Taalportaal - the digital language portal

Dutch1
Frisian
Saterfrisian
Afrikaans

Show all

5.2.1.1.Referential personal pronouns

quickinfo

This section discusses the referential personal pronouns. Subsection I will start by providing an overview of the different forms of these pronouns, followed in Subsection II by a brief discussion of the ways in which they are assigned an interpretation. Subsection III will discuss the role of the nominal features person, number and gender, followed in Subsection IV and V by a more extensive discussion of the subject and object forms, and the conditions on the use of the strong and weak forms. Subsection VI concludes with a brief discussion of modification of referential personal prounouns.

I. The paradigm
II. Interpretation
III. Nominal features
- A. First and second person pronouns
- B. Third person pronouns
IV. Subject and object forms
V. Weak and strong forms
VI. Modification

[+] I. The paradigm

Personal pronouns are sensitive to the nominal features number, person and gender, which were discussed in Section 1.1.1, but this does not suffice to give a complete classification of these pronouns; other criteria are also involved. A first division of the pronouns can be made by appealing to number and person: all pronouns have a singular and a plural form and are marked as either first, second or third person. The third person pronouns are further divided into three groups on the basis of gender: masculine, feminine and neuter. In order to come to a full classification we have to appeal to three additional distinctions. First, a distinction must be made between two case forms of the pronouns: the (nominative) subject and the (accusative/dative) object form. Second, a distinction must be made between the strong (phonetically non-reduced) and weak (phonetically reduced) form of the pronoun. Finally, a distinction must be made between the regular and the polite form of the second person pronouns. The full set of personal pronouns is given in Table 5.

Table 5: Referential Personal pronouns

		singular				plural
		subject		object		subject		object
		strong	weak	strong	weak	strong	weak	strong	weak
1st person		ik	’k	mij	me	wij	we	ons	—
2nd person	regular	jij	je	jou	je	jullie	—	jullie	—
	polite	u		u		u		u
3rd person	masculine	hij	-ie	hem	’m	zij	ze	henacc hundat	ze
	feminine	zij	ze	haar	(d)’r
	neuter	?het	’t	*?het	’t

The polite form u behaves syntactically as a third person singular pronoun. This will become clear from the examples in (281). The (a)-examples show that the singular second person pronoun jij/je may trigger a -t ending on the finite verb in the present tense, but only if it precedes it; if it follows it the ending is zero. The polite form u, on the other hand, patterns with the singular third person pronouns in that it always triggers the -t ending. Furthermore, it never combines with a plural verb: *U komen morgen toch ook? For more evidence, see Section 5.2.1.5, sub I.

281

a.	Jij/Je	kom-t	morgen	toch	ook?
	you	come	tomorrow	prt.	too
	'You will come too tomorrow, wonʼt you?'

a'.	Kom-Ø	jij/je	morgen	ook?
	come	you	tomorrow	too
	'Will you come too, tomorrow?'

b.	U/Hij	kom-t	morgen	toch	ook?
	you/he	come	tomorrow	prt.	too
	'You/He will come too tomorrow, wonʼt you/he?'

b'.	Kom-t	u/hij	morgen	ook?
	come(s)	you/he	tomorrow	too
	'Will you/he come too, tomorrow?'

In addition to the forms in Table 5, there is the +human pronoun men'one', which can only be used as the subject of a finite clause. The examples in (282) show that this pronoun is used if the speaker is not able (or willing) to properly identify the referent of the subject, or if he wants to give a general statement. The inflection on the finite verbs shows that men is formally a third person singular pronoun, and the fact that the possessive zijn'his' in (282b) can take men as its antecedent shows that the latter is formally masculine or neuter.

282

a.	Men	zegt	dat	hij	gestorven	is.
	one	says	that	he	died	is
	'Rumors are saying that he has died.'

b.	Meni	is	zijni leven	niet zeker	in deze stad.
	one	is	his life	not sure	in this city
	'One is jeopardizing oneʼs life in this city.'

The pronoun men is somewhat formal and mainly used in written language. In speech, there are two alternatives for (282a) that enable the speaker to conceal the identity of the source of information: either the weak plural subject pronoun ze'they' in (283a) is used, or the passive construction in (283b).

283

a.	Ze	zeggen	dat	hij	gestorven	is.
	they	say	that	he	died	is
	'Rumors are saying that he has died.'

b.	Er	wordt	gezegd	dat	hij	gestorven	is.
	there	is	said	that	he	died	is
	'Itʼs said that he is dead.'

The non-referential, “semi-existential” use of ze seems more or less restricted to (in)transitive verbs with agentive subjects, like inbreken'to burgle' and plagen'to tease' in (284a&b); examples such as (284c) with an unaccusative verb like arriveren'to arrive' seem to be compatible with a referential reading of the pronoun only. It should be noted, however, that judgments seem to be less clear-cut in the corresponding imperfect constructions; cf. Vanden Wyngaerd (1994: Section 4.2).

284

a.	Ze	hebben	gisteren	bij hem	ingebroken.	referential or non-referential
	they	have	yesterday	with him	prt.-broken
	'They burgled his house yesterday.'

b.	Ze	hebben	hem	weer	geplaagd.	referential or non-referential
	they	have	him	again	teased
	'They have teased him again today.'

c.	Ze	zijn	gisteren	te laat	gearriveerd.	referential reading only
	they	are	yesterday	too late	arrived
	'They arrived too late yesterday.'

