A SEMANTIC PRINCIPLE OF AUXILIARY SELECTION IN DUTCH

We propose that the choice between the auxiliaries hebben 'have' and z ijn 'be' in Dutch is determined by a particular semantic feature of ve rbs. In particular we propose a feature of meaning [IEPS] for 'inferab le eventual position or state' that characterizes whether the action d enoted by the verb allows us to determine the eventual position or sta te of the verb's highest argument. It is argued that only verbs which exhibit the feature [+IEPS] or which obtain the feature compositionall y in the syntax select zijn as their auxiliary. Our analysis is then c ompared to a number of other analyses of auxiliary selection in Dutch.