RESEARCH
Two Dutch many’s and the structure of
pseudo-partitives
Eddy G. Ruys
UiL-OTS, Utrecht University, NL
e.g.ruys@uu.nl
This article discusses the syntax and semantics of Dutch pseudo-partitive constructions with
measure nouns, such as drie liter water ‘three liters of water’. The major empirical puzzle is the
distribution of two Dutch instances of many/much: veel and vele. Unlike earlier proposals, I analyze
veel as a gradable adjective, and vele as a numeral. It turns out that in pseudo-partitives with pure
measure readings, only vele can freely occur (veel liters water only allows a marked “liter-bottle”
reading). This is puzzling, because veel is otherwise allowed both with mass and count terms, and
both in the singular and in the plural. I adopt the more-or-less standard right-branching syntax
for Dutch pseudo-partitives (providing some new arguments for its correctness), and propose a
semantics for measure nouns which, in combination with Ionin & Matushansky’s semantics for
cardinals, correctly characterizes these constructions and explains where pure measure readings
occur. I then show that my analysis correctly derives the behavior of veel and vele in these
constructions, given their characterization as a gradable adjective and a numeral.
Keywords: pseudo-partitive; many; scalarity; measure nouns
1 Introduction
Dutch has two instances of many/much: inflected vele and exceptionally uninflected veel,
which differ in several respects, both syntactically and semantically. Central to the present
article is the novel observation that only vele can normally combine with measure
nouns in pseudo-partitive constructions. Consider the data in (1) and (2):
(1) a. veel boeken veel
many books
b. veel wijn veel
much wine
c. #veel liters wijn veel
many liters wine
‘many one-liter-units of wine’
(2) a. vele boeken vele
many books
b. *vele wijn vele
many wine
c. vele liters wijn vele
many liters wine
‘many liters of wine’
Glossa general linguistics
a journal of Ruys, Eddy G. 2017. Two Dutch many’s and the structure of
pseudo-partitives. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics
2(1): 7. 1–33, DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.276
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitivesArt. 7, page 2 of 33
The uninflected variant veel in (1) can combine both with count nouns and with mass
nouns, but in combination with a measure noun in the pseudo-partitive construction (1c)
it does not allow a normal measure reading. (1c) cannot refer to many liters of wine, but
only to many discrete one-liter units (e.g., bottles) of wine. The inflected variant vele, on
the other hand, which can combine with count nouns but not with mass nouns, does allow
a normal measure reading for (2c).
The goal of this article is to argue for a particular syntactic and semantic analysis of
Dutch pseudo-partitive constructions which, in combination with the semantic and syntactic
characterization of veel and vele that I will propose, yields an explanation for the
pattern illustrated in (1) and (2). Although some of the evidence for my analysis of veel
and vele depends on data involving pseudo-partitives, and vice versa, I will try to separate
out the issues as follows. In section 2 I describe the major differences between veel and
vele. I discuss their distribution, and conclude that veel is most plausibly characterized as
an adjective, whereas vele patterns like a vague numeral. I also observe some semantic
differences between the two elements, demonstrating that veel is gradable, but vele is not.
In section 3, I turn to the Dutch pseudo-partitive construction. I adopt the standard rightbranching
analysis of Dutch pseudo-partitives, and provide some novel evidence in its
favor. I then argue for a corresponding semantic analysis of pseudo-partitives which, in
section 3.3, I combine with the semantic characterization of veel and vele provided earlier
to arrive at an explanation of the data in (1) and (2). Section 4 briefly discusses how veel
and vele behave with respect to the proportional/cardinal distinction, comparing them
with the multiple instances of many in Russian and English discussed elsewhere.1
2  Two Dutch many’s
2.1  Two Dutch many’s and prenominal inflection
Inflection on Dutch prenominal elements is determined by number, gender, and definiteness.
Every slot in the paradigm receives an -e (schwa) ending, except for the singular
neuter indefinite case, where the ending is -Ø, as shown in table 1.2
	1
	Throughout, I will disregard adverbial and nominal instances of veel, illustrated in (i) and (ii) below, and
concentrate on the pre-nominal variant. See Doetjes (1997) for extensive discussion.
(i) Ik ben veel in Amsterdam geweest.
I am much in Amsterdam been
‘I have visited Amsterdam a lot’
(ii) Ik heb met veel rekening gehouden.
I have with much account held
‘I have taken much into account’
	2
	The situation in table 1 is sometimes described as involving strong inflection (showing distinctions for
gender and number) in the indefinite, versus weak inflection (showing the –e ending everywhere) in the
definite. The same patttern is found in other Germanic languages; e.g., Swedish and Danish also have strong
inflection on adjectives (showing three different endings for number and gender) in the indefinite, and
weak inflection in the definite; see Schoorlemmer (2009) for recent discussion. The situation in German is
rather different, in that both definite and indefinite contexts can lead to stronger and weaker inflection on
the adjective, depending on the inflectional richness visible on the preceding determiner.
Indefinite Definite
Neuter Common Neuter Common
singular een mooi-Ø boek
a nice book
een mooi-e film
a nice film
het mooi-e boek
the nice book
de mooi-e film
the nice film
plural mooi-e boeken
nice books
mooi-e films
nice films
de mooi-e boeken
the nice books
de mooi-e films
the nice films
Table 1: Regular inflection on Dutch prenominal elements.
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitives Art. 7, page 3 of 33
Booij (1992) describes these facts with lexical insertion rules that spell out [sg,Nt,indef]
as ‑Ø, with -e the elsewhere case. Schoorlemmer (2009) also has -e as the elsewhere case,
and [sg,Nt] spelled out as -Ø; the definite determiner blocks DP-internal agreement so
also gives the -e. Menuzzi (1994) and Kester (1996) take the opposite approach: plural
number, common gender, and definiteness each specify the presence of the -e, and -Ø
appears when all three are absent.
For prenominal elements that inflect, inflection is not optional. However, there are two
variants of veel (‘many/much’), one of which shows inflection and one of which does
not (a similar pattern is found with weinig, ‘few/little’) (I add an adjective to remind the
reader of the expected inflection):3
(3) a. Er zijn veel interessant-e tegenvoorbeeldenpl
. veelA
b. Er zijn vel-e interessant-e tegenvoorbeeldenpl
. veleNl
there are many interesting counterexamples
c. Er is veel lekker-e wijnsg,C
. veelA
there is much nice wine
An uninflected form is expected only in the singular neuter indefinite environment. (3a)
shows that one also appears in the indefinite plural, alongside the expected form with an
-e ending in (3b). An uninflected form also unexpectedly appears in the singular common
indefinite, as shown in (3c) (the singular in fact blocks the inflected variant, as discussed
below).
There is no obvious semantic difference between (3a) and (3b), although (3b) is often
described as being more formal. As will become clear, however, we are not dealing with a
single lexical item whose inflection is optional or conditioned by the local syntactic context.
We will see instead that there are two lexical items with significant semantic differences.
For instance, as discussed in section 2.3 below, the uninflected variant is gradable,
the inflected variant is not. Also, while both elements allow a cardinal reading, only the
uninflected one naturally allows a proportional reading (see section 4). My discussion of
the distribution of the two variants will lead to the conclusion that the uninflected variant
of (3a) behaves more as an adjective, and the inflected variant of (3b) as a numeral;
for this reason, I will label them as veelA
and veleNl
, respectively. I will retain this notation
even when arguing, in section 2.2 below, that there is one context where veelA
does inflect.
The existing literature observes a few additional distinguishing properties. Uninflected
veelA
cannot be preceded by a definite determiner or a possessive:
(4) a. de *veel / vele mooi-e boeken
the many nice books
b. Jans *veel / vele ernstig-e tekortkomingen
John’s many serious shortcomings
Kester (1996: 107) suggests that the uninflected form veel, which cannot be preceded
by a determiner, is a quantifier, whereas the inflected form, which can, has adjectival
status (see also Broekhuis 2013: 283). The assumption that inflected veleNl
is an adjective
would indeed explain why it can be preceded by a determiner in (4), and why it must
bear adjectival inflection. And the assumption that veelA
is syntactically a quantifier with
	3
	The apparent difference in stem vowels in veel and vele in (3) is merely orthographical.
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitivesArt. 7, page 4 of 33
a distribution similar to that of elke ‘every’, etc., will explain why it cannot be preceded
by a determiner in (4). However, as Kester admits, taking uninflected veelA
to be a quantifier
does not explain why it does not inflect, since other quantifiers (elk(e) ‘every’, ieder(e)
‘every’) do.
Kester also postulates a semantic distinction: veelA
allows a collective reading, but veleNl
is always distributive. This serves to explain why only veelA
can combine with mass nouns,
as (5a) shows:4
(5) a. veelA
/ *veleNl
lekker-e wijnsg,C
much nice wine
b. veelA
lekker-Ø biersg,Nt
much nice beer
It bears repeating, however, that the distinction between veelA
and veleNl
goes beyond
the mass/count distinction observed with English much/many: veelA
occurs both with
count and with mass terms (but not with measure nouns), and there are further distinctions,
notably with regard to gradability, as we will see. Note, incidentally, that given
the incompatibility of veleNl
with mass nouns, the form veel in (5b) cannot be analyzed as
an instance of veleNl
bearing the -Ø inflection triggered by the singular neuter indefinite
environment; it can only be analyzed as veelA
. Being incompatible with mass nouns, veleNl
is banned from singular environments, so it never bears the -Ø inflection.
To summarize, the picture that emerges from the literature (also Haeseryn et al. 1997)
is that uninflected veelA
is a quantifier of the every-category higher up in the DP, in complementary
distribution with determiners and other quantifiers, and inflected veleNl
is a
distributive adjective lower in the DP. In the next section I will show that this description
does not cover certain exceptions to the pattern in (5). I will argue that virtually the
opposite theory is to be preferred: veelA
is most likely a gradable adjective; veleNl
is more
akin to a numeral (hence the labels). Section 2.3 provides evidence for the gradability
of veelA
.
2.2  Inflected veelA
with mass nouns
While (5a) shows that inflected veleNl
is blocked with mass nouns in indefinites, we seem
to observe the opposite pattern in definite DPs with mass nouns, where we do find an
inflected form:
(6) a. overstelpt door het vele / *veel werk
overcome by the much work
b. vanwege het vele / *veel zand
due-to the much sand
	4
	Kester (1996: 108) also reports that veelA
allows a collective reading in (i), but veleNl
does not; Broekhuis
(2013: 284) reports that the intuition is shared by “many speakers”:
(i) Deze tafel is zo extreem zwaar dat veelA
/ veleNl
mensen ‘em kunnen optillen.
this table is so extremely heavy that many people it can lift
‘this table is so extremely heavy that many people can lift it’
		I do not share this intuition. I feel that the intended collective reading in (i) is marked with veleNl
but equally
so with veelA
; I find both equally acceptable in (ii). I will leave this issue out of consideration below.