General statements like (282b) are normally expressed in speech by using the weak singular second person pronoun je'one', as in (285).

285

Jei	bent	jei leven	niet zeker	in deze stad.
you	are	your life	not sure	in this city
'One is jeopardizing oneʼs life in this city.'

Finally, it can be noted that although the feminine pronoun haar is normally singular it is sometimes also used as a plural pronoun it is sometimes also used as a plural pronoun in partitive construction of the type sommigen van haar'some of them'. This option is not available for the masculine pronoun hem.

[+] II. Interpretation

Referential personal pronouns are normally used if the speaker assumes that the addressee is able to identify the intended referent without the aid of a noun phrase with more descriptive content. In order to establish the referent, the addressee can use clues from both the linguistic and the non-linguistic context. At least the following three subcases can be distinguished. We will conclude with a brief remark on so-called impersonal het.

[+] A. Deictic pronouns

We can speak of deictic use of the referential pronoun if its referent set is determined by the non-linguistic situation in which the sentence is uttered. The first and second singular pronouns ik “I’ and jij'you' are typically used in this way as they refer to, respectively, the speaker and the addressee. The plural pronouns wij'we' and jullie'you' can also be used deictically, in which case they refer to a group of people present at the time of utterance: wij refers to a group of people including the speaker (and possibly the addressee) and jullie to a group of people including the addressee (but not speaker). The deictic use of third person pronouns is generally accompanied by some gesture, or more specific linguistic information that will enable the addressee to select the intended entity or individual.

286

a.	Zij	is Marie.	pointing at the person in question
	she	is Marie
	'Sheʼs Marie.'

b.		Zij	daar	bij die deur	is Marie.
		she	over-there	near that door	is Marie

[+] B. Anaphoric pronouns

We can speak of anaphoric use of the referential personal pronoun when the situation in which the sentence is uttered does not enable the addressee to establish the intended referent, but more information is needed about the activated domain of discourse (domain D). This information may be part of the shared knowledge of the speaker and the addressee. So, the referent set of the plural pronoun wij'we' may vary with the activated domain of discourse: when domestic issues are being discussed, wij may refer to the speaker and his family, in a commercial setting it may refer to the speaker and the company he is affiliated to, and when discussing some incident in the pub, it may refer to the speaker and his friends. And, of course, something similar holds for the plural pronoun jullie'you'.
Sometimes anaphoric pronouns are modified in order to enable the addressee to establish the intended referent set of the pronoun. Some typical examples, adapted from the internet, are given in (287). Note that the pronoun cannot appear in its reduced form in these cases.

287

a.	Wij thuis	kijken	enkel	nog	naar het nieuws.
	we home	look	only	prt.	at the news.bulletin
	'At home, weʼre only watching the news bulletin.'

b.		Wij van Sollicitatieleed.nl	zijn	blij met deze aandacht.
		we from Sollicitatieleed.nl	are	happy with this attention

c.	Wij Nederlanders	hebben	altijd	te klagen.
	we Dutchmen	have	always	to complain
	'We, the Dutch, always complain about something.'

The referent set of the plural pronouns wij and jullie may also be established by the preceding linguistic contexts. If the speaker is telling a story about Marie and himself, the speaker can refer to this discourse topic by means of the pronoun wij. And naturally, when the addressee takes over, he will use the pronoun jullie to refer to the same discourse topic. This is shown in (288a). Third person referential personal pronouns are often used in this anaphoric way; one typical example is given in (288b).

288

a.		Marie en ik waren gisteren in het theater en we hebben daar Op hoop van zegen van Heijermans gezien.	participant A
		'Marie and I were in the theater yesterday and we saw Op hoop van zegen by Heijermans there.'

a'.		Vonden jullie het leuk?	participant B
		'Did youpl like it?'

b.	Heb	je	mijn boek	bij je?	Ik	heb	het	nodig.
	have	you	my book	with you.	I	have	it	need
	'Did you bring my book? I need it.'

[+] C. Bound pronouns

A referential personal pronoun is bound if it has a c-commanding antecedent in the same sentence. The pronouns typically occur in their weak (phonologically reduced) form in these cases. Consider the examples in (289), in which the available interpretations of the pronouns are indicated by indices.

289

a.	Jani	kletste	terwijl	hij*i/j	in de hal	wachtte.
	Jan	chattered	while	he	in the hall	waited
	'Jan was chattering while he (= some other person) was waiting in the hall.'

a'.	Jani	kletste	terwijl-iei/j	in de hal	wachtte.
	Jan	chattered	while-he	in the hall	waited
	'Jan was chattering while he (= Jan/some other person) was waiting in the hall.'

b.	Jani	zei	dat	ik	dat boek	aan hem*i/j	moest	geven.
	Jan	said	that	I	that book	to him	must	give
	'Jan said that I had to give the book to him (= some other person).'

b'.	Jani	zei	dat	ik	dat boek	aan ’mi/j	moest	geven.
	Jan	said	that	I	that book	to him	must	give
	'Jan said that I had to give the book to him (= Jan/some other person).'

