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Intermediate level: cycle 4 |
Lesson 15 ~ Lesson 15
Naamvallen, onbepaalde voornaaamwoorden, modale bijwoorden ~ Case endings, indefinite pronouns modal particles
| •Jessica is haar portemonee kwijt |
| •Modal particles |
| •Indefinite pronouns |
| •the old case endings |
| Vocabulary | ||
|---|---|---|
| gezellig | cosy, fun, sociable, enjoyable | |
| winkelen | to shop | |
| merken | to notice | |
| deschrik | fright, being startled | |
| voorlopig | preliminary | |
| vergeten | to forget | |
| zichhaasten | to hurry | |
| mogelijk | possible, potential | |
| deober | waiter | |
| kwijt | missing | |
| soms | sometimes; perhaps | |
| winkelen | to shop | |
| spijten | to inspire regret | |
| wie | who | |
| aflossen | to relieve | |
| verdwijnen | to disappear | |
| degrijns | grin | |
De oberkeert terug met eengrijns op zijngezicht.
De ober verdwijnt naar achteren, de vriendinnen nerveus achterlatend.
De ober keert terug met een grijns op zijn gezicht.
Recall:
Dutch has a variety of adverbs that function as modal particles. They are often hard to translate exactly. They do not have so much a clear 'meaning', but add a certain flavor to the phrase they are in.
The adverbwel is strictly speaking the adverbial form of the adjectivegoed, just as Englishwell andgood. Nevertheless it is used rather differently in Dutch. One meaning it has is to negate the wordsniet (not) andgeen (not a, no):
It is often used to introducebut:
It is often added to a sentence to indicate that he speaker is making an admission or is volunteering something:
Another use is to indicate that something is exceptional:
even indicates that the action will not cost much time or effort. Adding it to a sentence adds an implicitno problem to the utterance:
It also softens imperatives to kind invitations
literallyeens means once, but it is often added to add a flavor of an exceptional occasion.
The wordmaar can be used as a (co-ordinating) conjunction and is usually translated bybut. It is also an adverb with the meaning ofonly,just:
However it can also be a modal adverb that indicates a certain measure of resignation or lack of choice of the speaker:
Addingmaar can also 'soften' the sentence and indicate that the speaker is trying to be polite or friendly.
With a more ironic intonation it could also mean:
In Dutch modal particle can be heaped up into interesting combinations of flavors, e.g.:
We have already encountered a number of indefinite pronouns in the lessons before. They are a somewhat irregular group and not all grammars treat them under the same heading. Some of them are also calledindefinite numerals at times. Let's look at a few:
This word often proceeds a definite pronoun and meansal
It can also take an -e inflection in the latter case:
Used independently it takes -n as plural but only when referring toperson:
Allemaal meansall of them
It is also used to indicate large amounts of something:
Allerlei meansof all sorts
Andermans is an old genitive meaning:someone else's
Elk meanseach, each separately
Enig can meanunique
But as an attribute it meansa little, some, a few
Taking the plural ending -en it can refer tosome people
Enkel is not used for uncountable nouns asenig is, but otherwise the meaning is similar
With the indefinite pronoun it can translate asthe odd
It takes an inflection -en when referring to persons.
Ettelijke is not used very much any more. It means: several
Evenveel meansjust as much, just as many
It does not take an inflection -e.
Genoeg means enough
It does not take an inflection -e.
This word is somewhat low register / colloquial. Even more colloquial isboel
Da's een boel poen! - That's a heap of dough!
Hoeveel meanshow much, how many
It can be used as an interrogative.
But in constructions withook it can also be used asno matter how many
It occasionally takes a n inflection -e, but this is getting rather dated:
Referring to people a plural -en can be found:
Het is used as an impersonal (dummy) subject with impersonal verbs:
It also occurs as dummy object in certain expressions
Ieder meansevery
Iedereen meanseveryone
Ieders is the genitive form of ieder and meanseveryone's
Iets meanssomething, its negativeniets means nothing
They are followed by adjectives in the partitive form.
