Abstract
This paper presents a qualitative analysis of a construction that has not been studied extensively yet, namely the Dutch beter-construction, as in Beter ga je bij Starbucks koffie halen, ‘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 beter in the beter-construction differs, in both meaning and distributional characteristics, from the comparative adverb beter. By conducting three tests based on Broekhuis & Corver (2016), we show that it functions as a clause adverb in contrast to comparative beter, which functions as a VP-adverb. Moreover, we show that the adverb beter in the beter-construction shares important properties with modal and subjective adverbs. Adopting the generative-linguistic approach to clausal structure, we further propose that modal beter is a phrase that undergoes movement from a sentence-internal modifier position to the clause-initial position.
Original language | Dutch |
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Pages (from-to) | 3-39 |
Journal | Nederlandse taalkunde |
Volume | 26 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Apr 2021 |
Keywords
- comparative adverb
- adverb tests
- clause adverb
- modality
- movement