In example (289a) the strong pronoun hij'he' can only be used to refer to some contextually determined person. This is also possible in (289a') with the reduced pronoun –ie, but in addition this example allows a reading in which the noun phrase Jan functions as the antecedent of the pronoun, which is indicated by co-indexing the two noun phrases. Something similar hold for the object pronouns in the (b)-examples: the strong pronoun hem is preferably construed as referring to some contextually determined person (although it seems possible to override this by assigning contrastive stress to the pronoun), whereas the weak pronoun m can readily be construed as coreferential with the subject of the matrix clause. In the examples in the remainder of the discussion we will no longer indicate whether the pronoun is weak or strong.
Example (290a) shows that binding opens new interpretation possibilities for the pronoun when we are dealing with universally quantified antecedents. In this example, the universally quantified pronoun iedereen'everyone' and the referential personal pronoun are part of the same sentence. This sentence allows two readings: one in which the personal pronoun refers to some contextually determined person, and one in which it refers to the people chattering. The latter reading is often referred to as the bound variable reading since the pronoun behaves as a variable bound by the quantifier iedereen'everyone'. A more or less formal representation of this reading is given in (290b), in which the referential pronoun is represented by the second variable x.

290

a.	Iedereeni	kletste,	terwijl	hiji/j	wachtte	in de hal.
	everyone	chattered	while	he	waited	in the hall
	'Everyone was chattering while he was waiting in the hall.'

∀x [Person(x) → Chatter(x) & Wait in the hall(x)]

The bound variable reading does not arise if the universally quantified expression and the referential pronoun are in separate sentences; in examples such as (291a) the referential personal pronoun hij can only refer to some contextually determined person. We can refer to the people chattering by using the plural pronoun zij as in (291b), but this will not give rise to the bound variable reading; the plural pronoun will refer to the people chattering as a group.

291

a.	Iedereeni	kletste.	Ondertussen	wachtte	hij*i/j	in de hal.
	everyone	chattered	in.the.meantime	waited	he	in the hall
	'Everyone was chattering. In the meantime he waited in the hall.'

b.	Iedereeni	kletste.	Ondertussen	wachtten	zij*i/j	in de hal.
	everyone	chattered	in.the.meantime	waited	they	in the hall
	'Everyone was chattering. In the meantime they waited in the hall.'

The bound variablereading in (290b) requires that the quantifier c-command the referential pronoun: this predicts not only that the two pronouns in (290a) cannot be swapped but also that the quantifier cannot be embedded in, e.g., the subject of the matrix clause. That these predictions are correct is shown by the fact that the two examples in (292) do not allow a bound variable reading, that is, the referential personal pronoun can only refer to some contextually determined person.

292

a.	Hij*i/j	kletste,	terwijl	iedereeni	wachtte	in de hal.
	he	chattered	while	everyone	waited	in the hall
	'He was chattering while everyone was waiting in the hall.'

b.	De wens van iedereeni	was dat	hij*i/j	zou	vertrekken.
	the wish of everyone	was that	he	would	leave
	'Everyoneʼs wish was that he would leave.'

The bound variable reading is also excluded if the quantifier and the referential pronoun are too close to each other: they are not allowed to be co-arguments, and as a result the referential pronoun in (293a) can only refer to some contextually determined person. This constraint need not surprise us given that referential pronouns can never be bound by a co-argument: binding of co-arguments is only possible if we replace the referential pronoun by a reflexive one; see Section 5.2.1.5, sub III for more discussion.

293

a.		Iedereeni	bewondert	hem*i/j.
		everyone	admires	him

b.		Jani	bewondert	hem*i/j.
		Jan	admires	him

[+] D. Impersonal het

Whereas most pronouns are normally used with a clear referential function, the third person singular neuter pronoun may sometimes lack such reference. This is typically the case in “weather” contexts like (294).

294

a.		Het	regent/is	koud.
		it	rains/is	cold

b.	Ik	heb	het	koud.
	I	have	it	cold
	'Iʼm cold.'

Further, impersonal het occurs in numerous more or less fixed expressions. Two examples, adapted from Haeseryn et al. (1997: 259), are given in (295).

295

a.	Het	botert	niet	tussen hen.	boteren 'to turn into butter’
	it	botert	not	between them
	'They donʼt hit it off.'

b.	Mijn	auto	heeft	het	begeven.
	my	car	has	it	given.up
	'My car broke down.'

Another typical non-referential use is the use of het as an anticipatory pronoun, that is, in its syntactic function of “place-holder” of a clausal complement. Given that het triggers R-pronominalization if it functions as the complement of a preposition, it does not come as surprise that the pronominal part of the PP er ... P has a similar impersonal use.

296

a.		Jan ontkende	het	dat	hij	het boek	had.
		Jan denied	it	that	he	the book	had

b.	Jan zeurde	er over	dat	hij	niet uitgenodigd	was.
	Jan nagged	there-about	that	he	not prt.-invited	was
	'Jan nagged about it that he wasnʼt invited.'

What the examples above have in common is that none of the occurrences of het can be replaced by a noun phrase or some other pronoun.