Iemand meanssomeone, and its negativeniemand meansno one, nobody
Dutch does not have a distinction between someone and anyone, although anyone can be rendered bywie dan ook (who ever)
Iemands,niemands are the genitives ofiemand andniemand and meansomebody's andnobody's
Luttel (the cognate of Eng.little) is not very common. It meansa few, usually in the sense of surprisingly few
Meerdere has the same meaning asettelijke: several
It can also be used as an adjective or noun in the meaningsuperior
Men is used as a subject with the meaning ofone, people.
Menig ismany a
Menigen refers to people:many a person
Menigeen meansmany a person
Niemendal meansnothing at all
Sommige meanssome in combination with countable/plural nouns
Sommigen meanssome people
Tig is the -tig ending of twintig, dertig (twenty) and means something likedozens,lots.
Veel meansmuch ormany. Dutch does not make that distinction. With uncountable nouns where English usesmuch it does not take an ending:
With plural countable nouns it can also remain without inflection:
But it can take the -e inflection as well
Or with the definite article:
Its comparativemeer ("more") is never inflected:
The superlativemeest is combined with the definite pronoun and usually has an inflection.
As neuter substantive and as adverb it can occur without the ending:
Bothveel andmeest can take an -en ending when referring to people
Verscheidene meansseveral,various. It mostly occurs with the -e inflection:
Verschillend as an adjective meansdifferent. As a pronoun it only occurs with the inflection -e and is then synonymous withverscheidene. This is a relatively recent phenomenon and not accepted by all speakers
Voldoende meansenough, sufficient
Wat can be used as an indefinite pronoun with the meaninga little, some or, independentlysomething
It takes a partitive when followed by an adjective:
Weinig is the antonym ofveel and meanslittle orfew. Again Dutch does not make the distinction between uncountable and plural words.
With the definite article the inflection -e can be found:
The comparativeminder (less,fewer) is usually without ending:
With an ending -e it has a connotation of being the lesser in status, inferior
The superlativeminst (least) occurs both with and without inflection:
Zat as an adjective can meanvery drunk (saturated with alcohol) but is used in the sense ofplenty.
It can also be put behind the noun:
It is also used in the expression:
Only when used as adjective (very drunk) does it take the ending -e
Zoveel can meanso much ofso many, but it is also used in the sense ofI don't know how much
Referring to persons a plural in -en can be used
Indo-European languages, to which both English and Dutch belong were originally highly inflectional with eight cases, three genders and usually four or five declensions. Both languages have lost this system, Dutch however a bit later than English. In fact in the written standard language Dutch retained four cases and three genders up to the spelling reform of 1947. In the spoken language the case endings and the masculine-feminine distinction had been gone for much longer, but prior to the second world war the educational and political establishment tenaciously tried to preserve the case system, even tried to introduce forms that never existed in the language artificially.
The discrepancy between written standard and spoken language led to serious educational problems with equally serious social consequences. After the destruction by the second world war spelling modernization was imperative and a lot of old baggage was thrown overboard. Since then case endings are a bit of an unpopular subject. They are often seen as old-fashioned, even harmful to 'progress'. Nevertheless, there is a fair bit of remnants left in the modern language even though case endings have definitely ceased to be part of a system. The leftovers areidiom more thangrammar. To understand the remnants it is useful to have a peek at the definite article as it was before 1947:
| case | masculine | feminine | neuter | plural |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| nominative | de | de | het | de |
| genitive | des | der | des | der |
| dative | de(n) | de(r) | den | den |
| accusative | den | de | het | de |
The above implies that prior to 1947 onehad to write:
Worse than that, it was:
Most people above the Rhine had to use a dictionary to do the latter right, because the m-f contrast was no longer alive in their spoken mother tongue and neither were the -n and -r endings.
