Word Order, Intonation, and Noun Phrase Interpretation in Dutch

On one reading, illegalen refers to a group of illegal aliens that has not been previously mentioned, and which is introduced in the discourse by the very mentioning of the word illegalen. This is the existential reading (which will also be referred to as the weak reading, following De Hoop 1992). On another reading, illegalen refers to the kind of people who are called `illegal aliens', and (1) describes a general property of this kind in relation to activities of the police (`what happens to illegal aliens is that the police arrests them'). This is a generic reading (one of the possible strong readings of indefinite noun phrases). On the existential reading, (1) can be an answer to the questions in (2). On the generic reading, (1) is an answer to the question in (3):