[+] III. Nominal features

This subsection focuses on the role of the nominal features person, number and gender.

[+] A. First and second person pronouns

As was already discussed in Subsection II, the singular first person pronoun is used to refer to the speaker, the plural one to refer to a referent set including the speaker (and possibly the addressee). The singular second person pronoun is used to refer to the addressee, the plural one is used if there is more than one addressee, or to refer to a referent set including the addressee (but not the speaker). Third person pronouns always exclude the speaker and addressee. Table 6 illustrates this for the subject pronoun; the elements between square brackets indicate whether the reference set indicate the speaker(s) [1], the addressee [2] or entities that are neither speaker nor addressee [3]. The plural first person pronoun wij is often called inclusive if it also refers to the addressee, and as exclusive if the addressee is not included.

Table 6: referential properties of subject pronouns

	singular		plural
1st person	ik'I'	[1]	wij'we' (exclusive) wij'we' (inclusive) wij'we' (exclusive)	[1] [1,2] [1,3]
2nd person	jij'you'	[2]	jullie'you'	[2] or [2,3]
3rd person	hij/zij/het'he/she/it'	[3]	zij'they'	[3]

The conventions regulating the regular and the polite forms of the second person pronouns are subjected to subjective, social and regional variation. Generally speaking, the use of the polite form reflects a difference in social status or age, but it may also reflect a lack of intimacy. In certain southern varieties of Dutch, the form gij/ge is used as the subject form of the second person (singular and plural) pronoun, and u as the regular object form; in other varieties of Dutch the form ge is felt as archaic; cf. Haeseryn et al. (1997: 243ff.).

[+] B. Third person pronouns

The traditional view is that singular third person pronouns are sensitive to the gender of their antecedent: normally, the masculine pronoun is used if the noun denoting the set containing the intended referent of the pronoun is also masculine, and the same thing holds for the feminine and neuter pronouns. It should be noted, however, that for many, especially northern speakers the distinction between masculine and feminine nouns is on the decline, so that masculine pronouns are often used where, according to the dictionary, only a feminine pronoun would be appropriate. This means that other factors are involved in determining the choice of the gender features of the pronoun.
The examples in (297) show that considerations of sex may overrule considerations of syntactic gender. Although the noun meisje in (297a) takes the article het, and is therefore formally a neuter noun, most speakers would find it weird to use the neuter pronoun het to refer back to it; the feminine pronoun zij'she' is the one normally used. Similarly, despite the fact that the noun phrase de huisarts'the GP' in (297b) is headed by a masculine noun, the feminine pronoun zij can be felicitously used provided that the participants in the discourse know that the referent of the noun phrase is a woman.

297

a.	Het meisje	was ernstig ziek,	maar	ze/*?het	was gelukkig	buiten levensgevaar.
	the girl	was seriously ill	but	she/it	was fortunately	outside peril of death
	'The girl was seriously ill, but she was fortunately not in peril of death.'

ben

bij de huisarts

geweest

hij/zij

zei

dat

alles

goed

was.

with the GP

been

and

he/she

said

that

everything

well

was

'Iʼve been to the doctor and he/she said that everything was ok.'

Other factors may be relevant as well. For example, there seems to be a tendency, both in speech and in written language, to refer to institutional bodies by means of feminine pronouns, even if the noun is neuter; cf. Haeseryn (1997:162) and De Vos (2009). An example of this sort is found in (298).

298

Gisteren	is het bestuur[+neuter]	samengekomen.	Zij	heeft	besloten	dat ...
yesterday	is the board	prt.-assembled.	She	has	decided	that
'Yesterday, the board assembled. It decided that ...'

Furthermore, corpus research by Audring (2009) has shown that, at least in colloquial speech, pronouns are used as indicated in (299). This shows that the system in which pronoun and their antecedents must exhibit syntactic agreement is gradually replaced by a system, in which the gender of the pronoun is determined by certain semantic properties of the antecedent.

299

Feminine pronouns: female persons and animals.

Masculine pronouns: male persons, all animals (including animals of female sex), countable, bounded objects and specific abstract entities.Masculine pronouns: male persons, all animals (including animals of female sex), countable, bounded objects and specific abstract entities.

Neuter pronouns: mass nouns and uncountable, unbounded object, unspecific abstract entities.

The plural third person pronoun is normally used if it refers back to a plural noun phrase. However, if a singular noun phrase is headed by a collective noun referring to a set, as with mass nouns like politie or collective nouns like groep'group', it is also common to use the plural pronoun. This shows, again, that the syntactic agreement system is gradually replaced by a more semantically based system

300

a.	De politie	is daar	binnengevallen	en	ze	hebben	vijf mensen	gearresteerd.
	the police	is there	prt.-entered	and	they	have	five people	arrested
	'The police have entered there and they arrested five people.'

b.	Er	komt	een groep demonstranten	aan.	Ze	scanderen	leuzen.
	there	comes	a group [of] protesters	prt.	they	chant	slogans
	'A group of protesters is approaching. Theyʼre chanting slogans.'