(ii) In zijn dissertatie heeft Fred veelA
/veleNl
tegenvoorbeelden verzameld.
in his dissertation has Fred many counterexamples collected
‘in his dissertation Fred has collected many counterexamples’
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitives Art. 7, page 5 of 33
c. door de vele / *veel arbeid die er verricht is
because of the much labor that there done is
‘because of the large amount of work that has been done’
d. ondanks de vele / *veel paracetamol
despite the much acetaminophen
(7) a. het weinige / *weinig zand dat er dan is
the little sand that there prt is
b. door de weinige / *weinig tegenstand
due-to the little resistance
These definite DPs have at most a slightly marked flavor with the inflected form, whereas
the inflected form is completely excluded in the indefinite counterpart (5a). These data
cannot be explained if the description given in the literature (see section 2.1) is correct.
Then the variant that occurs in (6) can be neither “quantificational” veelA
, which supposedly
does not inflect and does not cooccur with determiners, nor “adjectival” veleNl
,
which does not combine with mass nouns. There is no obvious way out: it is difficult to
understand how the semantic incompatibility of veleNl
with mass nouns could be overcome
by making the DP definite, or how the complementary distribution between veelA
and the
definite determiner could be abrogated in the context of a mass noun.
I propose a virtual reversal of the relative positions of veelA
and veleNl
in the DP. Inflected
veleNl
is a vague numeral, on a par with meerdere ‘several’, enkele ‘some’, ettelijke ‘many’,
luttele ‘few’, verschillende ‘various’, which also inflect.5
Uninflected veelA
is not a quantifier
or a determiner, but – presumably – an adjective (or possibly also a numeral). This will
allow us to capture the data observed so far along the following lines.
To explain how the inflected form vele, which did not combine with a mass term in (5a),
can combine with a mass term in (6), I diagnose vele in (6) as an instance of veelA
, not veleNl
(for independent evidence, see the discussion surrounding (23) in section 2.3 below). This
diagnosis is possible, since we are now assuming that veelA
is not a determiner or a quantifier
but an adjective: this allows it to cooccur with the determiner in (6). Diagnosing vele
in (6) as an instance of veelA
requires, of course that we assume that veelA
is not fully uninflected:
it shows the ‑e ending, but exclusively for the feature [+definite]. This explains
why it appeared to be in complementary distribution with the definite determiner and the
possessive in (4): veelA
does appear in (4), but receives the -e ending and becomes indistinguishable
from veleNl
. In this manner, we explain why the inflected form can appear with
mass terms, but only in the definite: veelA
combines with mass terms, and appears as veel
in the indefinite (5a) and as vele in the definite (6).6
If veelA
is to be an adjective, we must accept that not all adjectives show the full inflectional
paradigm (but recall that the earlier assumption that veelA
was a determiner or
quantifier also did not explain why it does not inflect). This is not at all uncommon, however.
Booij (1992) and Odijk (1992) discuss several classes of adjectives with an incomplete
inflectional paradigm. Some adjectives never inflect, sometimes for phonological
reasons. In other cases, the presence or absence of the -e ending reflects a semantic distinction.
One often-discussed case (see also Stuurman 1989; Menuzzi 1994; Kester 1996),
involves non-intersective adjectives modifying nouns denoting societal roles, as in (8):
	5
	An anonymous reviewer points out that vele appears exceptional as a vague numeral in that it is not paucal.
However, veleNl
is not unique in this respect, witness Dutch ettelijke ‘many, numerous’.
	6
	The prediction that the uninflected form can follow a determiner if it is indefinite cannot be tested: all
indefinite determiners are Ø except with singular count nouns, which do not combine with veelA
or veleNl
.
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitivesArt. 7, page 6 of 33
(8) a. een groot keizerC
a great emperor
b. een bekwaam artsC
a competent physician
In this case, too, the -e ending reappears when the DP is definite (and also in the plural):
(9) a. de grot-e keizerC
the great emperor
b. de bekwam-e artsC
the competent physician
Independent evidence that the inflectional pattern I attribute to veelA
is possible comes
from the declinable cardinal één ‘one’.
(10) a. één antwoordNt
/ vraagC
one answer / question
b. het én-e antwoordNt
the one answer
c. die én-e vraagC
that one question
Like veelA
, één also has the -Ø ending in both the common and neuter singular indefinite (it
does not occur in the plural), but -e appears in the definite (Booij 1992; Haeseryn et al. 1997).
Menuzzi (1994) explains cases such as (8)/(9) by assuming that the adjective on the
intended reading is merged higher than the functional head responsible for gender, but
below Num and D, so that only the latter two can trigger agreement on the adjective. We
could accommodate veelA
by extending this analysis slightly so that veelA
is generated higher
than Num, but below D. Schoorlemmer (2009) does not discuss Dutch irregular adjectival
inflection; the simplest extension seems to be that the vocabulary insertion rules for veelA
spell out any specified value for gender or number as -Ø, and the elsewhere -e appears when
the definite determiner blocks DP-internal agreement. Yet another option is to adopt the
spell out rules of Menuzzi (1994) and Kester (1996), and postulate that veelA
only has [udef],
not [uNum] and [ugender]. I conclude that what I propose can readily be accommodated in
existing theories of (irregular) adjectival inflection in Dutch; as it is not the purpose of this
paper to decide on the choice between these theories, I will leave the matter open.
Turning now to veleNl
, nothing as yet forces us to abandon its customary analysis as an
adjective, but we will encounter several indications later on that it is best characterized
as a vague numeral. In order to describe the data seen so far, I retain Kester’s assumption
that veleNl
does not combine with mass terms; I return to the cause of this in section 3.3.
This blocks the inflected veleNl
in (5a). (11) shows that the other vague numerals in this
class also do not combine with mass terms:
(11) a. meerdere mooi-e boekenpl
/ wijnenpl
/*wijnsg
several nice books / wines ‘types of wine’ / wine
b. enkele mooi-e boekenpl
/ wijnenpl
/ *wijnsg
several nice books / wines ‘types of wine’ / wine
c. een enkele mooi-e CDC.sg
/ wijnC.sg
a single nice CD / wine
‘a small number of nice CDs / types of wine’
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitives Art. 7, page 7 of 33
d. een enkel mooi boekNt.sg
/ bierNt.sg
a single nice book / beer
‘a small number of nice books/brands of beer’
Even een enkel(e) in (11c)-(11d), which can appear with a grammatical singular (showing
the ‑Ø ending with indefinite neuters in (11d)), nonetheless coerces mass terms to a nonmass
reading (cf. English many a wine).7
We find the same, familiar, pattern with cardinal
numerals, which can combine with mass nouns in the plural, and sometimes even in the
singular, but always coerce a non-mass reading:
(12) a. drie mooi-e boekenpl
/ CDspl
three nice books / CDs
b. drie mooi-e wijnenpl
three nice wines
‘three nice types of wine’
c. drie wijnsg
/ biersg
!
three wine / beer
‘three serving portions of wine/beer, please’
By reanalyzing veleNl
as a numeral, rather than an adjective, we retain the traditional prediction
that it can be preceded by a determiner. However, the simple evidence that it can
which we presented in (4a) is no longer reliable, since on our present assumptions vele in
(4a) could potentially be analysed as an inflected case of veelA
, triggered by the definite.
Instead, we can employ the fact, discussed more fully in section 3 below, that only veleNl
normally combines with measure nouns. Consider (13):
(13) a. de vele literspl
wijn die Jan gedronken heeft
the many liters wine that J. drunk has
‘the many liters of wine that John drank’
b. de meerdere / verscheidene / luttele literspl
wijn die Jan
the several / various / few liters wine that J.
gedronken heeft
drunk has
‘the several / various / few liters of wine that John drank’
c. de drie liter wijn die Jan gedronken heeft
the three liter wine that J. drunk has
‘the three liters of wine that John drank’
d. Jans vele / meerdere / drie liter(s) wijn
J.’s many / several / three liter(s) wine
‘John’s many / several / three liters of wine’
Since the pure measure reading is allowed here, what appears in (13a) must be veleNl
, so
we can conclude that veleNl
can be preceded by a determiner, hence is not itself a determiner.
Instead, as a vague numeral it can be preceded by a determiner, a property it has
in common with the other (vague) numerals in (13b) and (13c). (13d) supports the same
conclusion.
Table 2 summarizes the inflectional properties I attribute to veelA
and veleNl
.
	7
	As discussed in Hoeksema (2005), its negative counterpart geen enkel(e) has recently begun to extend to
other uses, including mass, but een enkel(e) has not.
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitivesArt. 7, page 8 of 33
See section 2.4 below for a summary of the evidence provided both here and in subsequent
sections in favor of analysing veelA
as an adjective and veleNl
as a numeral.
2.3 VeelA
as a gradable adjective
The preceding section yields one argument that veelA
behaves as an adjective rather than
a determiner: it can be preceded by a determiner (see (6)).8
This section presents evidence
that the adjective is gradable.
To begin with, my reanalysis of veelA
and veleNl
partly solves a problem noted earlier in
the literature. As Broekhuis (2013) observes, if undeclined veelA
is a quantifier or a determiner
it is surprising that it can be modified with a degree modifier; and if declined veleNl
is an adjective, it is somewhat surprising that it cannot:
(14) a. nogal veel boeken veelA
rather many books
b. nogal veel wijn veelA
rather much wine
c. te veel boeken om mee te nemen veelA
too many books comp with to bring
‘too many books to bring along’
(15) a. *nogal vele boeken veleNl
rather many books
b. *te vele boeken om mee te nemen veleNl
too many books comp with to bring
‘too many books to bring along’
These data conform exactly to my proposal: undeclined veelA
in (14) is a (relative) gradable
adjective (see Kennedy & McNally 2005 for discussion of the licensing of degree
	8
	I pass over the predicative use of veel, which also seems to support my reanalysis:
(i) a. Dat is veel / *vele.
that is much
‘that’s a lot’
b. Dat is weinig / *weinige.
that is little
		Recall that on the traditional analysis undeclined veelA
is a determiner which is not expected to occur in this
position. But declined adjectival veleNl
is supposedly distributive so it should not predicate over a (mass)
subject in the singular. On my analysis, veel in (ia) can be the undeclined adjectival non-distributive veelA
that also occurs in (5a) and (6). I cannot address the restrictions on predicative veelA
here, or why it appears
to force the subject to be mass.
