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Absence of agreement
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Agreement on adjectives is absent in a number of cases, involving specific properties of the adjective.

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Agreement on adjectives is absent in a number of cases (in addition to the cases mentioned earlier, involving specific quantifiers):

  1. The adjective ends in a schwa, as in oranje orange, fereale in love, enamoured.

    This also includes past participles of je-verbs which are used as adjectives. Such verbs form their past participles in schwa, such as achte dear (in letters) from achtsje value, tekenje draw: achte bestjoer dear board, in moai tekene hûs a beautifully drawn house.

  2. The adjective is a loan word such as kaki khaki, aluminium aluminium, prima fine.
  3. The adjective is a geographical adjective in -er:
    1
    a. De Ljouwert-er plysje
    the Leeuwarden.GEO police
    The police of the city of Leeuwarden
    b. *De Ljouwert-er-e plysje
    the Leeuwarden.GEO.CG police
    The police of the city Leeuwarden
    c. Dimter koeke
    Dimter pie
    Gingerbread from Deventer
    d. *Dimt.er-e koeke
    Dimter.GEO.CG pie
    Gingerbread from Deventer
  4. Comparative -er (allomorph -der) follows an unaccented syllable, so that the presence of agreement leads to three unaccented syllables with a schwa:
    2
    a. In ûnbetrouber-der fint
    an unreliable.CPR man
    An unreliable man
    b. *In ûnbetrouber-der-e fint
    an unreliable.CPR.CG man
    An unreliable man
    After an accented syllable, -er must bear agreement:
    3
    a. De wat grutter-e doarpen
    the somewhat bigger.PL villages
    The slightly bigger villages
    b. *De wat grutter doarpen
    the somewhat bigger villages
    The slightly bigger villages
  5. The adjective forms an idiom with the following noun. The noun has two characteristic properties in this construction:
    • it is a common noun
    • it denotes a person

    This group is quite productive. The phrase as a whole denotes functions of persons. The adjective exhibits both failure of number agreement and failure of gender agreement, as it is without schwa both in the common gender and in the plural:

    4
    a. De sosjaal wurker
    The social wurker
    b. De sosjaal wurkers
    The social workers
    c. De saaklik direkteur
    The business director
    d. De saaklik direkteuren
    The business directors

    If the agreement is present, the phrase loses its meaning specialisation, and receives its literal interpretation. These cases do not have the stress pattern of compounds, that is, there is no primary stress on the adjective (as in langslieper long sleeper) but it is on the noun, as in agreement constructions.

  6. The adjective forms an idiom with the following noun. The noun has two characteristic properties in this construction:
    • it is a neuter noun
    • it denotes a non-person

    This group is quite productive. It differs from its common counterpart in that the adjective may bear inflection in the plural. so some members belonging to this group exhibit failure of gender agreement but not of number agreement. However, other members of this group fail to show up in the plural with their idiomatic interpretation:

    5
    a. It koart pleit
    the short suit
    The law suit
    b. De koarte pleiten
    the short suits
    The law suit
    c. It hillich fjoer
    the holy fire
    The holy fire
    d. De hillige fjurren
    the holy fire
    The holy fire

    So it hillich fjoer denotes ambitious ensoiasm, but its plural just means holy fires.

  7. Some lexical cases: the adjectives lofter left and rjochter right.

extra
Literature

More details can be found in Haan (1993) and Haan (1993).

References
  • Haan, Rienk de & Hoekstra, Jarich1993Morfologyske tûkelteammen by de leksikale útwreiding fan it FryskIt Beaken5514-31
  • Haan, Rienk de & Hoekstra, Jarich1993Morfologische problemen bij de lexicale uitbreiding van het FriesTabu1-251-62
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