[+] IV. Subject and object forms

In Standard Dutch, case distinctions are only visible on the referential personal and possessive pronouns: the subject and object forms can be considered to represent, respectively, the nominative and the accusative/dative form of the referential personal pronouns. The possessive pronouns in Table 10 in Section 5.2.2 represent the genitive forms.

301

a.		Ik	kuste	Peter.	nominative
		I	kissed	Peter

b.		Peter kuste	mij.	accusative
		Peter kissed	me

c.		Peter gaf	mij	een kus.	dative
		Peter gave	me	a kiss

d.		mijn kus	genitive
		my kiss

The examples in (301b&c) show that accusative and dative forms are normally not distinguished in Dutch. The only exceptions are the strong third person plural pronouns, where an artificial distinction was introduced in the 17th century between a dative form hun'them' and an accusative form hen'them'. This distinction is still made by some, especially in written language, although most speakers use the two object forms as free alternants. According to the normative rule, hun can only be used as a nominal indirect/dative object (and as a possessive pronoun), whereas hen is used in all other cases. In (302), the forms that are excluded by this rule are marked with a number sign. For more discussion and examples, we refer the reader to onzetaal.nl/advies/hunhen.php.

302

a.		Ik	ontmoet	hen/#hun	morgen.
		I	meet	them	tomorrow

b.		Ik	geef	hun/#hen	dat boek.
		I	give	them	that book

c.		Ik	geef het boek aan hen/#hun.
		I	give the book to them

Despite normative pressure, the use of the pronoun hun as subject pronoun is fairly common in order to refer to +human referents; cf. Van der Wal & Van Bree (2008:414). Thus, an example such as (303) can be used to refer to a number of friends of the speaker but not to a set of books that he has ordered. Since hun normally also refers to human (or animate) antecedents if used as an object pronoun or complement of a preposition, it has been suggested that it is developing into an omnipurpose third person, plural, +human pronoun; cf. Van Bergen et al. (2010).

303

a.	%	Hun	komen	morgen.
		they[+human]	come	tomorrow
		'Theyʼll be here tomorow.'

Given that the distinction betweenaccusative hen and dative hun is artificial and mainly restricted to writing, it will not come as a surprise that (formal) Dutch does not distinguish prepositions that require one of the two forms, which means that Dutch is unlike German, where prepositions can be divided into subclasses according to the case they assign. The only restriction that we find in this domain is that the singular neuter object pronoun ’t cannot occur as the complement of any preposition but triggers R-pronominalization. R-pronominalization is also possible with the other referential personal pronouns if the referent is not human (or at least inanimate given that the acceptable primeless examples can also be used to refer to, e.g., pets or pot plants).

304

op hem/’m[+animate]

a'.

er ... op

op haar/’r[+animate]

b'.

er ... op

op het

c'.

er ... op

op hen/ze[+animate]

d'.

er ... op

[+] V. Weak and strong forms

This subsection discusses some conditions on the use of the weak and strong forms of the referential personal pronouns.

[+] A. Emphasis

Despite the fact that using the weak forms is preferred in speech, it is generally the strong form that is used in written text (a convention that we follow in our examples when the distinction between the weak and strong form does not play a role). In speech, the strong form is more or less restricted to contrastive contexts, unless, of course, a weak form is not available: in Standard Dutch, this holds for all forms of the polite second person pronoun u'you', the subject and object form of the second person plural pronoun jullie'you', and the object form of the first person plural pronoun ons'us'; cf. Table 5.

[+] B. Pronouns in clause-initial position

Topicalized phrases are normally stressed. As a result of this, topicalized object pronouns must have the strong form; topicalization of a weak object pronoun results in a degraded result. Some examples are given in (305).

305

a.	Mij/*Me	heeft	hij	gisteren	uitstekend	geholpen.
	me	has	he	yesterday	excellently	helped
	'He helped me very well yesterday.'

b.	Jou/*Je	heeft	hij	toch	ook	gezien.
	you	has	he	prt	also	seen
	'He saw you as well, didnʼt he?'

c.	Hem/*’m	heeft	hij	niet	bezocht.
	him	has	he	not	visited
	'He didnʼt visit him.'

d.		Hen/*ze	heeft	hij	niet	bezocht.
		them	has	he	not	visited

The third person neuter object pronoun het is special in that it is normally pronounced in its reduced form ’t and therefore resists accent. The only exceptions are cases such as Ze hebben ’t/het gedaan'They had sex', where the strong pronoun het receives contrastive accent and refers to a sexual activity, especially the act of copulating; the weak pronoun can also refer as a regular deictic pronoun. Example (306) shows that, due to this special property, the third person neuter object pronoun never occurs in clause-initial position.

306

*	Het/’t	heb	ik	op de tafel	gelegd.
	it	have	I	on the table	put
	Intended meaning: 'Iʼve put it on the table.'

The requirement that the clause-initial constituent be stressed does not hold for subjects. As a result, both the weak and the strong pronouns can be used in clause-initial position. As a result of this, the neuter subject pronoun het in (307c') differs from the object pronoun het in that it is possible in clause-initial position.

