen several times. Note that iets in (348b) cannot be replaced by wat, which supports the claim made on basis of (346) that wat is inherently nonspecific.

348

a.		Er	heeft	iemand	verschillende keren	gebeld.
		there	has	someone	several times	called

b.		Er	is	iets/*wat	verschillende keren	gevallen.
		there	has	something	several times	fallen

Although the specific interpretation can in principle be expressed by assuming that the existential quantifier takes the quantified phrase in its scope, doing this may be beside the point given that a similar meaning difference can be found in (349), in which the adverbial phrase is not quantificational in nature. It therefore seems easier to simply assign iemand/iets the reading “a certain person/thing” if it occurs in front of a clausal adverb; see Hornstein (1984) for a similar claim concerning English existentially quantified noun phrases.

349

a.		Er	heeft	gisteren	iemand	gebeld.
		there	has	yesterday	someone	called

b.		Er	heeft	iemand	gisteren	gebeld.
		there	has	someone	yesterday	called

Note that although we can paraphrase the specific and nonspecific readings of iemand and iets by means of indefinite noun phrases preceded by the indefinite article een, the former differs from the latter in not allowing a generic interpretation: whereas the generic sentence in (350a) is fully acceptable, example (350b) can certainly not be interpreted generically.

350

a.	Een mens	is sterfelijk.
	a human being	is mortal
	'Man is mortal.'

b.	*?	Iemand	is sterfelijk.
		someone	is mortal

Possible exceptions to the general rule that iemand and iets cannot be used generically are given in (351), taken from Haeseryn et al. (1997), which are special in that they contain two conjoined predicates that are mutually exclusive.

351

a.		Iemand	is getrouwd of ongetrouwd.
		someone	is married or not.married

b.		Iets	is waar of niet waar.
		something	is true or not true

Of course, generic meanings can be and are in fact typically expressed by means of the universal personal pronouns: cf. Iedereen is sterfelijk'Everyone is mortal' and Alles is vergankelijk'Everything is fleeting'.

[+] IV. Negative existential subject pronouns

The negative existential pronouns niemand'no one' and niets/niks'nothing' are normally used as weak quantifiers, which is clear from the fact that, as subjects, they are preferably used in an expletive construction. Examples like (352a'&b') are acceptable, but generally require emphatic focus: the quantifier then receives an emphatic reading comparable with the “not a single N” reading of noun phrases with geen; cf. Section 5.1.5.1, sub III.

352

a.	Er	heeft	niemand	gebeld.
	there	has	nobody	called
	'Nobody has called.'

b.	Er	is	niets	gevallen.
	there	is	nothing	fallen
	'Nothing has fallen.'

a'.	Niemand	heeft	gebeld.
	nobody	has	called
	'Not a single person called.'

b'.	Niets	is gevallen.
	nothing	is fallen
	'Not a single thing fell.'

The negative quantifiers niemand and niets can probably best be considered as the negative counterparts of the nonspecific quantifiers iemand and iets: if we want to negate a sentence containing the specific forms of these quantifiers, negation is not expressed on the quantifier, but by means of the negative adverb niet. Example (353)s show that the specific quantificational pronoun must precede this adverb. For completeness’ sake, note that, in accordance with the earlier suggestion that it is inherently nonspecific, wat cannot substitute for iets in (353b).

353

a.	Er	heeft	iemand	niet	gebeld.
	there	has	someone	not	called
	'A certain person didnʼt call.'

b.	Er	is iets/*wat	niet	gevallen.
	there	is something	not	fallen
	'A certain thing didnʼt fall.'

In contrast to the existential quantifiers (cf. (350b)), the negative existential quantifiers in (354) can readily be used in generic statements. In examples like these, the negative quantifiers behave like strong quantifiers, that is, they cannot be used in an expletive construction.

354

a.	Niemand	is	onsterfelijk.
	nobody	is	immortal
	'Nobody is immortal.'

b'.	Niets	is tevergeefs.
	nothing	is in.vain
	'Nothing is in vain.'

a'.

Er is niemand onsterfelijk.

b'.

Er is niets tevergeefs.

