In discussing the external syntactic distribution of heel phrases, a distinction must be made between the different semantic readings of heel. It turns out that heel phrases generally occur in all argument positions, although a special proviso is needed in the case of the negative polarity reading. Heel phrases, with the notable exception of those with negative polar heel, can generally also be used as predicates or adjuncts. The possibilities are listed in Table 18; the numbers refer to the examples discussed in the following subsections. Negative polarity readings of pre and postdeterminer heel are treated on a par in the following, although the latter is clearly preferred in this function, hence the distinction made in the last column of the table.

The examples in (321) show that all heel phrases can be used as nominal predicates except those involving heel as a negative polarity item expressing condescension.

The unacceptability of (321e) is entirely due to the presence of heel/hele; without it, the sentence is perfect. Since the problem with this example is clearly not due to the absence of a c-commanding licenser (as in the subject cases in (317a&b)), there must be some other reason for the unacceptability of (321e). One plausible option would be to attribute it to the fact that predicates usually provide new information, which implies that (321e) violates the D-linking requirement on the negative polarity reading of heel-phrases; cf. Section 21.2.1.2, sub IIC.

Both predeterminer bare heel and postdeterminer inflectible heel occur in noun phrases that function as adverbial phrases. In (322a&b) heel and hele contribute their core quantificational semantics of exhaustivity/totality. In (322c), on the other hand, the semantics of hele is that of (very) high degree; she cried for a very long time. The difference between (322a&b) and (322c) is confirmed by the different intonation patterns they exhibit; cf. the discussion in Section 21.2.1.2, sub II.

However, the unacceptable intonation pattern of (322c) is not categorically impossible for hele dagen. The minimal pair in (323a&b) is instructive in this regard. While in the (a)-example the adjunct hele dagen specifies the extent of the entire duration of her work on her dissertation, in the (b)-example hele dagen expresses that she worked on her dissertation for an unspecified number of whole days (i.e. it specifies the amount of time per day that she worked on her dissertation). In its stressed form, hele is adjectival, as can be seen from the fact that hele dagen alternates with halve dagen, as shown in (323c).

In (322a&b) the adjunct reading of the heel phrases is available for both pre and postdeterminer heel; the syntax of the overall construction actually makes adjunct construal the only possibility for these heel phrases. In examples of the type in (324), on the other hand, the noun phrase following the verb allows two readings; it can be interpreted either as the object of the verb, in which case the examples can be paraphrased as “she played the entire concert”, or as an adjunct, in which case it can be paraphrased as “she whistled throughout the concert”; cf. Section 22.3 for further discussion.

The adjunct construal may not be equally successful in the two examples in (324), because some (but not all) speakers find that the object reading is strongly preferred in the case of (324a), while (324b) is ambiguous. This suggests that, at least for a subset of speakers, the adverbial reading of heel phrases with predeterminer bare heel may be restricted.

The discussion above has focused on the interpretation of heel phrases as temporal adverbial phrases. This is indeed by far the most common way in which heel phrases are used as adjuncts; the examples in (325) show that even heel phrases headed by a noun that can otherwise be used as a measure phrase for distance can receive a temporal interpretation, i.e. “during the trip from Amsterdam to Tilburg”.

Although we have seen that predeterminer and postdeterminer heel can easily be used in adjuncts, they cannot be interpreted as a negative polarity item expressing condescension; although (326) is perfectly acceptable with an exhaustivity/totality reading of heel/hele, the negative polarity reading is not available.