307

a.		Ik/’k	heb	een boek	gekocht.
		I	have	a book	bought

b.		Jij/je	bent	een lieverd.
		you	are	a darling

c.		Zij/ze	is	naar school.
		she	is	to school

c'.		Het/’t	ligt	op de tafel.
		it	lies	on the table

A special case is the weak third person masculine subject pronoun -ie'he', which cannot appear in clause-initial position. This is probably due to the fact that it forms a phonologically unit with its preceding element: note that if the preceding element ends in a vowel, as in (308c), an intervocalic -d- appears.

308

a.		Toen	heeft-ie	gezegd	dat	hij	ziek	was.
		then	has-he	said	that	he	ill	was

b.		dat-ie	toen	gezegd	heeft	dat	hij	ziek	was.
		that-he	then	said	has	that	he	ill	was

c.		Toen zei-d-ie	dat	hij	ziek	was.
		then said-he	that	he	ill	was

The weak feminine form of third person singular pronoun has two allomorphs: ’r and dʼr. The alternation is mainly phonologically conditioned: ’r is used after non-nasal consonants; dʼr is used after schwa; after nasal consonants, tensed vowels and diphthongs the two forms seem to freely alternate. Note that lax vowels mainly occur in closed syllables and are therefore not relevant here.

309

a.	Ik	heb	ʼr	gisteren	ontmoet.
	I	have	her	yesterday	met
	'I met her yesterday.'

b.	Ik	ontmoette	dʼr	gisteren	nog.
	I	met	her	yesterday	only
	'I met her only yesterday.'

c.	Ik	kan	ʼr/dʼr	morgen	halen.
	I	can	her	tomorrow	get
	'I can pick her up tomorrow.'

d.	Ik	zie	’r/dʼr	morgen.
	I	see	her	tomorrow
	'Iʼll see her tomorrow.'

[+] C. Semantic restrictions

The use of the strong form is also semantically restricted: whereas the (a)-examples in (310) show that the strong third person plural pronouns can refer to +animate referents, the (b)-examples show they cannot refer to -animate referents; in order to refer to an inanimate referent, the weak form ze must be used. This holds both for the subject and the object pronouns, although the effect is weaker with the former.

310

a.	Ze/Zij	zijn	ziek.
	they	are	ill
	'They (the girls) are ill.'

a'.	Ik	heb	ze/hen	gisteren	gesproken.
	I	have	them	yesterday	spoken
	'I spoke with them (the girls) yesterday.'

b.	Ze/??Zij	zijn	verscheurd.
	they	are	torn.up
	'They (the papers) are torn up.'

b'.	Ik	heb	ze/*hen	verscheurd.
	I	have	them	torn.up
	'Iʼve torn them (the papers) up.'

With the singular third subject pronouns, there also seems to be a tendency to use the weak form, although this tendency is not so strong that the use of a strong form to refer to an inanimate referent leads to unacceptability; if the subject pronoun is masculine and occupies the clause-initial position, using the strong form is even the only option since the reduced form -ie cannot be used in this position.

311

a.	Waar	is de soep?	Ze/??Zij	staat	in de ijskast.
	where	is the soup	she	stands	in the fridge
	'Where is the soup? Itʼs in the fridge.'

b.	Waar	is	mijn fiets?	Hij	staat	achter die auto.
	where	is	my bike	he	stands	behind that car
	'Whereʼs my bike? Itʼs behind that car.'

Many speakers of Standard Dutch no longer make a systematic distinction between masculine and feminine nouns, and would not use the feminine pronoun zij/ze in an example such as (311a) but the masculine pronoun hij. Although such speakers readily allow the strong pronoun hij to refer to -human entities, they prefer the use of the weak object pronoun ’m over the strong form hem: using the latter in (312) strongly suggests that the speaker has put a person in the fridge.

312

Ik	heb	’m/#hem	in de ijskast	gezet.
I	have	him	into the fridge	put
'Iʼve put it in the fridge.'

Haeseryn et al. (1997: 243) report that the reduced object pronoun ʼr/dʼr is never used to refer to non-human antecedents; speakers who still distinguish masculine and feminine nouns use the phonologically light form ze for this purpose. For these speakers, we find the pattern in (313): ʼr/dʼr can only be used to refer to female persons, whereas ze can be used to refer to either persons or objects. Speakers who do not distinguish masculine and feminine nouns never use ze as a singular pronoun (hence the % sign).

313

a.	Waar is Lisa?	Heb	je	dʼr/%ze	ergens	gezien?
	where is Lisa	have	you	her	somewhere	seen
	'Where is Lisa? did you see her somewhere?'

b.	Waar is de pan?	Heb	je	??dʼr/%ze	ergens	gezien?
	where is the pan	have	you	her	somewhere	seen
	'Where is the pan? did you see it somewhere?'

[+] D. Special syntactic environments

There are a number of syntactic environments in which weak pronouns cannot occur. Generally these are contexts in which the pronoun must be assigned stress; compare the discussion of topicalized object pronouns in Subsection B.

[+] . 1. Vocative

Vocatives are always stressed. Similarly, if a pronoun is used to attract someoneʼs attention, it must also be stressed.

314

Jij/*Je,	kom	eens	hier!
you	come	prt.	here
'You, come here please!'

[+] . 2. Focus particles

Elements preceded by focus particles like zelfs'even' or ook'also' are always stressed. Consequently, weak pronouns cannot occur with these elements.