[+] V. Syntactic distribution

Quantificational pronouns can be used in all regular argument positions. In (355) and (356) this is illustrated for, respectively, the subject and the object position.

355

a.	Er	ligt	iemand/iets	op mijn bed.
	there	lies	someone/something	on my bed
	'There is someone/something lying on my bed.'

b.	Er	ligt	niemand/niets	op mijn bed.
	there	lies	no.one/nothing	on my bed
	'There is no one/nothing lying on my bed.'

c.		Iedereen/Alles	ligt	op mijn bed.
		everybody/everything	lies	on my bed

356

a.	Jan heeft	iemand/iets	weggebracht.
	Jan has	someone/something	brought.away
	'Jan has brought away someone/something.'

b.	Jan heeft	niemand/niets	weggebracht.
	Jan has	no.one/nothing	brought.away
	'Jan has brought away no one/nothing.'

c.	Jan heeft	iedereen/alles	weggebracht.
	Jan has	everyone/everything	brought.away
	'Jan has brought everyone/everything away.'

The examples in (357) show that +human quantificational personal pronouns can also be used as the complement of a preposition. The existential pronoun in (357a) can be either specific or nonspecific, and the negative existential pronoun in (357b) is interpreted with its normal, non-emphatic, reading.

357

a.	Jan wil	op iemand	wachten.
	Jan wants	for someone	wait
	'Jan wants to wait for someone.'

b.	Jan wil	op niemand	wachten.
	Jan wants	for no.one	wait
	'Jan doesnʼt want to wait for anyone.'

c.	Jan wil	op iedereen	wachten.
	Jan wants	for everyone	wait
	'Jan wants to wait for everyone.'

The situation is somewhat more complex with the -human pronouns due to the fact that they can undergo R-pronominalization, that is, the primeless examples in (358) alternate with the primed examples.

358

P iets

a'.

ergens ... P

existential

P niets

b'.

nergens ... P

negative existential

P alles

c'.

overal ... P

universal

The examples in (359) show that the existential pronoun iets alternates with the R-word. Although judgments are somewhat subtle, it seems that (359a) is preferably construed as specific, whereas (359b) instead receives a nonspecific interpretation.

359

a.	Jan wil	op iets	wachten.
	Jan wants	for something	wait
	'Jan wants to wait for something.'

b.	Jan wil	ergens	op wachten.
	Jan wants	somewhere	for wait
	'Jan wants to wait for something.'

With the negative existential pronouns, R-pronominalization seems to be the unmarked option. Realizing the pronoun as the complement of the preposition seems to give rise to a “not a single thing” reading.

360

a.	Jan wil	op niets	wachten.
	Jan has	for nothing	wait
	'Jan doesnʼt want to wait for anything.'

b.	Jan wil	nergens	op wachten.
	Jan wants	nowhere	for wait
	'Jan doesnʼt want to wait for anything.'

With the universal pronoun, R-pronominalization may also be the unmarked option. Realizing the pronoun as the complement of the preposition seems to give rise to an emphatic “each and every thing” reading.

361

a.	Jan wil	op alles	wachten.
	Jan wants	for everything	waited
	'Jan wants to wait for everything.'

b.	Jan wil	overal	op	wachten.
	Jan wants	everywhere	for	wait
	'Jan wants to wait for everything.'

Given that the above observations are rather impressionistic, more research is needed to establish whether the R-forms are indeed unmarked and whether the two forms indeed exhibit systematic meaning differences of the sort suggested here.
Finally, it can be noted that the positive and negative existential pronouns can also be used as the predicate in a copular construction, although they normally require some form of modification. This is illustrated in (362) for the nonspecific use of the pronouns; it is probably not surprising that the negative existential pronouns have a more or less idiomatic interpretation.

362

a.		Jan is iemand van mijn school.
		Jan is someone from my school

a'.		Die gewoonte	is	nog	iets	uit mijn schooltijd.
		that habit	is	still	something	from my school.days

b.		Jan is niemand.
		Jan is no.one
		'Jan is a nobody.'

b'.	Dat probleem	is niets.
	that problem	is nothing
	'That problem is of no importance.'

