The Noun Phrase In the last section we examined the overall structure of the basic English sen- tance. Apart from the verb, most ofthe structures discussed in that chapter were aoun phrases (NPs). As you saw noun phrases typically function ae sub- jects, direct objects, indirect abject, subject complements, and object comple rents. (NPS also function asthe objets of prepositions, but this will be taken up later) In Chapter 1, I defined 2 noun phrase very simply 28 a pronoun or 2 ‘oun plus its modifies. But this definition glosses ver soone important pues tons he biggest of whichis "What exactly is noun?” This isnot an altogether easy question to answer and there are 2 number of ways wo might go about It The fist is 40 identify a noun in terme of ie characteristic endings. In many languages nouns can be identified exchasvely in torms oftheir inflections. An inflection is any prefix or suffix that carries {grammatical information. Modem languages like Lithusnin and Russian and fancier languages like Classieal Latin and Sanskrit use inflections to indicate the grammatical fancton of a noun (ce, subjects take one set of endings, rect ejects another and indirect objects yet another) These endings alsa re fect singular or plucl status. Old English nouns also carried this kind of in formation, although most ofthese endings were lost by Chaucer's time in the Inte feurtenth century “Tike a look a the endings for the Old English word for st Gramma function Shgusr Por Subject (nominative case) san ssinas Possessve (genitive case) fines sins Indivect object (dative case) sanum Direct object (accusative ease) stinas ‘As you can sce. nouns performing diferent grammatical functions had diferent“ The Noun Pras endings only subjects an direct objects share the same forms, Note t0, that the plural forms were diferent from one another, «plural subject looks diferent from a plural indirect obec which looks diferent tro a plural posesive Tnalanguage lke Old English, form and function ar inseparable. The form ofa noun dictates its grammatical function; the grammatical fanction of a neu Is reflected in its form. But this sn truc in modern English, With the excep {on ofthe possessive, you cart tell the function ofa noun by is grammaticl form, since only the singular possessive 3} ending and the plural subject/ab- ject] ending have survived into Modern English Hut our modem posses- sive and plural endings do help us identify nouns asa general category. When new nouns enter the language, se routinely inflct them with the plurals ending geeks, snafus, madens et, When an old noun takes on a new function, confusion can arse. English speakers are stil unsure about the plural of computer mouse; computer types usally opt for mic, but lay people some: times exploit moses While not all nouns can be pluralized (eg, musi, rice, furiture), most ean Some very old English nouns are pluralized by internal vowel change govselgese. manimen,fothteeth or by an (en sulfix—children, oon; but these plural forms are no longer productive. This means that contemporary speak fs dont erste new plurals by changing the vowel o adding (enl In @ sal number of cases, the plural of @ notin is identical tothe singular-sdeer, Shep and these form to, age very old Wie can also attempt to identify nouns in terms oftheir meaning. For many decades linguists rejected the old “a noun is 3 person, place, or thing” dein. tion, arguing that it was too subjective and too limited. And there are certainly problems with this characterization; it excludes abstractions like theology and responsiblity and references to internal mental states like thought and belief Bt in fact ths old saw, repeated by generations of schoolchildren, contains mone than a grain of truth: nouns most aften do Teer to entities that have physical realty. Consider this paragraph from Pigs st Hence by Barbara Kingsolver (1994), Allof the nouns excluding pronouns) ae in boldface (Boldface added) ‘Atatable nearby 2 wife and husband ar having fight. They have on mah Ing outfits, Jeans and fg shit that cowboys ight wear people in & ‘cowboy: rated industry The woman has colores fippy hair molded together wit hirsprayso that Hall comes ong hen she turn he Read The man Took wey old (p. 132) Out of the 15 nouns highlightod, 13 refer to concrete entities. Only fight and i= dustry can't be characterized as people or things. ‘This pattem is widespread. One of the primary uses of nouns in everyday discourse is to code "thingike” entities, Out world is filled with people, tres tures, and objects and we use nouns to talk about ther, Ie is no ecient that the first words toddlers learn ae those that refer to physical things in thee en vironment-—mommy, cup, juice, dogg This snot to say that word like hate, jog. and respect are not nouns: they certainly are. But more often than not the ews we se in everyday dlecoure fer oefies tht have physica reality Sigucny the mor thing ike a nou’ ferent the more lly hat the