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    Second person agreement and premodification
    quickinfo

    The second person singular agreement may be found even if there is no accompanying pronominal subject. An example is given below:

    Example 1

    Moatst dy noait fan in faam belêze litte
    must.2SG you.OBJ never of a girl lecture let
    You should never let yourself be lectured by a girl

    Of course, the subject can also be present:

    Example 2

    Do moatst dy noait fan in faam belêze litte
    you.SUBJ must.2SG you.OBJ never of a girl lecture let
    You should never let yourself be lectured by a girl

    The subject can be modified in preverbal position, as is shown below:

    Example 3

    Sels do moatst dy noait fan in faam belêze litte
    you.SUBJ must.2SG you.OBJ never of a girl lecture let
    Even you should never let yourself be lectured by a girl

    If the 2SG subject pronoun occurs after the verb, it cannot be premodified. Similar facts are found involving the complementiser instead of the tensed verb.

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    If the subject occurs after the tensed verb, verb + subject are written as one word:

    Example 4

    Moatsto mei dit waar de feart út?
    must.you with this weather the canal out
    Do you have to go out on the water in this weather?

    This orthographic matter would not be worth mentioning, if it were not for the fact that it reflects a morphosyntactic issue. The point is that the second person pronoun cannot be premodified if it occurs after the tensed verb:

    Example 5

    a. *Moatst sels do mei dit waar de feart út?
    must.2SG even you with this weather the canal out
    Lit: Do even you have to go out on the water in this weather?
    b. *Moatst ek do mei dit waar de feart út?
    must.2SG also you with this weather the canal out
    Do you also have to go out on the water in this weather?

    The ungrammaticality is not due to the fact that a question is involved. The same facts obtain in case a statement with a non-subject topic is involved:

    Example 6

    a. *Dan moatst sels do mei dit waar de feart út
    then must.2SG even you with this weather the canal out
    Lit: Then even you have to go out on the water in this weather
    b. *Dan moatst ek do mei dit waar de feart út
    then must.2SG also you with this weather the canal out
    Lit: Then you also have to go out on the water in this weather

    Furthermore, the lack of premodification is restricted to the 2SG pronoun. Neither the 1SG pronoun nor the 3SG pronoun shows this restriction:

    Example 7

    a. ?Moat sels ik mei dit waar de feart út?
    must.1SG even you with this weather the canal out
    Do even I have to go out on the water in this weather?
    b. ?Moat ek hy mei dit waar de feart út?
    must.3SG also he with this weather the canal out
    Does he also have to go out on the water in this weather?

    The tensed verb above has a /t/ in the stem so that the stem /t/ and the agreement /t/ coalesce. If this is not the case, the form without agreement (the first person) seems less acceptable:

    Example 8

    a. *Dan rin sels ik de maraton
    then walk even I the marathon
    Then even I run the marathon
    b. Dan rint sels hy de maraton
    then walk even he the marathon
    Then even he runs the marathon

    Similar facts are found involving the complementiser. Just as the 2SG pronoun is written as one word with the tensed verb, it is also written as one word with the complementiser. The example below illustrates the pro-drop variant, with agreement on the complementiser:

    Example 9

    Ik tink datst de maraton rinne kinst
    I think that.2SG the marathon walk can.2SG
    I think that you can run the marathon

    The example in (10) shows that, if the pronoun do you is present, it must be written as one word with the complementiser:

    Example 10

    Ik tink datsto de maraton rinne kinst
    I think that.2SG.you the marathon walk can.2SG
    I think that you can run the marathon

    The second person pronoun cannot be premodified, regardless of whether agreement is present on the complementiser:

    Example 11

    a. *Ik tink datst sels do de maraton rinne kinst
    I think that.2SG even you the marathon walk can.2SG
    I think that even you can run the marathon
    b. *Ik tink dat sels do de maraton rinne kinst
    I think that even you the marathon walk can.2SG
    I think that even you can run the marathon

    Similarly, it is not possible to insert a pauze between the inflected complementiser and the pronoun:

    Example 12

    *Ik tink datst eh do de maraton rinne kinst
    I think that.2SG eh you the marathon walk can.2SG
    I think that … eh … you can run the marathon

    Neither the 1SG pronoun nor the 3SG pronoun exhibits this lack of premodification following the complementiser, which is clear from the examples below:

    Example 13

    a. Ik tink dat sels ik de maraton rinne kin
    I think that even I the marathon walk can
    I think that even I can run the marathon
    b. Ik tink dat sels hy de maraton rinne kin
    I think that even he the marathon walk can
    I think that even he can run the marathon

    These data need further investigation in order to test their robustness.

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    Literature

    More details can be found in Hoekstra (1994).

    References:
    • Hoekstra, Eric1994Agreement and the Nature of SpecifiersGroninger Arbeiten zur Germanistischen Linguistik37159-168
    ABOUT THIS TOPIC
    Author(s):
    Eric Hoekstra
    Category:
    Frisian Syntax
    Publication date:
    14 May 2020
    Keywords:
    premodification
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