315

a.		Zelfs	wij/*we	weten	het.
		even	we	know	it

b.		Ook jij/*je	moet komen.
		also you	must come

[+] . 3. Coordination

Example (316) shows that weak pronouns can never occur as a conjunct in a coordinated structure; it is important to note that (316c) expresses that coordination of two weak pronouns is also excluded: *ze en je.

316

a.		Peter en	jij/*je
		Peter and	you

b.		jij/*je	en Peter
		you	and Peter

c.		Zij/ze	en	jij/je
		she	and	you

[+] . 4. Complement of certain prepositions

Certain (phrasal) prepositions require that stress be assigned to their complement. Weak pronouns are therefore not possible as the complement of these prepositions.

317

a.		Jan sprak	namens	hem/*’m.
		Jan spoke	on.behalf.of	him

b.		Het is gelukt	ondanks	hem/*’m.
		it has succeeded	despite	him

c.		Het feest is	ter ere van	haar/*’r.
		the party is	in honor of	her

If a preposition does not require stress on its complement, weak pronouns are possible. Recall, however, that this does not hold for the singular neuter pronoun ’t. This pronoun never occurs as the complement of a preposition: PPs that allow it will undergo R-pronominalization; PPs that do not allow R-pronominalization, like those in (317), will exhibit an accidental gap in their syntactic paradigm.

318

a.		Jan zat naast ’m
		Jan sat next.to him

a'.		Jan zat ernaast/*naast ’t
		Jan sat next.to it

b.		Jan wacht	op me
		Jan waits	for me

b'.		Jan wacht	erop/*op ’t
		Jan waits	for it

[+] . 5. Comparative als/dan

The nominal part of the complement in a comparative als/dan phrase must be assigned stress. Consequently, weak pronouns are not possible in this environment.

319

a.		Jan is groter	dan zij/*ze.
		Jan is taller	than she

b.		Die jongens	zijn	sneller	dan wij/*we.
		those boys	are	faster	than we

[+] E. Special uses

This subsection discusses some special uses of the referential personal pronouns. We start with the use of the second person singular subject pronoun je and the weak plural third person subject pronoun ze as generic pronouns. This is followed by a discussion of the use of the first person plural pronoun we'we' to address the addressee. We conclude with some remarks on the emphatic pronoun ikke'I'.

[+] . 1. Generic pronouns

As we noted in Subsection I, the weak second person singular subject pronoun je and the weak plural third person subject pronoun ze can be used in a fashion similar to the “indefinite” subject pronoun men; cf. example (282). The former is used in indefinite/generic expressions like (320a), and the latter in expressions like (320b) where the speaker is not able (or willing) to properly identify the source of the information given in the embedded clause.

320

a.	In de bus	moet	je/#jij	oppassen	voor zakkenrollers.
	in the bus	must	one	take.care	for pickpockets
	'In the bus, one must beware of pickpockets.'

b.	Ze/#Zij	zeggen	dat	hij	gestorven	is.
	they	say	that	he	died	is
	'Rumors have it that he has died.'

[+] . 2. Use of the first person plural pronoun to refer to the addressee

In written texts, the writer may use the weak personal pronoun we'we' to address himself, or, in an attempt to involve the reader more deeply in the discussion, as in (321a). A similar use of we can be found in speech if the speaker is in a hierarchically higher position than the addressee, for instance, in conversations between parents and their children, or a teacher and his pupils; in examples such as (321b), the speaker need not, and often typically does not, include himself in the referent set of the pronoun. Replacing the weak pronoun in the examples in (321) by a strong one results in the loss of these special meanings; the strong pronouns can only be used as truly referring expressions.

321

a.	We/#Wij	zullen	zien	dat	deze hypothese	de feiten	kan	verklaren.
	we	will	see	that	this hypothesis	the data	can	explain
	'We shall see that this hypothesis can explain the data.'

b.	En	nu	gaan	we allemaal	rustig	werken!
	and	now	go	we all	quietly	work
	'And now weʼre all going to work quietly.'

Note that, syntactically speaking, the personal pronouns still function as first person pronouns, which is clear from the fact that they can be the antecedent of a (non-reduced) third person possessive pronoun.

322

a.	We	zullen	zien	dat	onze hypothese	de feiten	kan	verklaren.
	we	will	see	that	our hypothesis	the data	can	explain
	'We shall see that our hypothesis is in accordance with the data.'

b.	En	nu	beginnen	we allemaal	aan ons opstel!
	and	now	start	we all	with our essay
	'And now we will all start with our essay.'

[+] . 3. Emphatic use of the first person singular pronoun

The strong form ik'I' has an emphatic form ikke. This form is mainly used in question-answer pairs like (323a), where the person answering the question emphasizes his eagerness, or in contexts like (323b), where the person using this form expresses his surprise/indignation on the preceding assertion by some other speaker. A similar “inflected” form is possible with the neuter demonstrative pronouns; Wat heb je gekocht? Dit(te)/Dat(te)'What did you buy? This/that'.

323

a.	Wie	gaat	er	met me	mee?	Ikke!
	who	goes	there	with me	prt.	me
	'Who is coming with me? I will!'

b.	Jij	hebt	mijn boek	gestolen!	Ikke!?
	you	have	my book	stolen	me
	'You stole my book! Me!?'

