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18.2.2.The interrogative wat-voor ‘what kind of’ construction
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This section discusses the so-called wat-voor construction in (196). Section 18.2.2.1 first briefly discusses the meaning of the wat-voor construction, and Section 18.2.2.2 then focuses on its internal structure. One of the typical properties of the wat-voor phrase is that it can be split by moving the interrogative pronoun wat into clause-initial position while stranding the voor NP string, as in (196b). Section 18.2.2.3 will discuss this so-called wat-voor split in detail.

196
a. Wat voor een boek/boeken lees je?
  what for a book/books read you
  'What kind of book/books are you reading?'
b. Wat lees je voor een boek/boeken?

Before we start our discussion, we want to point out that the availability of both the unsplit and the split pattern clearly distinguishes example (196b) from the seemingly similar construction in (197a): the unacceptability of (197b) suggests that wat and aan boeken do not form a constituent.

197
a. Wat heeft Jan aan boeken gekocht?
  what has Jan on books bought
  'What did John buy in the way of books?'
b. * Wat aan boeken heeft Jan gekocht?
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