Indefinite Definite
Neuter Common Neuter Common
singular
(mass)
veelA
veel-Ø zand
much sand
veel-Ø arbeid
much work
het vel-e zand
the much sand
de vel-e arbeid
the much work
veleNl
* * * *
plural
(count)
veelA
veel-Ø boeken
many books
veel-Ø films
many films
de vel-e boeken
the many books
de vel-e films
the many films
veleNl
vel-e boeken
many books
vel-e films
many films
de vel-e boeken
the many books
de vel-e films
the many films
Table 2: Inflection on veelA
and veleNl
.
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitives Art. 7, page 9 of 33
­modifiers); veleNl
in (15) is not a (gradable) adjective but a vague numeral that does not
take a degree argument, so that like the other numerals in its class it does not allow a
degree modifier:
(16) *nogal meerdere / ettelijke / luttele / enkele / verschillende boeken
rather several / many / few / some / various books
A somewhat problematic consequence is that we predict that a degree modifier should
be allowed in combination with a declined form vele when it is preceded by the definite
article, as this could be the declined form of adjectival veelA
. Broekhuis (2013) presents
data that contradict this (his judgment):
(17) *de heel vele problemen
the very many problems
However, as an anonymous reviewer observes, there are unexplained and idiosyncratic
differences here among degree modifiers. While I agree with Broekhuis’ judgment in
(17), I find (18a) less marked and (18b) even better (both are judged ungrammatical by
Broekhuis; I agree that these examples are marked, but not much more than those in (6)
and (7), where the mass noun forces a declined form of veelA
). Furthermore, (18c), provided
by the anonymous reviewer, is completely well-formed.
(18) a.??de erg vele problemen
the very many problems
b. ?de vrij vele problemen
the fairly many problems
c. de zeer vele problemen
the very many problems
In addition, (19) shows that the examples improve with a mass noun:9
(19) a. ?het nogal vele onderhoud dat je er aan hebt
the rather much maintenance that you there part have
‘the rather large amount of maintenance that it takes’
b. ?het vrij vele en vette eten dat er geserveerd wordt
the fairly much and fatty food that there served is-pass
‘the fairly plentiful and greasy food that is served there’
c. ?het nogal vele gebruik dat ik maak van de computer
the rather much use that I make of the computer
The acceptability of (19) cannot be explained under the traditional analysis of veelA
and
veleNl
. The data suggest that the predictions of my analysis are on the right track, and that
some additional constraint is responsible for the degraded status of (17). I do not have a
firm proposal to explain (17), but in view of the contrast with (18) and (19) a processing
confusion between veelA
and veleNl
may be a relevant factor.10
	9
	The coordination of veelA
with an adjective in (19b) also appears to confirm my analysis, but I have been
unable to secure firm judgments that reliably support this pattern.
	10
	The contrasts among degree modifiers observed suggest that the problem lies in finding the correct agreement
form for the adverb. Heel strongly tends to show an -e ending in agreement with the adjective it modifies;
the tendency is weaker with erg, and vrij and zeer cannot agree. Perhaps the agreeing adverbs cannot
select the proper form to agree with an inflected adjective that has an irregular inflection paradigm.
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitivesArt. 7, page 10 of 33
Thus far, I have provided one test – in (14) – for the gradability of veelA
. Unfortunately,
two other common tests for scalarity cannot readily be used to distinguish veelA
and veleNl
:
for some reason, neither variant allows a measure phrase, and one cannot easily tell from
which variant the suppletive comparative and superlative forms derive. However, recent
research on other types of modification made available by the semantics of degree expressions
provides us with additional evidence that veelA
is gradable, and veleNl
is not.
First, relative gradable adjectives allow modification that helps to specify the Comparison
Class (see Bylinina 2013 for a recent overview of the literature). In (20a), for an 8-year-old
indicates that Vera reads books that are lengthy compared to the books 8-year-olds generally
read (see Solt 2011 for discussion of this subtype of Comparison Class PP’s).
(20) a. Vera leest dikke boeken voor een kind van 8.
Vera reads lengthy books for a child of 8
‘Vera reads lengthy books for an 8-year-old’
b. Vera leest veel boeken voor een kind van 8.
Vera reads many books for a child of 8
‘Vera reads a lot of books for an 8-year-old’
c. *Vera leest vele boeken voor een kind van 8.
Vera reads many books for a child of 8
d. *Vera leest die/drie/meerdere boeken voor een kind van 8.
Vera reads those/3/several books for a child of 8
Likewise, (20b) indicates that the number of books Vera reads exceeds the expected number
for 8-year-olds. This is exactly as expected if veelA
is gradable. It also provides a modicum of
evidence that veelA
is an adjective, not a quantifier or a determiner, which are not ususally
treated as gradable (an exception is Hackl 2000, who treats English many as a gradable GQ
determiner, type <d,<et,ett>>, but I am not aware of evidence that it functions syntactically
as a determiner). (20c) and (20d) show that veleNl
patterns with determiners, quantifiers,
cardinals and vague numerals in not allowing this type of modification; I take (20c) to
entail at least that veleNl
is not a gradable adjective (it does not appear plausible that it should
be a gradable but absolute adjective). The traditional analysis of veelA
as a quantifier does
not predict the well-formedness of (20b); because of the unfamiliar concept of a distributive
adjective, it is impossible to tell what the traditional analysis would predict for veleNl
in (20c).
The scalarity of veelA
is also reflected in its judge-dependence (see Sæbø 2009 and again
Bylinina 2013). Unlike veleNl
(and similar quantifiers and numerals) veelA
may appear
embedded under a ‘subjective’ attitude verb. Sæbø observes that, next to predicates of
personal taste and certain modal verbs, this context allows dimensional adjectives, a fact
he attributes to the presence of a judge parameter introduced by the covert POS morpheme
that accompanies such an adjective in the positive. Hence, we can explain the
acceptability of (21a) and (21b) by analyzing veelA
as a gradable adjective, accompanied
by a POS morpheme, as proposed in section 3.3 below.
(21) a. Ik vind dat Lisa veel werk verzet. veelA
I find that Lisa much work moves
‘I feel that Lisa does a lot of work’
b. Ik vind dat Lisa veel boeken leest. veelA
I find that Lisa many books reads
‘I feel that Lisa reads a lot of books’
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitives Art. 7, page 11 of 33
c. #Ik vind dat Lisa vele/drie/alle/meerdere boeken leest. veleNl
I find that Lisa many/3/all/several books reads
‘I feel that Lisa reads many/3/all/several books’
Finally, the gradable adjective veelA
also occurs with the Nominal AIC construction in (22)
analyzed by Fleisher (2008), with its typical flavor of “inappropriateness”:
(22) a. Dat is een dik boek om aan een eerstejaars- student voor
that is a long book comp to a 1st-year student prt
te schrijven.
to assign
‘that’s a long book to assign to a 1st-year student’ i.e., ‘that book is so long
that it is inappropriate to assign it to a 1st-year student’
b. Dat zijn veelA
boeken om aan een eerstejaars- student voor
that are many books comp to a 1st-year student prt
te schrijven.
to assign
‘those are so many books that it is inappropriate to assign them to a 1st
year student’
c. #Dat zijn *veleNl
/drie/meerdere boeken om aan een eerstejaarsthat
are many/3/several books comp to a 1st-year
student voor te schrijven.
student prt to assign
not: ‘those are so many/3/several books that it is inappropriate to assign
them to a 1st year student’
Fleisher argues that the infinitival relative clause in (22a) contributes a modal component
to the calculation of the standard relative to which a book would count as lengthy. Again,
veelA
in (22b) patterns with other gradable adjectives. (22c) shows that (vague) numerals
do not support such an interpretation (veleNl
is excluded independently because it does not
appear in a predicative position).
Returning briefly to the topic of the previous section, we can now employ the distribution
of comparison class PP’s to confirm its findings:
(23) a. het vele werk dat Frank verzet voor een 80-jarige
the much work that Frank does for an 80-year-old
b. ?het vele bier voor een dinsdag morgen
the much beer for a Tuesday morning
Since veleNl
does not license such PP’s, vele in (23) must indeed be an inflected form of
veelA
in a definite DP, which is what I assumed above in order to explain that the inflected
form can combine with a mass noun in the definite.
2.4  Intermediate summary
We have established in section 2.3 that veelA
is gradable. This would have been surprising
given the traditional lexical categorization of veelA
as a quantifier in the category of iedere
‘every’ or as a determiner, since such elements are usually not gradable. Hence, the presumed
category of veelA
might have cast doubt on our contention that it is gradable; this
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitivesArt. 7, page 12 of 33
problem has been removed in section 2.2, where we have argued that mass-compatible
gradable veelA
can occur to the right of a determiner (see the data in (6) and (23)), hence
is plausibly an adjective, for which gradability is unsurprising. We have provided no
further evidence that veelA
is an adjective rather than some other category with a similar
distribution in the DP; however, categorizing it as, e.g., a vague numeral would again
render its gradability exceptional, as well as its compatibility with mass terms, so I will
tentatively maintain that veelA
is an adjective. This is not crucial here: my explanation of
the pseudo-partitive data that are central to this article will depend on the gradability of
veelA
, not on its syntactic category.
An anonymous reviewer presents one argument that suggests that, at least in one respect,
veelA
behaves more like a numeral that an adjective. It is commonly assumed (see, e.g.,
Haeseryn et al. 1997) that noun-pronominalization with Dutch “quantitative” er ‘there’
can occur with numerals, but not with adjectives, as (24) shows:
(24) a. Ik heb er drie gezien.
I have there three seen
‘I’ve seen three’
b. *Ik heb er mooie gezien.
I have there nice seen
‘I’ve seen nice ones’
(25) a. Ik heb er veelA
/ veleNl
gezien.
I have there many seen
‘I’ve seen many’
b. Ik heb er wel betere gezien.
I have there prt better seen
‘I’ve seen better ones’
If so, the acceptability of veelA
in (25a) would indicate that it is more like a numeral. However,
the ban on adjectives in this construction is not absolute, witness cases like (25b).
I conclude that the argument is inconclusive (while noting that, if correct, the argument
would also contradict the traditional categorization of veelA
as a quantifier or determiner),
and I will leave the matter for future research.
Turning to the category of veleNl
, we have seen that it, too, can follow a determiner (see
(13)), hence is not itself a determiner or quantifier. While I have no positive evidence that
it is not a (non-gradable) adjective, it patterns consistently with other (vague) numerals:
it can follow a determiner; it does not allow degree modifiers or other indicators of gradability
(see section 2.3); it is incompatible with mass terms (see (5a)); and it combines
with measure nouns (see section 3 below). I will also argue in section 3.1 that veleNl
acts
as a probe for agreement inside the DP, behavior which it shares with other numerals
but which sets it apart from adjectives. The syntactic categorization of veleNl
is not crucial
for my purposes here, but we will see that attributing to veleNl
a semantics similar to
that of other numerals will allow us to describe its compatibility with measure nouns in
pseudo-partitives.