In 1947 a small (but sweeping) change was allowed in the spelling: then in the masculine accusative was madeoptional. With a sigh of relief everybody promptly stopped using the infamousbuigings-n and it has not been used since... This change obliterated both the accusative-nominative distinction and the masculine-feminine one.
The dative only occurred when indirect objects were used without a preposition. All prepositions had come to use the accusative which was now identical to the nominative for anything but personal pronouns. The genitive was still a bit more common although it was always possible to use a construction withvan to avoid it:
Thus the change of 1947 basically put an end to the case endings as a system, even in the written standard. In spoken, colloquial Dutch it had already been in state of collapse in the 1580s.
Still, there are numerous relics that are difficult to understand, let alone use properly, without some knowledge of the old system.
As in English, genitives are regularly used to indicate possession with proper names:
There is a growing tendency to extend this usage to female proper names (in defiance of the old case endings) instead of a construction using the clitic form of the possessive pronoun.
For inanimate nouns the genitive is clearly on its way out, although the plural can occasionally still be seen:
Occasionally people deliberately opt to use the odd archaic expression likeplek des onheils as a stylistic gadget.
The adjective still has a productive partitive genitive in -s that occurs after words like wat, iets, veel etc.:
A modicum of productivity also occurs in expressions usingtot ... toe. In this type of expression a verb (gerund) is used in its genitive form:
Related idioms are:
The genitive occurs in various fossilized forms -usually functioning as adverbs- like:
Notice the vowel change indag – daags andweg - weegs
The form 's is a clitic form ofdes, the masc/neuter genitive article. Notice the -n of grotendeels. The adjective had had both strong and weak endings (as it still does in German) and the -n is weak ending.
Nouns could also be weak and we see that back in some names. E.g.de graaf (the earl, the count) had a weak genitivedes graven and the same goes forde hertog (the duke) with a genitivedes hertogen. This explains place names like 's-Gravenhage (the count's hedge/court) and 's-Hertogenbosch (the duke's forest).
One preposition had stubbornly retained the dative and it still occurs mostly in petrified dative forms. It is the wordte – at, to. The noun originally received an -e in this case. The proposition often occurs fused with the old dative articles:
Interestingly the old feminine dativeter still enjoys a measure of productivity in combinations with verbal nouns in -ing:
This also holds for words in -heid
This is one reason why words ending in -ing, -te, -tie, -heid are recognized as feminine proper and Dutch does not have a common gender like a number of Scandinavian languages..
te also occurs without articles:
Notice thattijd is feminine in the latter two, masculine in the other, a good example of how corrupt the case/gender had become in the end. The feminine is probably a German influence (die Zeit is feminine). There are more oddities:
Te also has a few non-archaic usages. It is used in combination with infinitives asto does in English:
It is also used to indicate excess, as Englishtoo:
Or with locations, as Englishat orin :
A few other prepositions had taken the dative in a previous phase of the language and some forms remain:
For masculine and neuter nouns the dative had -e and there could be vowel changes as well, e.g. forde dag the paradigm was:
This explains words likevandaag, with a 'long'aa vowel. The genitive is also still found in:
The cardinal numbers used to be inflected and old dative forms in -entweeën, drieën, etc. are still in use in some cases. In time telling they are used to give an approximate time:
In more precise statements they are uncommon:
They are also used as a predicate:
Or aftermet:
Zij waren met zijn twintigen -- There was twenty of them.
As in English accusatives are common for personal pronouns only
Accusative relics are rare because the case often resembled the nominative, but a greeting like:
has an extra -n- because it was an accusative ending of the adjective goed.
have an extra -n- because all prepositions (sinds, voor, boven) ware followed by an accusative and the accusative form of the demonstrative pronoundie wasdien for the masculine.
Nowadays the normal plural for "het jaar" is "de jaren" (years), but originally this was adative plural only. The nominative / accusative was "de jare" or simply "de jaar". This plural without ending is still used today when the word is used in combination with numerals: