ABSTRACT
Partitive genitive constructions such as iets grappigs ‘something funny’ and iets fijns ‘something nice’ in the primeless examples in (1) are productively formed and consist of an indefinite nominal-like element, followed by an adjective with an -s suffix. The Dutch tradition refers to these adjectives as partitive genitives, due to the fact that the -s suffix on the adjective is also used in genitive constructions like Jans trui ‘Jan’s sweater’. The term “partitive” is used because it is claimed that the construction expresses a set-subset or part-whole relation: the nominal element is said to denote or to range over a subdomain in the domain denoted by the adjective. Perhaps this terminology is not very fortunate; the ungrammaticality of the primed examples in (1) shows that the noun is always indefinite, and hence does not denote a fixed set of entities. Still, partitive genitive constructions like (1a&b) express that the property denoted by the adjective is attributed to the nominal part: the entities we refer to by means of (1a) and (1b) are funny and nice, respectively.