3  Veel and vele, measure nouns, and pseudo-partitives
This section discusses the distribution of veelA
and veleNl
in Dutch pseudo-partitive constructions,
which has so far been overlooked in the literature. I will begin by presenting
some puzzling data that appear problematic for both my analysis of veelA
and veleNl
, and
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitives Art. 7, page 13 of 33
for the traditional analysis. I will then briefly review the standard assumptions on the
structure of Dutch pseudo-partitives. On the basis of this structure I will present a proposal
that not only correctly derives the semantics of the construction, but also explains
the distribution of veelA
and veleNl
. I will focus almost exclusively on pseudo-partitives
with true measure nouns such as liter or kilo.
Dutch has two subclasses of measure nouns (Klooster 1972): those that show singular
morphology when preceded by a numeral larger than one, and those that show normal
number morphology.11
The former class is instantiated by liter in (26):
(26) a. eensg
litersg
wijn
a liter wine
‘a liter of wine’ amount
b. drie litersg
wijn
three liter wine
‘three liters of wine’ amount
c. #drie literspl
wijn
three liters wine
‘three one-liter units of wine’ unit
When a measure noun of this class is pluralized in this context, as in (26c), it no longer
yields a pure amount reading (see also Van Gestel 1986): unlike (26b), (26c) does not
simply refer to three liters of wine, but can only refer to three individuated one-liter units
(e.g., liter bottles) of wine; I shall indicate this reading with #, and add the labels unit or
amount to the glosses. Now consider the pattern with veel/vele:
(27) a. *veel litersg
wijn veelA
many liter wine
b. #veel literspl
wijn veelA
many liters wine
‘many one-liter units of wine’ unit
c. *vele litersg
wijn veleNl
many liter wine
d. vele literspl
wijn veleNl
many liters wine
‘many liters of wine’ amount
We observe that veelA
and veleNl
differ from cardinal numerals in that they require plural
marking on liter (see Doetjes 1997: 190ff). We also observe that veelA
does not allow the
pure amount reading, but veleNl
does. The following data confirm that the form vele that
occurs in the pseudo-partitive construction with the pure amount reading is indeed the
numeral veleNl
, not some exceptionally inflected instance of the gradable adjective veelA
.
The form vele in (28), which allows the pure amount reading, is incompatible with the
gradability modifiers discussed in section 2.3, indicating that is it indeed veleNl
, not veelA
.
Replacing veleNl
with veelA
in (29) allows the gradability modifiers but blocks the pure
amount reading. (Note that the #-signs in (28) reflect unacceptability because of the gradability
modifiers; the # in (29) signals the unit-not-amount reading, as before.)
	11
	For similar data from other Germanic languages, see e.g. Delsing (1993: 204); Kinn (2001); Hankamer &
Mikkelsen (2008); Grestenberger (2015), and references cited there.
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitivesArt. 7, page 14 of 33
(28) a. #Hij heeft vele liters wijn gedronken voor een kind van acht. veleNl
he has many liters wine drunk for a child of 8
‘he has drunk many liters of wine for an eight-year-old’       amount
b. #Ik vind dat hij vele liters wijn drinkt. veleNl
I find that he many liters wine drinks
‘I feel he drinks many liters of wine’ amount
c. *Hij heeft erg vele liters wijn gedronken. veleNl
he has very many liters wine drunk
‘he has drunk very many liters of wine’ amount
(29) a. #Hij heeft veel liters wijn gedronken voor een kind van acht. veelA
he has many liters wine drunk for a child of 8
‘he has drunk many one-liter units of wine for an eight-year-old’ unit
b. #Ik vind dat hij veel liters wijn drinkt. veelA
I find that he many liters wine drinks
‘I feel that he drinks many one-liter units of wine’ unit
c. #Hij heeft erg veel liters wijn gedronken. veelA
he has very many liters wine drunk
‘he has drunk very many one-liter units of wine’ unit
The second class of measure nouns (those that do show regular plural morphology) is
exemplified by maand ‘month’ in (30). We find the same restriction here: veleNl
in (30b)
allows a pure amount reading (many months of holiday, not necessarily in contiguous onemonth
periods), veelA
in (30c) does not (many one-month periods, e.g. calendar months,
of holiday).
(30) a. Ik hoop op drie maanden vakantie volgend jaar.
I hope for three months holiday next year
‘I’m hoping for three months of holiday next year’ amount
b. Ik hoop op vele maanden vakantie volgend jaar. veleNl
I hope for many months holiday next year
‘I’m hoping for many months of holiday next year’ amount
c. #Ik hoop op veel maanden vakantie volgend jaar. veelA
I hope for many months holiday next year
‘I’m hoping for many one-month-long periods of holiday next year’ unit
In conclusion, veleNl
allows a pure amount reading with measure nouns, but veelA
does not.
How can these data be explained? The traditional analysis of veelA
and veleNl
does not
help to explain the data in (27) through (30). The supposed distributivity of veleNl
does
not predict that it allows the amount reading in (27d) and (30b).12
And the only semantic
property attributed to veelA
, that it does not need to be distributive, gives no clue as to
why it does not allow an amount reading in (27b) and (30c). Note also that the mass/
count distinction does not capture the pattern in (27)/(30): both veelA
and veleNl
can operate
in the count domain, and it is veelA
, the variant that can combine with mass nouns, that
is blocked in the (27b) and (30c), which could be argued to be mass contexts. If anything,
one would expect the reverse pattern.
	12
	As above (see footnote 4), I allow non-distributive readings for veleNl
in this context as well, for instance in
er werden vele liters water verzameld ‘many liters of water were collected’.
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitives Art. 7, page 15 of 33
At first glance, my analysis does not fare much better. On the positive side, the
­assimilation of veleNl
to the vague numerals remains intact, as the other vague numerals
also force the plural morphology and allow a pure measure reading:
(31) a. *meerdere / verscheidene / luttele litersg
wijn
b. meerdere / verscheidene / luttele literspl
wijn
several / various / few liter(s) wine
‘several/various/few liters of wine’ amount
However, the contrast between the mass terms in (5), (11) and (12), and the measure
nouns on their pure amount reading in (26), (27), (30) and (31b) appears as puzzling for
my approach as it is for the traditional account. Why can veleNl
, other vague numerals,
and cardinals combine with these measure nouns, but not with mass terms? And what
gives veelA
the opposite distribution? The distribution of veelA
is the most puzzling: it can
combine with both singulars and plurals, and operate both in the mass domain and in the
count domain – how can we prevent it from combining with liters or liters of wine (on the
pure measure reading)?
We can already observe at this point that an explanation in terms of number marking
will not work. We could describe the distribution of veleNl
(and other vague numerals,
with the possible exception of een enkele ‘a small number’) by postulating that it combines
only with grammatically plural NPs, but this description does not extend to the cardinals.
Cardinals can combine both with grammatically singular nouns (notably with measure
nouns in (26b) and also with some mass nouns in (12c)) and with nouns with plural marking,
so the contrast between (26b) and (26c) cannot be due to the presence of the morphological
plural as such. More importantly, restrictions on grammatical number marking
cannot be used to describe the distribution of veelA
in (27) and (30), as it can combine
with both grammatical singulars (5a) and plurals (3a).
In the following three sections I will propose an explanation for these observations. I
will start in section 3.1 by briefly reviewing the standard assumptions on the syntax of
Dutch pseudo-partitive constructions. This section also presents the explanation I adopt
for the number marking facts in (26) and (27). In section 3.2 I will propose a semantics for
measure nouns that is compatible with this syntax, and which makes it possible to state
semantic generalizations that govern the distribution of veelA
and veleNl
in (27) – (30).
In section 3.3, I will consider possible underlying motivations for these generalizations.
Section 3.4 briefly considers how far a non-standard syntactic analysis of Dutch pseudopartitives
could go toward explaining the relevant data.
3.1  Constituency in the Dutch pseudo-partitive
In the literature on English pseudo-partitive constructions it is often assumed that five
meters in five meters of yarn is the same measure phrase that appears in five meters tall, forming
a constituent to the exclusion of the substance noun (of) yarn. For instance, Schwarzschild
(2006) places five meters in the specifier of a QP dominating the NP headed by yarn.
The standard assumption on the structure of Dutch pseudo-partitive constructions, however,
which I will adopt, is that the measure noun (meter) takes the substance noun (yarn)
as its complement, the two forming a constituent to the exclusion of the numeral (see, for
instance, Van Gestel 1986; Van Riemsdijk 1998; Vos 1999; see Hankamer & Mikkelsen
2008 for a similar analysis of Danish). I will refer to this as the head-complement analysis,
and to the alternative that treats five meters as a specifier, as the specifier analysis. The
head-complement analysis and the specifier analysis are schematically illustrated for vijf
liter water ‘five liters (of) water’ in (32a) and (32b), respectively.
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitivesArt. 7, page 16 of 33
(32)	 a.	
I will briefly review some of the standard arguments for the head-complement analysis of
Dutch pseudo-partitives, present some additional arguments, and then outline the account
I adopt for the number marking data in (26) and (27) above.
Van Gestel (1986) provides syntactic evidence that Dutch cardinal numerals are nouns
that take a nominal complement (as had been argued for English by Jackendoff 1977),
and he shows that this analysis also extends to pseudo-partitives: the measure noun heads
its own DP and takes the NP headed by the substance noun as a complement. One point
of evidence is that gender on the DP is determined by the measure noun, not by the mass
noun:13
(33) a. dieC
éne / halve / twee literC
waterNt
that one / half / 2 liter water
‘that 1/half/2 liter(s) of water’
b. hetNt
onsjeNt
cocaïneC
the metric.ounce-dim cocaine
‘the little ounce of cocaine’
c. datNt
jaarNt
vakantieC
that year holiday
‘that year of holiday’
Also, gender on the complementizer of a relative clause is determined by the measure
noun:
(34) een literC
waterNt
dieC
/ *datNt
we gedronken hebben
a liter water that we drunk have
‘a liter of water that we drank’
Van Gestel explains this by assuming that liter selects too low an (extended) projection of
N as its complement for it to allow adjunction of a relative clause, so the relative clause
must be attached to the projection headed by liter. These data are difficult to capture if
two liter, etc., is syntactically a specifier or modifier.
