/ instituut voor de Nederlandse taal / Taalportaal
bibliography glossary about
  • Dutch
  • Frisian
  • Saterfrisian
  • Afrikaans
Show all
    0 Introduction to the NP
    quickinfo

    The Noun Phrase (or NP) is a structure built around a noun. Most nouns are words which denote persons and things, abstract or concrete. The internal structure of the NP may involve NPs, Adjective Phrases (APs), Adposition Phrases (PPs) and Verb Phrases and clauses. The Noun is the most common type of word, followed by the Verb, followed by the Adjective. The Adposition is basically a closed class of words.

    Nouns can have arguments, see: Complementation of Noun Phrases (3). Arguments to nouns are bracketed in the two examples below.

    1
    Ju Hopenge [ap ju Ferhetenge].
    the hope on the promise
    The hope of the promise.
    2
    Ju Fräige [ätter dät wichtichste Gebod].
    the question after the important.SUP commandment
    The question of the most important commandment.

    Here the arguments appear in PPs of which the prepositional head is selected by the noun. PPs can also modify nouns, and so can relative clauses:

    3
    Aan Knäppel [mäd two Strängen].
    a drawbar with two reins
    A drawbar with two reins.
    4
    Dät is die Pries, [dän hie do Israeliten wäid waas].
    that is the price which he the Israelites worth was
    That is the price which he was worth to the Israelites.

    The partitive construction is sometimes referred to as a binominal construction. Partitive constructions involve a special type of modification syntactically involving two nouns, of which the first noun provides a measure of quantification for the second noun (See: Partitive noun constructions and constructions related to them, 4). Two examples are given below:

    5
    Ju hied [‘n Masse Ferträit] in hiere Ächte.
    she had a lot trouble in her marriage
    She had a lot of trouble in her marriage.
    6
    [‘n Kiste mäd Jeeld].
    a chest with money
    A chest of money.

    The definite article, the indefinite article, the negative article and names are involved in the basic types of quantified NPs. See: Articles and names (5).

    Various types of pronouns may be distinguished (see: Pronouns, 6), including personal pronouns such as iek ‘I’, reflexive pronouns such as sik, the third person reflexive for all numbers and genders.

    Various quantifiers can be distinguished (see: Quantifiers, determiners and predeterminers, 7), such as the universal quantifier alle ‘all’, the existential quantifier monige ‘some’ and so on.

    Interrogative pronouns such as wäl ‘who’ are used to form questions (see: Interrogative pronouns, 8).

    R-pronouns, such as deer in deerap ‘on it’, form a morphologically and syntactically defined class of non-personal pronouns that is specific to Dutch and Frisian (see: R-pronouns and the indefinite expletive, 9). This class is slightly impoverished in Saterland Frisian, but less so than in German, let alone English.

    NPs may bear several types of syntactic functions (see: Syntactic uses of Noun Phrases, 10). For example, the bracketed noun in the example below bears the syntactic function of possessor, expressed in a PP:

    7
    Do Ponnen [fon dät Huus].
    the tiles of the house
    The tiles of the house.

    The following example involves three bracketed NPs:

    8
    [Die Dokter] roate [dät Bäiden] [n uur Goud] ien.
    the doctor gave the child another good in
    The doctor had the child take another medicine.

    The first one functions as the subject, the second as the indirect object and the third functions as the direct object.

    readmore

    More details about the syntax of Nouns and NPs can be found below:

    See also Kramer (1996), Slofstra & Hoekstra (2023).

    References
      About this article
      Author(s): Eric Hoekstra, Bouke Slofstra
      Category: Saterfrisian Syntax
      Version: 1.0, December 2023
      Version history:
      version editor(s) date remarks
      1.0 Eric Hoekstra, Bouke Slofstra December 2023
      printreport errorcite
      Jump to:
      X