# "Van" as a partitive article



## ablativ

Hi,

in another thread I was stating that "hij weet *van *alles" cannot be translated as a genitive into the German/English(?) language. In my opinion, it is a partitive article (as _de la, du, des_ in French). Having been told that this issue was beyond the original topic of that thread (and it really is, I agree), I have to start this thread:

By chance, today (in a store) I heard a girl saying to her friend "Kijk 's, hier hebben ze *van* *die* batterijtjes die we nodig hebben." Again, I don't think there is any kind of genitive involved, it's just some kind of a partitive article that we don't know in German (and maybe not in English either). If I am not mistaken, this construction follows the same pattern as "hij weet van alles" and *van* needs no translation at all. Please correct me if I am wrong.

abl.


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## Suehil

You're right.  I think the nearest you will get to translating the idea of 'van' in these contexts is 'some of'.  'They have some of those batteries..'


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## HKK

I thought the same thing. In Dutch you can say:

Hier hebben ze _een paar_ van die batterijen.
Hier hebben ze van die batterijen.

In English, only the first option is possible, and "some" can't be omitted.

They've got some of those batteries here.

I think this means you can omit that specific part of a partitive genitive construction in Dutch if it has no relevance.

Hier hebben ze [een onbekende en irrelevante hoeveelheid] van die batterijen 


I don't know if this is AN... I've got some more examples, of which I'm sure some aren't, but I couldn't say where to draw the line.
Wonen er van uw collega's in Antwerpen?
Wat ga je kopen? -Van die mooie tegels.
Is't weer van dat?! (Idiomatic, like: "Not again!")
Van dat soort mensen kan ik niet verdragen.


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## Joannes

*Van* can definitely express a partitive relation. A genitive often can too. *Van* is no article in any way, though.


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## avok

Can we also say "Van *de* mooie tegels." instead of "Van *die *mooie tegels."?

"Van de" is more like French "des: de + les"


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## HKK

It's possible to say something like: "Zijn er nog van de eieren _die mama gekocht heeft_?", but the relative clause can't be left out. You can't say "Zijn er nog van de eieren", because that would mean the exact same thing as "Zijn er nog eieren?", rendering 'van de' useless.


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## Joannes

HKK said:


> It's possible to say something like: "Zijn er nog van de eieren _die mama gekocht heeft_?", but the relative clause can't be left out. You can't say "Zijn er nog van de eieren", because that would mean the exact same thing as "Zijn er nog eieren?", rendering 'van de' useless.


I don't agree. I would say *Zijn er nog van de eieren die mama gekocht heeft?* is ungrammatical, it would need *die*. According to me, *Zijn er nog van de eieren?* does not mean the same as *Zijn er nog eieren?*; the former doesn't mean anything, it's simply ungrammatical.

(Obviously you could have cases like: *De klinken liggen rechts van de mooie tegels.* But that's something completely different.)


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