An additional argument for the standard head-complement analysis starts from the
observation that measure phrases headed by (singular) measure nouns, like other (singular
count) NPs, cannot appear bare but require an indefinite article or numeral:
(35) die tas weegt *(een/drie) kilo
that bag weighs  a/three kilo
‘that bag weighs a kilo/3 kilos’
But observe that the numeral may and the indefinite article must be absent when the
measure phrase appears inside a pseudo-partitive, in case the pseudo-partitive as a whole
has another determiner:
	13
	In fact, Van Gestel (1986: 137) allows both genders on the article; I and my informants find this quite
impossible; Frank van Gestel (p.c.) concurs. The examples given here are mine.
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitives Art. 7, page 17 of 33
(36) a. Jan’s (*een) (drie) liter wijn
J.’s   a three liter wine
‘John’s liter/John’s 3 liters of wine’
b. deze (*een) (drie) liter wijn
this   a three liter wine
‘this liter/these 3 liters of wine’
Now suppose that we adopt the specifier analysis. We cannot assume that John’s or this in
(36) is part of the supposed measure phrase specifier (cf. *the bag weighs John’s kilo/this
kilo, *John’s meters tall). And this is indeed blocked if the measure noun that heads the
measure phrase specifier is taken to require (as in the semantics of Krifka 1990, discussed
below) a cardinal as an obligatory argument (with the indefinite article in (35) perhaps
an optional variant of one), or on the semantics proposed in Schwarzschild (2006). However,
this means that the supposed measure phrase specifier in (36) consist just of the
noun liter, only optionally preceded by a numeral. It is unclear on the specifier analysis
why the numeral may be missing, and why the indefinite article cannot appear inside
the measure phrase specifier in (36), unlike in (35). On the structure adopted here, these
data are unproblematic: the measure noun liter in (36) heads its own DP, which allows
the same range of determiners as other similar DPs: a possessive or demonstrative in complementary
distribution with the article, optionally followed by a numeral. The semantics
proposed in section 3.2 will deal correctly with the definite determiners in (36).
The following observations also render the standard head-complement analysis more
plausible than the specifier analysis:
(37) a. datNt
éne / *één jaarNt
oponthoudNt
that one year delay
‘that one year of delay’
b. dieC
éne / ??één literC
wijnC
that one liter wine
‘that one liter of wine’
c. dat *éne / één jaarNt
lange oponthoudNt
that one year long delay
As shown in (10) above, the numeral één ‘one’ is inflected when it appears in a definite
DP. (37a) and (37b) show that this also obtains when the numeral precedes a measure
noun. This is unexpected if éne is embedded in a separate measure phrase specifier éne
jaar / éne liter. Observe, for instance, that the numeral één ‘one’ when it appears in a measure
phrase modifying an attributive adjective does not agree for definiteness with the DP
(see (37c)). These observations follow immediately on the analysis adopted here.
In addition, adopting the head-complement analysis will allow a unification of the
pseudo-partitive construction under discussion here with the group noun and container
noun constructions exemplified in (38) (see Vos 1999 for an overview):
(38) a. een groep toeristen
a group tourists
‘a group of tourists’
b. een doos koekjes
a box cookies
‘a box of cookies’
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitivesArt. 7, page 18 of 33
It is semantically implausible that a group or a box in these constructions should function
as a measure phrase, at least on the reading where they entail the existence of an actual
group or box. It follows that such nouns must be capable of taking a nominal complement,
and providing it with case; this makes it more plausible that this also happens in pseudopartitives.
Note furthermore that in previous stages of the language, the substance noun
following a container or measure noun was visibly marked genitive (Stoett 1923: 102), as
expected on the head-complement analysis (whereas in the five meters tall case, the measure
phrase specifier would be marked genitive).
Thus far, I have argued that the measure noun liter and the substance noun water in
pseudo-partitive vijf liter water ‘five liters water’ stand in a head-complement relation.
In principle, this leaves open several options for the position of the numeral. Van Gestel
(1986) argues that the same head-complement relation obtains here, as illustrated in
(32a) above, an analysis I will adopt for the following two reasons. Firstly, because Ionin
and Matushansky (2006) argue successfully that simplex numerals are nominal heads taking
nominal complements; in a complex numeral DP such as two hundred books, books is
the complement of hundred, and hundred books is the complement of two. They propose
a corresponding semantics for cardinal numerals which facilitates a successful compositional
treatment of complex cardinals. Secondly, because Matushansky and Ruys (2014)
show that adopting this structure allows one to explain the puzzling pattern of number
marking observed with measure nouns along the following lines.
Recall that some measure nouns remain in the singular when combined with a cardinal,
and other measure nouns are pluralized (Klooster 1972); this is illustrated again in (39):
(39) a. drie jaarsg
vakantie
three year vacation
‘3 years of holidays’
b. drie maandenpl
vakantie
three months vacation
‘3 months of holidays’
As I will argue in the next section, it is implausible that the plural marking on maanden
‘months’ in (39b) should reflect semantic pluralization, which does not occur in the mass
domain. In addition, there is no relevant semantic distinction between year and month
that could explain the contrast between (39a) and (39b) (see Klooster 1972 for some
discussion).14
Matushansky and Ruys (2014) conclude that number marking in these cases
is a purely syntactic agreement phenomenon: pluralizing measure nouns like maand bear
a syntactic feature [Ind] (for “individuation”) that causes them to Agree with a probing
cardinal numeral, triggering plural marking, while other measure nouns like jaar and liter
lack this feature.15
This is a plausible analysis only in case the cardinal numeral is a head
that can probe into its complement and Agree with the measure noun.
Given this treatment of number marking, we can now assume that the vague numerals,
including veleNl
, are also complement-taking heads, but are different in that they probe
for some feature that all measure nouns share (say, N), causing all of them to pluralize.
This will describe the number data in (26), (27), (30), (31) and (39): the vague numerals
in (27d), (30b) and (31b) enter into an Agree relation with the measure nouns and cause
	14
	It is in this regard that the Dutch situation differs from Viennese German (as discussed in Grestenberger
2015), where, on some container nouns, the presence of number marking correlates with the container
reading. Unfortunately, Grestenberger (2015) was not available to me during the writing of this article, and
a proper comparison must await another occasion.
	15
	Note that a plural form jaren does exist for jaar ‘year’, which is used for instance when it is preceded by veleNl
and other vague numerals.
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitives Art. 7, page 19 of 33
them to be marked plural; the cardinal Agrees with the measure nouns in (30a) and (39b),
but not with the measure nouns in (26b) and (39a).16
See Matushansky and Ruys (2014)
for further discussion.17
This analysis warrants an additional conclusion. If veleNl
in (27d) indeed probes the
measure noun and fixes its number feature, it becomes unlikely that veleNl
is a regular
adjective. I am not aware of other adjectives that value φ-features on the nouns they
modify; there are surely no adjectives that can be inserted before liter in (26a) or (26b)
that will render the measure noun plural. This confirms my assessment in section 2.4
above that the limited evidence available suggests that veleNl
is not a determiner, nor an
adjective, but indeed a (vague) numeral.
The analysis also entails that we cannot use grammatical number marking in (27) to
detect the semantic number of the measure nouns. Whether or not we can use semantic
number as the distinguishing property that allows veleNl
but not veelA
in pseudo-partitives
will therefore have to be decided by other, semantic considerations, which the next section
will provide.
I feel that one can conclude with a fair amount of confidence that the head-complement
analysis for measure nouns and substance nouns in Dutch pseudo-partitives is correct, and
with some confidence that the same holds for numerals and the NPs they combine with. I
will argue in the next section that these assumptions can form the basis for an analysis of
the semantics of these constructions that supports an explanation for the contrast between
veelA
and veleNl
in (27).
3.2  A semantics for Dutch pseudo-partitives
The syntactic analysis we have adopted for pseudo-partitives places restrictions on the
kind of semantics we can adopt. It seems to me that the proposal in Schwarzschild and
Wilkinson (2002) and Schwarzschild (2006), according to which the measure phrase three
liters in three liters (of) wine denotes a predicate over intervals, cannot be employed if liters
wine forms a constituent to the exclusion of three. Another option is the analysis in Krifka
(1990), who builds up 200 liters of wine as shown in (40) (see also Chierchia 1998a):
(40) liter ⤳ λnλPλx[ P(x) ∧ liter’(x) = n ]
two hundred ⤳ 200
two hundred liter(s) ⤳ λPλx[ P(x) ∧ liter’(x) = 200 ]
two hundred liter(s) (of) wine ⤳ λx[ wine’(x) ∧ liter’(x) = 200 ]
This analysis also combines liter first with 200, and then with wine, but this can easily be
repaired by inverting the order of the arguments of liter. I cannot exclude that an analysis
like this can be made to explain the contrast between veelA
and veleNl
; see section 3.4
below. Nonetheless, there are reasons not to adopt this treatment. One reason is that it is
not compatible with the independently motivated semantics of cardinals from Ionin and
Matushansky (2006). In addition, I have adopted the analysis that makes the numeral a
head that takes the (measure) noun as a complement. Now if one takes the numeral as
an obligatory argument of liter, it would be hard to understand why the numeral, and not
the measure noun, projects when the two combine. More importantly, the treatment in
(40) entails the obligatory presence of a (cardinal) numeral. I have argued on the basis
	16
	As to (27b), for reasons explained in section 3.2 below veelA
can only combine with a predicate that has
undergone semantic pluralization, presumably via an intervening Num head, which gives rise to the number
marking and the non-measure reading.
	17
	Note that the plural in (27d) is not the plural of abundance referred to as the “emphatic” use in Hoeksema
(2006); there is no abundance effect in (27d), or in its variant luttele liters wijn ‘very few liters of wine’.
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitivesArt. 7, page 20 of 33
of (36) that this is problematic: pseudo-partitives can appear with just a determiner, and
no cardinal.18
We can allow pseudo-partitives to appear without a cardinal and to combine directly
with a determiner through a slight modification of the denotation of liter (cf. Lasersohn
2011: 1144):
(41) liter ⤳ λPλx[ P(x) ∧ liter’(x) = 1 ]
liter wine ⤳ λx[ wine’(x) ∧ liter’(x) = 1 ]
On this analysis, liter only takes the substance noun wine as a complement, yielding a (mass)
predicate that applies to portions of wine of one liter. This predicate can combine with a
determiner in the usual way. This explains (36). The next question is how we combine liters
of wine with a cardinal to obtain three liters of wine, if three is not an argument of liter.
