This subsection briefly discusses the use of predeterminer bare heel, postdeterminer inflectible heel, and geheel as independent arguments. The conclusion we can draw from the discussion in the following subsections is that the possibilities are quite limited.

Since purely adjectival heel is a set-denoting expression, it can also occur as a predicate; cf. Section A23.3.2. In example (331a) heel functions as the predicate of a copular construction, and in (331b) as a supplementive. In such contexts, heel does not alternate with hele or geheel.

Predeterminer and postdeterminer heel cannot be used as floating quantifiers: cases of the type in (332a) are completely impossible. The acceptability of (332b) might seem to suggest that geheel can be a floating quantifier, but claims to this effect are immediately refuted by the fact that geheel (in contradistinction to heel/hele) cannot be construed with noun phrases; cf. *geheel dat boek (lit. whole that book). Rather than functioning as a floating quantifier, geheel in (332b) seems to be an adjunct, which can be supported by the fact that it alternates with the PP in z’n geheel or the adverb helemaal, as in (332b'). From (332b) we conclude that geheel can occur as an adjunct by itself, and that it differs from heel and hele in this respect.

The form geheel and the adverb helemaal also occur in a number of adverbial contexts of a highly idiomatic character, as in (333a&b). In these examples it is difficult to say whether geheel/helemaal are constituents of the noun phrases/PPs with which they are combined, or whether they are independent constituents of the clauses in which they occur. The primed examples show, for instance, that topicalization of the noun phrase/PP with pied piping of geheel/helemaal is not very felicitous, although stranding of geheel/helemaal makes the result appreciably worse.

To conclude this discussion of adverbially construed heel forms, we return to an observation made in the discussion of the semantics of heel in Section 20.2.1; adnominal heel sometimes seems to quantify over a constituent larger than the noun phrase with which it is syntactically construed, and contributes a semantics that is essentially the same as that of adverbial helemaal. Examples of the type in (334) illustrate this; the semantic contribution of heel and hele in (334a&b) seems to be completely on a par with that of helemaal in (334c), which acts as a modifier of the VP onder de vlekken zittento be covered with stains.

In (335c), on the other hand, helemaal is not interpreted as a modifier of the VP in de hoek staanto stand in the corner, but of the predicative PP in de hoekin the corner; helemaal in de hoek can be translated as all the way in the corner. Related to the fact that helemaal is a PP-modifier rather than a VP-modifier is the fact that (335c) has no counterparts with adnominal heel/hele: (335a&b) are completely unacceptable.

That helemaal and adnominal heel/hele are not always interchangeable can also be shown in the other direction by the examples in (336).

Note that we analyzed helemaalwhole as a VP-modifier in the (c)-examples above, while allemaalall was analyzed in Section 20.1.5 as a floating quantifier (with scope over the antecedent noun phrase only). There are a number of syntactic and semantic reasons that justify this difference in the analysis of helemaal and allemaal. First of all, example (337) shows that allemaal can only be used with a plural antecedent, whereas helemaal can be used with both plural and singular noun phrases.

Second, helemaal combines well with substance nouns, while allemaal seems to lead to a worse result in such constructions. Note, however, that judgments here seem to vary: Haeseryn et al. (1997: §5.9.2.2) gives example (338a) with allemaal as fully acceptable.

The acceptability contrast in (338) follows from the analyses of helemaal and allemaal proposed earlier: allemaal is a floating quantifier and is therefore expected to impose constraints on the noun phrase with which it is associated; helemaal, on the other hand, modifies the VP and is therefore not expected to impose additional constraints on the noun phrase. The claim that helemaal and allemaal have different syntactic functions also leads us to expect that they can co-occur in a single clause: example (339a) shows that this is what we find. The fact, illustrated in (339), that the order of helemaal and allemaal cannot be reversed, also indicates that they have different syntactic functions in the clause.