Norbert Corver & Marjo van Koppen Pronominalization and Variation in Dutch Demonstrative and Possessive Expressions Abstract: The goal of this article is to provide a detailed analysis of DP- internal pronominalization patterns in standard Dutch and Dutch dialects. A core ingredient of our analysis will be the idea that the possessive and de- monstrative constructions we discuss feature a DP-internal predication rela- tionship. Furthermore, we aim to explain the (dimensions of) variation be- tween dialects. Part of the attested micro-variation will be shown to be reducible to the PF-interface and the lexicon, i.e., the loci where we expect cross-linguistic/dialectal variation to be given the assumptions of the minimal- ist program (Chomsky 2000, Kayne 2005). We will further argue that some cross-dialectal differences relate to displacement. Keywords: demonstratives, possessives, Dutch and Dutch dialects, Ellipsis, pronominalization, predication. Norbert Corver: Utrecht University, UiL-OTS, Trans 10, 3512 JK Utrecht,
[email protected] Marjo van Koppen Utrecht University, UiL-OTS, Trans 10, 3512 JK Utrecht,
[email protected] 1 Introduction The literature on noun phrases in the Germanic and Romance languages describes two strategies to leave the lexical noun in a noun phrase unpro- nounced. The first one is to elide it, resulting in what is normally called NPE (Noun Phrase Ellipsis) in languages like French; see the underlined noun phrase in (1). The second one, which we dub the pronominalization strategy, is to replace (in a purely descriptive, pre-theoretical sense) the lexical noun by an indefinite dummy noun, like the insertion of one in English; see the under- lined noun phrase in (2).