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Article published In:
Linguistics in the Netherlands 2021
Edited by Mark Dingemanse, Eva van Lier and Jorrig Vogels
[Linguistics in the Netherlands 38] 2021
► pp. 98–113

Temporal adverbial superlatives in Dutch

| Utrecht University
This paper investigates adverbial superlative expressions in Dutch that have a temporal interpretation, i.e. that contain the forms eerst ‘first’, laatst ‘latest’, and vroegst ‘earliest’. I focus on possessive superlatives and superlatives embedded under the preposition voor. Although both constructions contain bare superlatives and are interpreted temporally, they represent semantically and pragmatically different readings, and attach to the sentence in structurally different ways. I present a semantic analysis of both types of superlatives, and I show what this entails for how time adverbials interact with superlatives.
Keywords: superlatives, Dutch, adverbial superlatives, time adverbials
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The two constructions in more detail
    • 2.1Possessive superlative
    • 2.2Voor-superlative
  • 3.Analysis
    • 3.1Possessive superlatives
    • 3.2 Voor-superlatives
  • 4.Relation between superlatives and time adverbials
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 29 October 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/avt.00052.tel
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