The most common treatment of cardinal numerals is as cardinality predicates: a cardinal
combines with a semantically pluralized predicate and selects only those plural
individuals that have the correct cardinality. However, this will not work without modification
in the present case: if Link’s (1983) standard operation of semantic pluralization
were to apply to liters of wine, this would yield the set of all individual sums of
one-liter portions of wine (not necessarily measuring multiple liters, since the original
portions may overlap materially). Three, as usually defined, would select from these
all three-membered i-sums, not just the three-liter sized ones.19
To fix this, one would
either need to define semantic pluralization in such a way that it only constructs i-sums
of non-overlapping individuals, or define the cardinal so that it only selects plural individuals
whose members do not materially overlap. Both solutions, though inelegant, as
they are mandated only by the need to allow pluralization in the mass domain, are possible,
but have the disadvantage that they no longer distinguish (42a) from (42b), since
in (42a) we would also be dealing with an individual sum of three 1-liter units (see also
footnote 19):
(42) a. drie liter water
three liter water
‘three liters of water’ amount
b. drie liters water
three liters water
‘three 1-liter units of water’ unit
We can avoid the complications that would arise from semantic pluralization of liters of
water, and the problem raised by (42), by adopting the semantics for cardinals proposed
by Ionin and Matushansky (2006). In this framework the non-overlap condition is inde-
	18
	There is one additional plausibility argument against the analysis in (40): if liter requires a number as an
argument, combining it with vele as in (27d) is problematic since vele does not denote a number (likewise
for the other vague numerals; see (31b)). This problem could be solved by applying QR to vele, along the
lines of (59) below; but I am not aware of evidence in favor of this operation applying here.
	19
	Such a reading is (marginally) available when we force the non-measure reading of liter by making it grammatically
plural in combination with a numeral. Suppose we have a container containing 1.5 liters of water,
from which we can drain the bottom 1 liter, or siphon off the top 1 liter. I cannot extract twee liter water
from the container, but there are (marginally) twee liters water that I can extract.
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitives Art. 7, page 21 of 33
pendently required, and cardinals combine with a semantic singular, as appears to be the
case here.20
We can then construct two hundred liters of wine as follows (starting from (41)):
(43) hundred ⤳ λQλx∃Y[partn(x,Y) ∧ |Y|=100 ∧ ∀y∈YQ(y)]
hundred liter wine ⤳ λx∃Y[partn(x,Y)∧|Y|=100∧∀y∈Y[wine’(y)∧liter’(y)=1]]
two ⤳ λQλx∃Y[partn(x,Y) ∧ |Y|=2 ∧ ∀y∈YQ(y)]
two hundred liter wine ⤳ λx∃Y[partn(x,Y) ∧ |Y|=2 ∧ ∀y∈Y∃Y
[partn(y,Y) ∧ |Y|=100 ∧ ∀y∈Y[wine’(y) ∧ liter’(y)=1]]]
The partitioning operator can be defined as in (44) (I use ≤ to generalize over the part-of
operators for the mass and count domains):
(44) partn(x,Y) := ∀y,y'∈Y[y ≠ y' → ¬∃z[z≤y ∧ z≤y']] ∧ ∀x'[ x≤x' ↔
∀y∈Y[y≤x']]
To say that an individual x partitions into a set Y is to say that Y consists of non-overlapping
individuals that together make up x. By (43), the predicate denoted by two hundred
liters of wine is true of those individuals that can be partitioned into a set of two individuals,
each of which can be partitioned into a set of 100 individuals, each of which is one
liter of wine. If John buys one such individual, he buys two hundred liters of wine.
Numerals combine with count nouns in the same way, in Ionin and Matushansky’s (2006)
approach, except that partitioning then functions in the count domain. In two books, two
as defined in (43) combines with semantically singular books, which denotes the set of
book atoms, and the combination yields a predicate that applies to plural individuals that
consist of two books, i.e., that can be partitioned into a size-two set of non-overlapping
individuals each of which is a book atom.21
Now observe that predicates such as two hundred liters of wine or two books have the
special property that the individuals they can be true of cannot stand in the proper part-of
relation to each other. In this, they differ from predicates such as wine or (semantically
plural) books, which can be true of (plural) individuals some of which properly contain
others. Two hundred liters of wine or two books cannot apply to both x and y if x is a proper
part of y, for the simple reason that these predicates apply to individuals that are all the
same size (as measured by the measure function by which they are constructed): if x is
two hundred liters of wine and is a proper part of y, then y must measure more than two
hundred liters. Krifka (1990) calls such a predicate a quantized predicate (or a degree, as
it can be used for measuring).
We are now in a position to describe the distribution of veelA
and veleNl
and their kin.
Consider again the data in (45) and (46):
	20
	Recall that Matushansky and Ruys (2014) argue that the number marking on measure nouns is an effect
of agreement, so we can assume that the phrases liter wine in (26b) and liters wine in (27d) do not differ
semantically: neither has undergone semantic pluralization.
		There is some independent evidence that liters wijn ‘liters of wine’ cannot undergo semantic pluralization: it
cannot occur as a regular bare plural. The non-measure “liter-units” reading apart, liters wijn in (i) only has
a reading as a plural of abundance:
(i) Jan dronk liters wijn.
Jan drank liters wine
‘J. drank excessively many liters of wine’
	21
	Ionin and Matushansky assume, then, that plural marking on books in two books is also an agreement
phenomenon, as proposed earlier by e.g. Krifka (1995), an assumption we have adopted here. Following
Matushansky and Ruys (2014), it is caused by the probing numeral Agreeing with the [Ind] feature on book.
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitivesArt. 7, page 22 of 33
(45) a. veel wijn veelA
much wine
b. veel boeken veelA
many books
c. *veel liter wijn veelA
many liter wine
d. #veel liters wijn veelA
many liters wine
‘many liter-units of wine’ unit
(46) a. #vele / meerdere / drie wijn(en) veleNl
many / several / three wine(s)
‘many/several/three types of wine/serving portions of wine’
b. vele / meerdere / drie boeken veleNl
many / several / three books
c. vele / meerdere / drie liter(s) wijn veleNl
many / several / three liter(s) wine
‘many / several / three liters of wine’ amount
We need to block the mass reading with veleNl
and other (vague) numerals in (46a), while
allowing it with veelA
in (45a). We need to allow both veelA
and veleNl
with count nouns
in (45b) and (46b). And we need to block the measure reading with veelA
in (45c) and
(45d), while allowing it with veleNl
and other (vague) numerals in (46c). I propose the
generalizations in (47), for which I will be considering possible underlying causes in the
next section:
(47) a. Adjectival veelA
cannot combine with a quantized predicate
b. Vague numerals and cardinals can only combine with quantized predicates
A mass noun does not denote a quantized predicate, so that the constraints in (47) allow
(45a) but block the mass reading in (46a).22
For the count nouns in (45b)/(46b) we assume,
as is standard, that an NP that denotes a predicate over (count) atoms can optionally undergo
semantic pluralization, presumably triggered by a functional head Num in its extended projection
(Ritter 1991). As a result, boeken ‘books’ can either be semantically singular, so that
it can combine with a (vague) numeral in (46b), since a predicate over (count) atoms is a
quantized predicate, or it can be semantically plural (the result of semantic pluralization),
so that it can combine with veelA
in (45b), since a pluralized predicate is not quantized.
Recall that morphological number is not a reliable guide to semantic number here; in
particular, we see plural marking on semantically singular boeken ‘books’ in (46b) because
Agree with the probing numeral or cardinal triggers plural marking on the noun (see the
discussion of Matushansky and Ruys 2014 in section 3.1). In (45b), morphological plural on
boeken is presumably triggered by the semantically pluralizing Num head in the same way.
Turning now to the pseudo-partitives, liter (on its pure measure reading) takes a mass
noun to create a quantized predicate (as shown in (41)), which can therefore be input to
a numeral or cardinal in (46c). This in turn creates another quantized predicate, allowing
Ionin and Matushansky’s composition of complex cardinals as in (43). Again, number
marking in (46c) does not reflect semantic pluralization, and indeed occurs only with a
	22
	This remains true if one assumes that mass nouns are semantically plural (cf. footnote 24).
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitives Art. 7, page 23 of 33
subset of measure nouns and numerals (see above). But the same quantized predicate liter
wijn cannot be input to veelA
in (45c) or (45d), because of constraint (47a).
As for the non-measure readings observed: we can assume for (26c) drie liters wijn ‘three
one-liter units of wine’ that it contains not a true measure noun but a container noun
liter referring to actual liter units (e.g., bottles), which has the relevant feature [Ind]
that makes it Agree with the cardinal, triggering plural marking (see Matushansky and
Ruys 2014). For (45d) (=(27b)) it appears safe to assume that Num here has applied the
semantic pluralization necessary to obtain a non-quantized predicate in conformity with
(47a); since Num requires a set of (count) atoms this in turn coerces the same container
noun reading (and Num triggers plural morphology); likewise for (30c). As for (45c),
no interpretation is possible: we have seen that the pure measure reading is blocked by
(47a); the non-measure, liter-unit reading is blocked because it would yield the required
non-quantized predicate only after semantic pluralization via Num; but this would have
caused morphological pluralization, as in (45d).
Let us briefly consider some additional cases with slightly different properties:
(48) a. #veel liters knikkers veelA
many liters marbles
‘many one-liter units of marbles’ unit
b. vele liters knikkers veleNl
many liters marbles
‘many liters of marbles’ amount
c. *veel honderden/duizenden/miljoenen mensen veelA
d. vele honderden/duizenden/miljoenen mensen veleNl
many hundreds/thousands/millions people
‘many hundreds/thousands/millions of people’
We observe again that veleNl
combines with a quantized predicate, and veelA
does not. The
measure reading is blocked in (48a) because liters of marbles is quantized. It could become
unquantized only by undergoing semantic pluralization but this operation only applies
to sets of atoms, coercing the liter-unit reading (the substance noun knikkers ‘marbles’
on the other hand presumably is the result of semantic pluralization applying to knikker
‘marble’). Likewise, semantically singular honderden mensen ‘hundreds of people’ (lit.
‘hundreds people’) is quantized (and, I assume, cannot undergo semantic pluralization),
hence can be input to numerals such as veleNl
(or to three), but not to veelA
.23
Note finally that an alternative explanation of the distribution of veelA
and veleNl
in
pseudo-partitives in terms of semantic number does not seem plausible. Postulating that
veleNl
, the other vague numerals, and cardinal numerals require semantically plural complements
would correctly prevent them from combining with mass nouns but also, incorrectly,
from appearing in pseudo-partitives, unless we modify the pluralization operation
to add a non-overlap requirement, as discussed above. Also, it is at odds with Ionin
and Matushansky’s (2006) claim that cardinals combine with semantic singulars, so we
	23
	That hundred etc. cannot undergo regular semantic pluralization by Num is confirmed by examples like Jan
las honderden boeken ‘John read hundreds of books’ only having a plural of abundance reading. The same
holds for regular cardinals, witness the fact that we cannot pluralize three books into three books (or *threes
books) for it to refer to a multiple of three books. Honderd ‘hundred’ etc. here behave exactly like measure
nouns such as liter, which allow pluralization on their pure measure reading but only into a plural of abundance;
the same is suggested by English hundreds of people. Note incidentally that (48d), or slechts enkele
honderden mensen, ‘merely some hundreds people’ does not have a plural of abundance reading, confirming
what we have argued throughout, namely that the plural marking on honderd here is triggered by Agree
with veleNl
, not by pluralization.
