Two Dutch many ’s and the structure of pseudo-partitives

This article discusses the syntax and semantics of Dutch pseudo-partitive constructions with measure nouns, such as drie liter water ‘three liters of water’. The major empirical puzzle is the distribution of two Dutch instances of many/much: veel and vele. Unlike earlier proposals, I analyze veel as a gradable adjective, and vele as a numeral. It turns out that in pseudo-partitives with pure measure readings, only vele can freely occur (veel liters water only allows a marked “liter-bottle” reading). This is puzzling, because veel is otherwise allowed both with mass and count terms, and both in... Mehr ...