De zin als bouwwerk: een 19e-eeuws project

During the 19th century, Dutch grammarians developed a full-fledged system of functional sentence elements. From Anslijn’s five categories (subject, copula, predicate, object, adjunct) (1814) through Den Hertog’s twenty-two categories (1892), there was a complex development, consisting of (1) extension of the grammatical area, (2) differentiation, unification and redefinition of categories, and (3) regulation of structural relationships between categories. The result was a fine-grained conceptual system that allowed for a transparent analysis of Dutch sentences in terms of structural-functional categories, most of which are still thought relevant.