The predicatively used, existentially quantified pronouns in the primeless examples of (363) receive a specific interpretation, which is clear from the fact that their negative counterparts in the (b)-examples do not involve the negative existential pronouns, which are preferably construed as nonspecific, but the negative adverb niet.

363

a.	Hij	is	iemand	[met wie	je	gemakkelijk	kan praten].
	he	is	someone	with whom	you	easily	talk can
	'Heʼs someone with whom one can talk easily.'

a'.		Hij	is	niet	iemand	[met wie	je	gemakkelijk	kan praten].
		he	is	not	someone	with whom	you	easily	talk can

b.	Dat is iets	[om	rekening	mee	te houden].
	that is something	comp	account	with	to keep
	'This is something to take into account.'

b'.		Dat	is niet	iets	[om	rekening	mee	te houden].
		that	is not	something	comp	account	with	to keep

[+] VI. Modification

Quantificational personal pronouns often occur with postmodifiers, which then function to restrict the set denoted by the pronoun. This is illustrated in (364) by means of the +human pronouns. In all these examples, the set of persons is restricted to a subset of it.

364

a.	Iemand uit de keuken/daar	heeft	een mes	in zijn hand	gestoken.
	someone from the kitchen/there	has	a knife	into his hand	stuck
	'Someone from the kitchen/over there has stuck a knife into his hand.'

a'.	Iemand	die	niet goed	oplette,	heeft	een mes	in zijn hand	gestoken.
	someone	who	not well	prt.-attended	has	a knife	into his hand	stuck
	'Someone who didnʼt pay attention has stuck a knife into his hand.'

b.		Iedereen op mijn werk/hier	is ziek.
		everyone at my work/here	is ill

b'.	Iedereen	die	goed	oplet,	zal	het examen	zeker	halen.
	everyone	who	well	prt.-attends	will	the exam	certainly	pass
	'Everyone who pays attention in class will certainly pass the exam.'

Premodification by means of an attributive adjective, on the other hand, seems to be excluded. Note that an example such as (365a) is only an apparent counterexample to this claim: the fact that the form iemand is preceded by an indefinite article indicates that the pronoun is simply used as a noun comparable in meaning to a noun like persoon'person'. Although the result feels somewhat marked, example (365b) shows iets can be used in a similar way with the meaning “thing”; wat is, however, completely unacceptable in such constructions. Note that the constructions in (365) actually require the presence of an attributive modifier: cf. *een iemand and *een iets.

365

a.	een	keurig/aardig	iemand
	a	neat/nice	someone
	'a neat/nice person'

b.	een	leuk	?iets/*wat
	a	nice	something
	'a nice thing'

Existential pronouns can be modified in two other ways. First, these pronouns can be followed by the element anders'else'. These constructions are discussed more extensively in Section A7.4.

366

a.		iemand	anders
		someone	else

b.		iets/wat	anders
		something	else

Second, the existential pronouns iemand and iets can be premodified with zo'such', which results in a “type” reading of the quantifier. The pronoun wat lacks this option, which is clear from the fact that whereas a Google search (12/1/2015) on the string [ook zo iets gelezen] resulted in 31 hits, no relevant results were obtained for the string [ook zo wat gelezen].

367

a.	Ik	ken	ook	zo iemand.
	I	know	also	such someone
	'I also know a person like that.'

b.	Ik	heb	onlangs	ook	zo iets/*?wat	gelezen.
	I	have	recently	also	such something	read
	'Iʼve also read a thing like that recently.'

References:

Haeseryn, Walter, Romijn, Kirsten, Geerts, Guido, Rooij, Jaap de & Toorn, Maarten C. van den1997Algemene Nederlandse spraakkunstGroningenNijhoff
Hornstein, Norbert1984Logic as grammarCambridge, MAMIT Press

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About this article

Author(s): Hans Broekhuis

Category: Dutch Syntax

Publication date: 22 November 2023

Keywords: AttributiveExistential QuantifierFocusIndefinite PronounModificationNegationPersonal PronounPronounQuantificational Personal PronounQuantifier

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