noun can accep the character noun inflections especially the pla Inter Abe a Feel and a wagon have ear! pst really a exch tree nouns canbe pred Mase rope and rely however oe not thingie and they cannot be paralized. Te ees ony a tendency in Eng Tktnota hard and fas ru There ae noun tat fer wo ont tat et Up plural “thug el, dat and here ae concrete nouns tat det ti De ga The prt here that nate tend to share common semantics they oft do esto ngs animate ane Innit hat havea pyle Aly. The more thingie referent tte ore lye that He ou wl {xe nominal nena! endings (Sex Langaker [987], vin 1979), and Hopper and Thompson 98,1585) Unfortunately nfectionel endings aren'ta foolproof way of identifying sours, Some Enish nouns cnt be plralized an some fry ever Cry yosivcending Furheere, tae are any lanoges ike Chinese and ‘VEeamesc in which rours cry no ates whatoete Sant rte se proicmat fo, Bt thr onthe way of determining noun stake and we pent mest of Chaplet | dacusing Wael ndety Nou patat In oct tat hee specie gmt intone ns omen A tot seratced my car Ist might Subject They arested an idiot in the parking Direct abject ‘She ofered an idiot he et Indirect object ‘She isan idiot. Subject complement ‘Tom considers his bss an idiot ‘Object complement a simple seer, th haa, cota) fan care hich sana aes de sec nese wilt nun a Jed ej cee se aly Sng cr doe i stone) ‘The Determiner [Nouns rarely stand alone; they are usually accompanied by modifiers. But since the noun stands af the head of the noun phrase, dictates which modifiers may be used and it carries a heavy semantic load. Ifa noun phrase is stripped fal its modifier, still has meaning All the beutiful ress wore destroyed» Tees were destroyed But if a noun phrase i stripped of ts noun head, it will probably be imposst ble to interpretAll the boil res were destroyed — “AIT the beautiful ere destroyed ‘The most common noun modifiers in English are the determiners, While an adjective is never required for grammaticalty in an NP determiners often fare "Child put book on shelf an understandable English sentence, but no na- tive speaker sould ever say it in normal conversation ‘The determiner isa grammatical category tat includes a number of rather diffrent Kinds of words, all of which date back to Old English The determin: fre constitute a closed clas; ea clas of words that will not admit new mem: bets, Articles, possessive (genitive), and demonstrative forms are all cons tered determiners. These words constitute a single grammatical category because they always occupy the same position in the NP: they always precede both the noun and any adjectives. Furthermore, the noun can be modified by nly one iter from this class. While this bok, eur house, and the motoreyele are all acceptable NP’, an English speaker cannot say “the this ok or “ur @ house ‘The words in the determiner category are mutually exclusive. Whereas pos sessive determiners and th ean precede ether singular or plural nouns, this that, ond stressed sme modify only singular nouns, and unstressed some, thee and those modify ony plural nouns Decerminers tat modty Determine that modty Tes nun Pi ne la howe some tower the yoo the poten ths Gus ee den that pla tho ples | erbertheie sonnet sone | ayrow ap mylour = | sour doco your | | some bia L ‘The determiner category is fairly rch in meaning. These litle function ‘words communicate 2 great deal of fanly complex information. We'll examine the semantics andthe discourse uses of determiners below. ARTICLES ‘You are probably familia wit te category article, and you may have been taught that an indefinite article and the definite article. But what do these tems mean? It tums out that they are very misleading. Most students ‘assume that the term “indefinite” means tht the article and subsequent noun don't refer to anyone or anything in particular But that is seldom the case. In There i a snake in my bathroom, the speaker is reterring toa very specific rep tile in | noe a fellow who aways soars sx tis, the speaker is reterring to a particularman with particilar taste in clothes. There are, however, times when the article # does not have speci reference, asin A robbery i commited every day in this neighborhood oT hate a eraboy clerk. The grammatical context will, ‘usally reveal ifthe reference is specific or nonspeci (a) Becky is dating a nice doctor.) Becky i looking for anice doctor, (6) Shes slicing juicy mango. (d) Tenjoy a icy mango. (e) Tsee a red Porsche (f) want a ed Porsche. (g) lwitnessed a bad crash () Lear a bad crash In sentence (a) we assume that Becky is dating a particular nice doctor but in(byitsceme that Becky is looking for any nice dector in (6) ane) the speaker 's referring to specific entities and in () toa specific event. In (4) an icy ‘mango wil do, as will any ted Porsche in (In (b) the speaker fears some- thing that cant have specific reference because it has not oscured yet. An ut terance like "Iwas searching for a sweater” is