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitivesArt. 7, page 24 of 33
would need to give up their compositional analysis of complex cardinals. Describing the
­distribution of veelA
by restricting it to semantic singulars is even harder. To block (45d)
one must then postulate that liter wine is obligatorily plural; it is not clear how this could
be derived, and in view of (46c) it is again incompatible with Ionin and Matushansky’s
(2006) treatment of cardinals.24
3.3  Motivating the semantic constraints
In this section I will propose a semantics for veelA
and veleNl
, from which I will attempt to
derive underlying motivations for the constraints in (47). The basic idea is that counting
(with a cardinal or vague numeral) only makes sense for objects of the same quantity,
and assessing relative quantity (with a gradable adjective) only among objects of different
quantities.
I have argued that veelA
is gradable, presumably a gradable adjective. This makes available
the following motivation for (47a). I largely follow Krasikova & Champollion’s (2011)
treatment of Russian mnogie ‘many’ as a gradable adjective (see also Hackl 2009), but I
will gloss over many details irrelevant to the motivation of (47a). Let veelA
denote a function
from individuals to degrees, which assigns to every individual its degree of ‘manyness’,
or its amount. Compare this to the denotation of tall (see Kennedy 1999 for this, and
discussion of related treatments of gradable adjectives):
(49) veelA
⤳ λx.amount(x)
(50) tall ⤳ λx.height(x)
In case x is a plural individual, I assume that amount simply returns the number of atoms
in x. If x is a mass, the dimension measured depends on the kind and may also be judgedependent
(but the measure function must be monotonic, see Schwarzschild 2002). A
discussion of the source of the ‘scale function’ exceeds the scope of this paper; for our
examples we can assume that the amount of a portion of wine is determined by its volume
(in Solt 2015, the relevant function is provided by a functional head Meas whose value is
context-dependent; see also Schwarzschild 2006 for discussion).
In the positive, the adjective tall or veelA
combines with an abstract POS morpheme,
which places the degree of height/amount yielded by the adjective above the standard
height/amount. Since I am only dealing with attributive veelA
, POS in (51) also takes care
of combining the result with the denotation of the noun:
(51) POSattr
⤳ λAλNλx[N(x) ∧ A(x) > std(λx:N(x).A(x))(C)]
The standard of height/amount is calculated by a function std. Apart from the measure
function for which the standard is calculated, this function also takes into account a
contextually determined comparison class C; we can think of the comparison class PP’s
discussed in section 2.3 as (partly) determining C. Finally, the function takes into account
the noun set that the adjective modifies (a tall man exceeds a different standard than a tall
tower); this is built directly into attributive POS by restricting the domain of the measure
function (as in Krasikova & Champollion 2011).
	24
	A treatment in terms of semantic number is possible if we adopt Chierchia’s (1998a; b) assumption that
mass terms are semantic plurals (or general number). We can then postulate that veelA
combines only with
semantic plurals (which includes mass nouns, and excludes measure phrases on the reasonable assumption
that these cannot be pluralized), and veleNl
only with singulars (which excludes mass nouns). This is actually
close to the proposal I put forward here; but observe that this account still lacks an explanation (which I will
provide in section 3.3) for why veelA
cannot combine with singulars.
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitives Art. 7, page 25 of 33
We obtain the following derivation for veelA
mannen ‘many men’:
(52) POSattr
veelA
⤳ λNλx[N(x) ∧ amount(x) > std(λx:N(x).amount(x))(C)]
NUMpl
⤳ λPλx[*P(x) ∧ |x|>1 ]
NUMpl
mannen ⤳ λx[ *man’(x) ∧ |x|>1 ]
POSattr
veelA
NUMpl
mannen ⤳ λx[*man’(x) ∧ |x|>1 ∧ amount(x) > std(λx:
*man’(x) ∧ |x|>1.amount(x))(C)]
This yields a predicate over those plural individuals of men whose cardinality exceeds the
standard for the cardinality of plural individuals of men, taking into account the context
(for instance, for a Tuesday afternoon).
The intuition I want to pursue as a motivation for why veelA
does not combine with
­quantized predicates is that it makes no sense to predicate of an individual that it is
relatively big among individuals that are all equally big. Consider the std function as it
applies to veelA
and mannen (or tall and man): it takes all plural individuals that consist
of men and orders them by cardinality (or takes all men and orders them by height). For
this range it then calculates the standard cardinality (height) by means of some statistical
concepts (median and median absolute deviation, according to Solt 2011). Now consider
what would happen in (45c), where veelA
combines with the quantized predicate liter
wine:
(53) liter wijn ⤳ λx[ wine’(x) ∧ liter’(x) = 1 ]
POSattr
veelA
⤳ λNλx[N(x) ∧ amount(x) > std(λx:N(x).amount(x))(C)]
#POSattr
veelA
liter wijn ⤳ λx[wine’(x) ∧ liter’(x)=1 ∧ amount(x) > std(λx:
wine’(x) ∧ liter’(x)=1.amount(x))(C)]
The contribution of POS veelA
here is trivial by necessity. Std ranks all portions of one
liter of wine by volume, and calculates a standard volume among these (carefully, if vacuously,
taking the context into account). We then obtain the set of liters of wine whose
volume exceeds this standard. Whatever the details of this procedure, the result is trivial:
either we always end up with the same set of 1-liter portions of wine that we started with
(if one liter exceeds the standard), or we always obtain the empty predicate (if one liter
does not exceed the standard). Assuming that the standard is the median, the latter case
obtains.25
I submit that the triviality of modifying quantized predicates by veelA
explains
why it is unacceptable.
The discussion so far has focused on the unmodified adjective veelA
, so the semantics I
have provided involves a role for the covert POS morpheme. This is not to say that POS is
crucial in explaining the ban on veelA
co-occurring with measure phrases; but with other
instances of Deg, the calculation will be different. Consider, e.g., te ‘too’ in (54):26
(54) *Jan dronk te veel­ liter wijn. veelA
Jan drank too many liter wine
	25
	The contribution of the context variable C cannot render the adjective non-trivial, in that it can restrict std
to consider only a subset of the noun set (many men for a Tuesday afternoon calculates the standard on the
basis of pluralities of men that appear on Tuesday afternoons), but cannot make std ignore the contribution
of the noun set.
	26
	One might argue that (54) and (45c) are ruled out independently because liter wijn is arguably a ‘derived
count noun’ in the singular, hence requires an (indefinite) article. But the examples are still ruled out when
an article is added: Jan dronk een veel(e) liter wijn ‘J. drank a many liter wine’, confirming the need for the
constraint in (47a).
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitivesArt. 7, page 26 of 33
The pure amount reading is excluded with te veelA
‘too many’ as well. We can ­understand
why by considering that, based on our semantics for veelA
, the sentence would assert,
roughly, that the most voluminous liter of wine that John drank was more voluminous than
the liters of wine he drank in any permissible world (see, e.g., Meier 2003; von Stechow et
al. 2004 for details), which is vacuously false.27
A similar reasoning can explain why the
(suppletive) comparative of veelA
is blocked. Likewise for #Jan dronk (een) erg veel(e) liter
wijn ‘John drank (a) very many liter wine’, which would assert that John drank a liter of
wine that was very voluminous.28
A full derivation of such cases must await another occasion;
what unites them and the POS case we have discussed in detail, it would appear, is
that they involve some sort of predication (relatively large, too large, etc.) over the volume
of a liter, which will generally turn out to be vacuous.29
I will have less of interest to say about (47b). We have a little more leeway in how we
deal with veleNl
; since we have seen that it patterns with numerals, the obvious treatment
is along the lines of the treatment of cardinals that I adopt from Ionin and Matushansky
(2006) (I give the translation for meerdere ‘several’ for comparison):
(55) veleNl
⤳ λQλx∃Y[ partn(x,Y) ∧ |Y| > n ∧ ∀y∈YQ(y) ]
(56) meerdere ⤳ λQλx∃Y[ partn(x,Y) ∧ |Y| > 1 ∧ ∀y∈YQ(y) ]
When this veleNl
combines with liter wine, the result is not trivial (cf. (46c)):
(57) veleNl
liters wijn ⤳ λx∃Y[ partn(x,Y) ∧ |Y| > n ∧ ∀y∈Y[wine’(y) ∧ liter’(y)
= 1 ]]
(57) predicates over individuals that can be partitioned into many (>n, n contextually
determined) parts, each of which is a liter of wine; combining veleNl
as defined in (55) with
a semantically singular count noun also gives a reasonable result.
Turning to the constraint in (47b): as we assimilate veleNl
with numerals, preventing
it from combining with mass nouns reduces to the problem of preventing all numerals,
including cardinals, from doing so. Here is one simple solution. The translations we get
for (46a) are:
(58) a. #veleNl
wijn ⤳ λx∃Y[ partn(x,Y) ∧ |Y| > n ∧ ∀y∈Y[wine’(y) ]]
b. #meerdere wijn ⤳ λx∃Y[ partn(x,Y) ∧ |Y| > 1 ∧ ∀y∈Y[wine’(y) ]]
c. #drie wijn ⤳ λx∃Y[ partn(x,Y) ∧ |Y| = 3 ∧ ∀y∈Y[wine’(y) ]]
	27
	Depending on technical details, perhaps it is true in one marginal case, namely if there was no permissible
world where John drank a liter of wine. But saying that the liter he did drink was too large would be a
pragmatically odd way of stating this, perhaps because it would implicate that a smaller liter would have
been ok.
	28
	A special case is hoeveel ‘how.many’. It appears to be composed of hoe ‘how’ and the uninflected veelA
(as
we expect, since the uninflected variant is gradable). If so, it would constitute a counterexample to generalization
(47a), since unlike veelA
it does combine with measure nouns to create a pure measure reading in
hoeveel liter wijn ‘how many liters of wine’. However, it rather appears that hoeveel is not composed of either
veelA
or veleNl
, since it combines with all three categories under discussion: mass nouns, count nouns, and
measure nouns. That hoeveel in hoeveel liter wijn is not decomposable is confirmed by the fact that hoe ‘how’
actually cannot combine with regular adjectives in an attributive position, only in a predicative position:
*hoe grote meisjes ‘how big girls’ vs. √hoe groot zijn de meisjes ‘how big are the girls’. I will leave the proper
analysis of hoeveel for future research.
