The fifth and final part of the Syntax of Dutch deals with coordination and ellipsis phenomena found in coordinate structures. Coordination will be the main topic of Chapter 38. Although structures resulting from coordination prototypically involve a single coordinator such as enand or ofor, it cannot be said that such coordinators select for certain internal or external arguments. This means that these coordinate structures differ from other syntactic structures in that they are not (extended) projections of an argument-taking lexical head. Instead, coordinators typically combine two or more similar phrases (called coordinands) into a larger phrase of the same kind. Some illustrations are given in (1) with the coordinator enand: example (1a) involves the coordination of two main clauses and (1b&c) the coordination of two nominal phrases. Section 38.1 starts by discussing a number of more general properties of coordinate structures and their constituting parts. Sections 38.2 to 38.4 discuss in detail the different types of coordinate structures and their constituting parts, i.e. the coordinators and the coordinands.

Chapter 39 discusses the fact that coordinate structures are prone to reduction. The examples in (2) show that identical elements in the coordinands tend to be left unpronounced, which is indicated by strikethrough. We will focus on two main types of ellipsis. Example (2a) is a case of backward conjunction reduction: right-peripheral material in the left coordinand is usually left unpronounced to the extent that it is identical to that of the right coordinand. Example (2b) is a case of gapping: the right coordinand of the coordination is reduced by non-pronunciation of (at least) the finite verb.

Although coordinate structures are relatively easy to recognize, Chapter 40 will discuss a number of cases that have been claimed to exhibit some but not all of the properties of coordination. The forms that will be discussed are alsas and danthan in comparative constructions, behalveexcept/besides, in plaats vaninstead of, and laat staanlet alone. We will argue that we are not dealing with borderline cases of coordination here, but with run-of-the-mill subordination; the claim that these forms exhibit borderline behavior and should therefore be analyzed as coordinator-like elements is to mainly due to the misconception that gapping is only possible in coordinate structures.