Collective numeral constructions in Dutch: Remarkable plurals, regular syntax and silent nouns

In this paper, we discuss some collective numeral constructions from Dutch, which display a remarkable plural morpheme -en: wij vieren “the four of us”, met ons vieren “with four” and met z’n vieren “with four”. We argue that these at first sight idiosyncratic constructs are formed in syntax by application of the regular syntactic rules: Merge and Move. A central claim we make is that these collective numeral constructions contain a silent noun PERSOON/PERSON (cf. Kayne 2002, 2003, 2007). Although the noun itself is silent, its plurality is realized as -en. The silent noun is licensed by a local (i.e., DP-internal) antecedent. Dialectal variation in the realization of these constructions is analyzed in terms of “externalization”. It is argued that the basic syntactic make-up is similar in all variants. It is the (morpho-) phonological realization of heads, which causes the differences at the surface.