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    With expletive object (it drok praten hawwe be busy talking)
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    The verb hawwe have is able to provide the outer structure for a transitive complementive predication, which features an expletive as the subject of predication. The subject of predication has the function of direct object in the outer structure.

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    Hawwe have features in a construction built around the adjective drok busy and an expletive:

    Example 1

    Dat hja it ûnderweis tige drok praten hiene, lit him wol tinke
    that they it on.the.way very busy talking had lets him indeed think
    You can guess that they were very busy talking on their way there

    The adjective seems to function as an adverb. As is clear from the example above, the adjective may be premodified. It is followed by a verb. The verb is unaccompanied by arguments or modifiers, and it has the form of a gerund. In nineteenth-century Frisian, the dummy or expletive pronoun in object position could remain absent. The verb may be accompanied by an Adposition Phrase (PP), provided that the PP is extraposed, as shown in the example below:

    Example 2

    a. *Omdat se it drok praten oer keatsen hiene
    because they it busy talking about play.fives had
    Because they were busy talking about playing fives
    b. Omdat se it drok praten hiene oer keatsen
    because they it busy talking had about play.fives
    Because they were busy talking about playing fives

    Verbs entering this construction are action verbs like dokterjen cure, heal, boartsjen play, although there are also examples with sjen see. Objects can only be present in case they are incorporated into the verb. Adjectives entering this construction are, for example, maklik easy, swier difficult, skoan pleasant. Possibly related are constructions like the following:

    Example 3

    a. Hy hie lang sykjen
    he had long searching
    He took a lot of time to search (for something or somebody)
    b. Do hast maklik praten
    you have easy talking
    It is easy for you to talk
    c. It is moai wenjen op 'e Lemmer
    it is nice living at De Lemmer
    Living in De Lemmer is nice

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    Literature

    More details can be found in Hoekstra (1998).

    References:
    • Hoekstra, Jarich1998Oer it ûntstean en de struktuer fan 'e 19de-ieusk Nijfryske konstruksje 'it drok praten hawwe'Us wurk: tydskrift foar Frisistyk4749-61
    ABOUT THIS TOPIC
    Author(s):
    Eric Hoekstra
    Category:
    Frisian Syntax
    Publication date:
    14 May 2020
    Keywords:
    expletive
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