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    Extraction
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    Some prepositional complements can be extracted from a Adposition Phrase (PP) directly contained within a Noun Phrase (NP), as the example below illustrates:

    1
    Dy skilder dêr't ik in skilderij fan ha
    that painter that.R I a painting of have
    The painter that I have a painting of

    Here the painter can be the agent, that is, the painter, or the theme, in case the painter has been painted on the painting.

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    Prepositional complements may be extracted from PPs that seem to be directly contained in NPs. The conditions on extraction are not well understood. One condition facilitating extraction is that the verb forms an idiomatic unit with the NP containing the PP. This is the case if the verb involved is a verb with little semantic content (a light verb) like wêze be, hawwe have, and so on, as in the example below:

    2
    Wêr ha jim in petear oer hân?
    what.R have you a talk about had
    What did you have a conversation about?

    Extraction is less succesful in case the light verb is replaced with a more specific verb, which has more semantic content, as in the following example:

    3
    ?*Wêr ha jim in petear oer opnommen?
    what.R have you a talk about recorded
    What did you record a conversation about?

    Extraction is unsuccesful in case the noun is preceded by a determiner with more semantic content:

    4
    a. *Wêr ha jim guon petearen oer hân?
    what.R have you some talks about had
    What did you have some conversations about?
    b. *Wêr ha jim alle petearen oer hân?
    what.R have you all talks about had
    What did you have all conversations about?

    The nature of the preposition involved is another factor governing extraction. The preposition fan of allows extraction, whereas the preposition troch by resists extraction, as the minimal pair below illustrates:

    5
    Dy skilder dêr't ik in skilderij fan ha
    that painter that.R I a painting of have
    The painter that I have a painting of
    6
    *Dy skilder dêr't ik in skilderij troch ha
    that painter that.R I a painting by have
    That painter that I have a painting by
    References
      About this article
      Author(s): Eric Hoekstra
      Category: Frisian Syntax
      Keywords: PPextraction
      Version: 1.0, December 2015
      Version history:
      version editor(s) date remarks
      1.0 Eric Hoekstra December 2015
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