Adviserend beter* | Amsterdam University Press Journals Online
2004
Volume 26, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 1384-5845
  • E-ISSN: 2352-1171

Abstract

Abstract

This paper presents a qualitative analysis of a construction that has not been studied extensively yet, namely the Dutch construction, as in , ‘You better get yourself a coffee at Starbucks’. The paper gives a detailed description of the syntactic structure and the pragmatics of the construction. We argue that the sentence-initial adverb in the construction differs, in both meaning and distributional characteristics, from the comparative adverb . By conducting three tests based on Broekhuis & Corver (2016), we show that it functions as a clause adverb in contrast to comparative , which functions as a VP-adverb. Moreover, we show that the adverb in the -construction shares important properties with modal and subjective adverbs. Adopting the generative-linguistic approach to clausal structure, we further propose that modal is a phrase that undergoes movement from a sentence-internal modifier position to the clause-initial position.

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2021-04-01
2024-03-28
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): adverb tests; clause adverb; comparative adverb; modality; movement
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