A nominalised quantifier may head a partitive PP construction, as in the following example:

Quantifiers can be adjectival, like wäkke ‘which, some’. At the beginning of the clause, it is (mostly) interpreted as an interrogative, whereas it is interpreted as an existential quantifier in the middle of the clause:

In this respect, it patterns with wät ‘what’, which is also interpreted as an interrogative at the beginning of the clause, but as an existential quantifier meaning ‘somewhat’ in the middle field of the clause. In the example above, wäkke functions as a pronoun referring to a mass noun. The question arises whether wät would also have been possible in that sentence, and what is the difference between wäkke and wät. Of course, wäkke is adjectival and wät nominal, but this difference evaporised in case wäkke is nominalised, as it is in the example above. A more basic difference could be that the form wät is immutable, whereas wäkke shows gender agreement with its antecedent.

MSC SG	FEM SG	NTR SG	PL
wäkker	wäkke	wäkker	wäkke

It is remarkable that the -r is used an inflectional ending in Saterland Frisian, seeing that this is found in neither Dutch nor West Frisian, though the -r is of course used as an inflectional ending in German, but also in Old Frisian. The paradigm of wäkke just has two forms. MSC SG and NTR SG share the same form, as do the FEM SG and the FEM PL. As noted elsewhere, the paradigm of wäkke ‘which, some’ has recently been changing, but it is unclear in what way, see also: The AP in Saterland Frisian, 5.1. Agreement of APs with a following Noun and a preceding determiner.

Wäkke ‘which’ is an adjectival quantifier. It may even combine mei suk ‘such’ to derive a morphologically complex quantifier:

Other adjectival quantifiers include oankelde ‘a few’, morere ‘several’.

The last example involves a nominalised adjectival quantifier in a PP partitive construction. Saterland Frisian seems to have a tendency to use nominal and nominalised quantifiers. German, for example, has an existential count quantifier like einzige ‘some’. Saterland Frisian admittedly has enige ‘some’, but it more naturally employs a nominal quantifier:

This complex quantifier can also be made more specific by removing wät ‘some’ and inserting a numeral instead, as in the following:

As is clear from the numerals, this complex quantifier is restricted to count nouns, seeing that numerals are incompatible with mass nouns. Another nominal quantifier is n Poor ‘a pair > some’, which was discussed above: see 2. Nouns of low quantity in 4.2. The partitive construction of abstract quantity. Basically we are approaching that same construction again, though from a different angle.