	29
	In each of these cases, pluralizing liter will render the example well-formed, but only on the liter-unit reading,
and the explanation is as before. Semantic pluralization with Num (triggering morphological plural)
is possible for a container-noun ‘liter’, and will render liters wijn not quantized: we can then meaningfully
predicate of these plural individuals of multiple liter-bottles that they are too large, relatively large, etc.
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitives Art. 7, page 27 of 33
Obviously, to predicate over a portion of wine that it consists of many (more than one,
three) portions of wine without stating the size of these portions does not provide more
information than predicating simply that it consists of wine, so that the numeral is
superfluous. See Chierchia (1998a; b); Ionin and Matushansky (2006) for discussion and
­references.
The remaining cases of (47b) involve preventing numerals from combining with a semantic
plural. Ionin and Matushansky (2006) do so by stipulating that (cardinal) numerals
must select a set of atoms. If a numeral could combine with a plural, this would give rise
to a somewhat absurd systematic and unresolvable ambiguity whereby three books, several
books, and many books could have a reading of ‘at least six books’, ‘at least four books’,
and ‘at least twice the contextually determined number of books’; but I am not sure if this
observation will serve to explain the restriction, so I will settle for stipulating (47b) or
adopting Ionin and Matushansky’s stipulation.
3.4  Measure phrase alternatives
My account of the contrast between veelA
and veleNl
depends on the (standard) rightbranching
syntax I assume for Dutch pseudo-partitive constructions. I have provided evidence
for this analysis in section 3.1 above. Nevertheless, I briefly want to consider the
question what kind of explanation could be devised if one assumes the analysis that takes
the measure phrase five liters as a specifier in the extended protection of wine, as shown
schematically in (32b).
Assume then that liter has the semantics in (40) from Krifka (1990): it combines first
with a cardinal and then with the head (substance) noun. As pointed out by Schwarzschild
(2002), this creates an immediate problem for the cases under discussion, such as many
liters of wine, where the measure noun does not combine with a cardinal but with a vague
numeral which does not denote a number. Unlike Schwarzschild, I believe there is a workable
solution: following Solt (2015), allow many to undergo QR as shown in (59a), which
could then be interpreted as in (59b) (cf. Kennedy 2012).
(59) a. [IP1
manyi
[IP2
John drank ti
liters of wine]]
b. many ⤳ λI[max(λm.I(m)) > n ]
IP1
⤳ λI[max(λm.I(m)) > n ](λm.∃x[liter’(m)(wine’)(x) ∧ drank’(John,x)])
     ≡ max(λm.∃x[liter’(m)(wine’)(x) ∧ drank’(John,x)]) > n
It would be difficult to find independent evidence for QR taking place in these constructions.
Indeed, one needs to appeal to the (unexplained) Heim/Kennedy generalization
(Heim 2000) to prevent many from raising across other quantificational expressions, as
the scope inversion this would result in is not attested. Also, movement of many in (59a)
violates the Left Branch Constraint (cf. Kennedy & Merchant 2000). Nonetheless, for the
sake of discussion let us adopt the QR solution, without which a specifier analysis along
the lines of Krifka (1990) must be abandoned immediately.30
With this solution in place, we can indeed employ the distinctions I have proposed
between veelA
and veleNl
to explain why only the latter can appear in pseudo-partitives. One
way is to postulate that adjectives cannot undergo QR but vague numerals can, perhaps
	30
	An anonymous reviewer correctly points out that an analysis analogous to (59) will more easily allow one to
derive a downward monotone reading for weinig(e), ‘few, little’; clearly, an analysis on a par with the treatment
of veleNl
in (55) does not lead to a monotone decreasing reading. Pending further research, however,
it is my initial impression that the inflected form weinige, the apparent counterpart of veleNl
, tends to have a
monotone decreasing reading by itself less easily than weinig, suggesting that (55) would be a better treatment
than (59). Whether weinig(e) must indeed be treated exactly on a par with veel/vele, as the literature
suggests, is a question I must leave for future research.
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitivesArt. 7, page 28 of 33
because they are more operator-like. Postulating a corresponding type ­distinction, which
treats veleNl
as shown in (59b) above but veelA
as a predicate (type <e,t> or <et,et>)
will also prevent veelA
from being interpretable in this construction. However, I am not
sure how principled these explanations are. For instance, Solt (2015) treats both English
much and many as gradable adjectives (predicates over sets of degrees) that undergo QR,
which would support an analysis along the lines of (59); the problem of blocking veelA
in pseudo-partitives while allowing it with count nouns then reappears. I conclude that
the categorial and semantic distinctions I have claimed exist between veelA
and veleNl
can
support a technical solution for their distribution under the specifier analysis of measure
phrases in pseudo-partitives, but the question whether such a solution can be given a
principled basis must be left for further research.31
4  Comparison with Russian and English
It is widely assumed, following Milsark (1974), that English many is ambiguous, its two
instances differing both in their distribution and in their semantics. Russian has two
overtly distinct instances of many (see Krasikova & Champollion 2011 and references
cited there). In both languages, the syntactic difference appears to be that one variant is
more adjectival, the other more determiner-like. Semantically the two variants give rise
to a cardinal (weak) reading, and a proportional (strong) one. To conclude this article I
want to provide a brief comparison of these Russian and English elements with veelA
and
veleNl
, in the hope that future research may successfully address the cross-linguistic variation
observed, for which I have no account.
There is a considerable body of work on the many readings of English many, and closely
related work on Russian. Setting aside the issue of reverse proportional and related readings
(Westerståhl 1985), English has been argued to have two instances of many. One behaves
syntactically as an adjective (in that it can appear below a determiner) and is allowed in
there-insertion contexts. It has a weak, intersective reading: (60a) states that the number
of errors in your reasoning is high, not a high proportion of the total number of errors. Its
semantics can be described as that of a cardinality predicate. The other many is disallowed
in there-insertion contexts, but allowed as the subject of an individual-level predicate. It
has a strong, proportional reading: (60b) states that the intelligent ones make up a large
proportion of the theoretical physicists. It can be described as a strong GQ Determiner.
(60) a. There are many errors in your reasoning.
b. Many theoretical physicists are intelligent.
Early discussions are in Milsark (1974) and Partee (1989); see Partee (2012) for a literature
review and further references. More recent work discusses two instances of many in
Russian: mnogie and mnogo (Babko-Malaya 1998). Mnogie is syntactically more like an
adjective in that it shows adjectival agreement; mnogo does not. They also differ along
the cardinal/proportional parameter but surprisingly, it is adjectival mnogie that has the
proportional reading, whereas mnogo has a cardinal reading. Krasikova & Champollion
(2011) describe the proportional reading for mnogie as resulting from a degree adjectival
interpretation, where proportionality relative to the size of the noun set is mediated by
the standard-setting function, as in (52) above.
Considering Dutch veel from this perspective creates a less clear picture. At first glance,
Dutch is like Russian: adjectival veelA
in (61a) gives a proportional reading, whereas I feel
	31
	Since it is not clear to me how Schwarzschild (2002; 2006) and Schwarzschild and Wilkinson (2002) deal
with the internal composition of measure phrases, which they treat as predicates over intervals, I cannot
assess whether they could accommodate veelA
and veleNl
.
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitives Art. 7, page 29 of 33
that this reading is dispreferred for non-adjectival veleNl
in (61b); likewise for the other
vague numerals (meerdere ‘several’, etc.).
(61) a. Veel natuurkundigen zijn intelligent. veelA
b.??Vele natuurkundigen zijn intelligent. veleNl
many physicists are intelligent
Since I have proposed roughly the same semantics for veelA
that Krasikova & Champollion
(2011) propose for adjectival mnogie, this is what we expect: (61a) is proportional (the
cardinality of the noun set ‘physicists’ is taken into account) because the cardinality of the
noun set helps std set the standard for amount. Also, the semantics I tentatively proposed
for veleNl
in (55) gives the cardinal reading observed in (62a):
(62) a. De orkaan liet vele slachtoffers achter. veleNl
b. De orkaan liet veel slachtoffers achter. veelA
the hurricane left many victims behind
However, both Dutch many’s are allowed in the there-insertion context in (3), and a cardinal
reading seems perfectly acceptable for veelA
in (3a) and in (62b). I do not have a firm
proposal for dealing with this option; one possibility is that the standard for amount in
(62b) takes into account not only the cardinalities of actual plural individuals of victims,
but also cardinalities of victims in other possible worlds/contexts. But whatever the explanation,
the data show that Dutch must be given a different treatment than Russian mnogie,
which cannot appear in a context like (62) without triggering a marked reading. Also,
Russian uses the non-adjectival mnogo for both measure nouns and mass nouns:
(63) Russian
a. mnogo viná
much wine-gen
b. #mnogie vína
many-nom.pl wine-nom.pl
‘many kinds of wine’
c. mnogo litrov viná
many liter-gen.pl wine-gen
‘many liters of wine’
d. #mnogie litry viná
many liter.pl wine-gen.sg
‘many 1-liter units of wine’
Table 3 summarizes the distribution of many’s in this three-language samplet (for historical
reasons I use D to label non-adjectival instances):
mass
___ wine
pseudo-partitive
___ liter wine
count
___books
proportional cardinal
En much many?
manyD
manyA
Ru mnogoD
mnogoD
mnogieA
mnogoD
Du veelA
veleNl/D
veelA
veleNl/D
veelA
Table 3: Many in three languages.
Ruys: Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitivesArt. 7, page 30 of 33
5 Conclusion
I have proposed that Dutch uninflected veel is a relative gradable adjective (which inflects
only for definiteness), and inflected vele is a vague numeral. This explains where (un)
inflected forms appear in the DP and which forms allow degree modification, and leads
to an effective semantic characterization. I have defended the right-branching analysis of
Dutch pseudo-partitives and offered a compositional semantics for this construction that
supports a natural account of which forms of veel/vele combine with mass nouns, measure
nouns, and plurals. More work is required to obtain reliable data on the proportional/
cardinal distinction, and to address issues of cross-linguistic variation, which are receiving
increasing attention.
Abbreviations
attr = attributive, C = common gender, comp = complementizer, D = determiner,
dim = diminutive, gen = genitive, Nl = numeral, nom = nominative, Nt = neuter
gender, prt = particle, sg = singular, pl = plural
Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to Lisa Bylinina, Frank van Gestel, Ora Matushansky, Iris Mulders and
Joost Zwarts for helpful comments and suggestions. I’m also grateful to three anonymous
referees for extremely useful comments. Any remaining errors are my own.
Competing Interests
The author has no competing interests to declare.
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How to cite this article: Ruys, Eddy G. 2017. Two Dutch many’s and the structure of pseudo-partitives. Glossa: a
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Published: 14 February 2017
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