[+] VI. Modification

Modification of referential personal pronouns is severely restricted. This is, of course, not surprising given that the use of a referential pronoun suggests that the listener is able to properly identify the intended referent, so that the use of a restrictive modifier is superfluous. We have seen in Subsection II, however, that modifiers are occasionally used in order to facilitate identification of the intended referent. In the case of deictic pronouns, such restrictive modifiers are often a locational PP or the locational pro-form daar/hier'there/here', as in (324). Note that the modifiers daar and hier are also common with other definite expressions, cf. mijn vader bij die deur/daar'my father near that door/over there' and dit boek op tafel/hier'this book on the table/here'. For similar cases involving PP-modifiers, see Section 3.1.1, sub IE.

324

a.		Hij bij de deur	is mijn vader.
		he near the door	is my father

b.	Hij daar	is mijn vader.
	he there	is my father
	'He over there is my father.'

Subsection II has also shown that anaphoric pronouns can sometimes be modified in order to enable the addressee to pick out the intended domain of discourse. Bound pronouns are not eligible for modification: their reference is entirely determined by their antecedent in the sentence.
Referential personal pronouns can also be modified by a relative clause, as in (325). The relative clauses can be used either restrictively or non-restrictively. In the former case, the referential pronoun is anaphoric and the relative clause is added to enable the addressee to place the information expressed by the main clause in its proper context.

325

Hij (,)	die	hier	gisteren	was (,)	is vandaag	naar Rome	vertrokken.
he	who	here	yesterday	was	is today	to Rome	left
'He (,) who was here yesterday (,) has left for Rome today.'

Occasionally, however, the use of a relative clause has a special effect. The modified pronoun in example (326a), for example, can be interpreted as semantically equivalent to the free relative construction in (326b). For more discussion of these and other cases involving relative clauses, see Section 3.3.2.3.2, sub IA4.

326

a.		Hij	die	zich	tijdig	ingeschreven heeft,	ontvangt	in mei	een brochure.
		he	who	refl	in time	prt.-registered has	receives	in May	a booklet

b.	Wie	zich	tijdig	ingeschreven	heeft,	ontvangt	in mei	een brochure.
	who	refl	in time	prt.-registered	has	receives	in May	a booklet
	'Those who registered in time will receive a booklet in May.'

The use of prenominal modifiers seems categorically impossible, which, in fact, supports our earlier claim that referential personal pronouns are determiners. Note that examples such as (327b) are only apparent counterexamples: the fact that the form ik is preceded by a determiner indicates that the pronoun is simply used as a noun comparable in meaning to the noun aard'nature'.

327

a.	*	Aardig(e)	hij	gaf	me een fles wijn	voor de moeite.
		kind	he	gave	me a bottle of wine	for the effort

b.		mijn	ware	ik/aard
		my	true	nature

References:

Audring, Jenny2009Reinventing Pronoun GenderAmsterdamFree UniversityThesis
Bergen, Geertje van, Stoop, Wessel, Vogels, Jorrig & Hoop, Helen de2010Leve <i>hun</i>! Waarom hun nog steeds <i>hun</i> zeggen!
Haeseryn, Walter, Romijn, Kirsten, Geerts, Guido, Rooij, Jaap de & Toorn, Maarten C. van den1997Algemene Nederlandse spraakkunstGroningenNijhoff
Haeseryn, Walter, Romijn, Kirsten, Geerts, Guido, Rooij, Jaap de & Toorn, Maarten C. van den1997Algemene Nederlandse spraakkunstGroningenNijhoff
Haeseryn, Walter, Romijn, Kirsten, Geerts, Guido, Rooij, Jaap de & Toorn, Maarten C. van den1997Algemene Nederlandse spraakkunstGroningenNijhoff
Haeseryn, Walter, Romijn, Kirsten, Geerts, Guido, Rooij, Jaap de & Toorn, Maarten C. van den1997Algemene Nederlandse spraakkunstGroningenNijhoff
Vos, Lien de2009De dynamiek van hersemantiseringTaal en TongvalThemanummer 22: Perspectiven op het genus in het Nederlands82-110
Wal, Marijke J. van der & Bree, Cor van2008Geschiedenis van het Nederlands, 5th revised editionHoutenSpectrum
Wyngaerd, Guido vanden1994PRO-legomena. Distribution and Reference of infinitival subjectsLinguistic Models 19Berlin/New YorkMouton de Gruyter

⇑ Back to top

About this article

Author(s): Hans Broekhuis

Category: Dutch Syntax

Keywords: Reciprocal PronounAnaphorAnticipatory PronounBindingCoordinationDativeDeictic PronounDemonstrative PronounEmphatic Demonstrative PronounEmphatic Personal PronounFocusFocus ParticleImpersonalModificationNominal featuresPersonal PronounPronounR-pronominalizationReferential Personal PronounReflexive PronounStrong PronounTopicalizationWeak Pronoun

Version: 1.0, December 2015

Version history:

version	editor(s)	date	remarks
1.0	Hans Broekhuis	December 2015

report errorprintcite

Jump to:

introduction
references
related articles