potentially ambiguous. If the speaker continues with “and | found i” the NP a seater has specific refer tence; the speaker found the one s/he was looking for. But ifthe speaker con tinues with “and I found one,” the NP has nonspecific reference, the speaker found some sweater or other (Lambrecht, 199, p. 80) "What then isthe function ofthe article a? Its primary function is simply to introduce 3 noun phrase into the dcourse, Not surprisingly then, «i one of the ways speakers introduce new information into a discourse. Onee noun phrase isintroduced with o, 3 speaker (or writer) can use the oF an appropri te proncun to refer to this entity [Melinda Bought nsw house last sk. The hose is white wit gee tim, A ite brow poppy wondered into our yard last night. tos obo tet. ‘Thee isa new student in my class. She seems rather shy. Someis usually considered the plural indefinite article—Some pps tm ered nto our yard this content, the discourse function of some is identical to that of As you wil see later however, som is also used with non-count nouns, many of which never have a plural ending, Here, too itis used to introduce a ‘ou ints discourse but it doesnot suggest plurality in any way! piled some dk; Let's listen to some muse Stressed some can be used with singular nouns when a speaker wishes to ‘underscore the fact thatthe kdentity ofthe noun is unimportant—Séime soph« ‘The Noun Phan more got hurt during fotell practice; My older sister is dating sme boy. In both those eases, the noun modified by some has specific reference, but the identity ofthe coferent is irrelevant to the speaker. Stressed some also serves fo express Ssnnoyance or contempt Séme iit lft gun on this seat. Tm most cases the cannot be used unless the person or abject has alread been intraduiced into the discourse. In other words, the article the ¢ypically refers back to something. This is another case of anaphoric reference. You ‘would find it bafing if, out of the blue, a friend said “The woman stole your Calevstor” You would undoubtedly respond, "What swoman?” "The atc the ean be used without fist introducing the tem into discourse sf there i only one such item in the immediate sorid ofthe speakers and they share knowlege ofits existence. We refer to te ss andl the muon boca we all recognize their existence and there is only one of each in our sky. Futire Space setters living on Jupiter won't be able to refer tothe moo. In a given Ihousehold, family members wll put on the ket open the refrigerator, and ead the paper whe lying in the haramock, because, a rule, there #8 only one such item in the house I the family includes one infant, "The baby is crying” san appropriate observation, but if there ae quintuples, itis not. I you routinely {goto the same grocery store and financial inaitation, you probably refer to them as the stow and the bank, On the other hand if you are shopping for a mortgage, vou may go # bank that you don't sally patronize. he ose ofthe Signals that the referent should be identifiable to the hearer as swell as the speake ‘Sometimes the discourse itself will contain the information that allows the hearer to identify the eferent of the noun, even though the now itself hasnt ben used, In the case of Te could ser ME. Everest ithe distor; the peak os ‘overeat sto, the hearer is expected to deduce that mountains have peaks. By introducing Mt, Everest into the discourse, the speaker hae indirectly in- troduced its peak as well. If an acquaintance says "My wife wat hit by a car lastnight” he could go.om to say, “The driver was asested.” The driver is in- onto the discourae by inference, we ass that moving cars have dri sneral, singular nouns canaot occur without a determiner “Dag isin the aden aril “Hesse is rick ae ungrammatical. There av, however, some ex ceptions to this rule Singular nouns that refer to abstract intitutions rather than physical structures can eccur without determiners am goo 1 schoo! ra Sh eas set to prison fr tne wears: He has left fr church, Olympia ft tening college. Which school, prison church, or college is immaterial. British and Canadian speakers exploit this construction even more often than Amer fans do; fr example they goto howl and atend university On the other han ‘when any English speaker wishes to refer toa particular building, determin’ fees ate required drow by the school: That prison necds wpa: My temple ‘When a singular noun refers to the means by which an act is cated out, it too, occuts without a determiner. Sally won! hy caro My pent tra! hy tran, the speaker i refering, not to a specific vehicle, But to an abstraction, Tie Determiner “ se, a means of transportation, We also send things by mal and make things bv rrachine Even the noun bei exhibits this behavior We go to hal but we buy @ Fe and make the ed In the frst example, bod isan abstraction, net an entity fn fac we ean go to bed on the floor or onthe couch. Note, te that whet such ncuns are sed inthis abstract way, they cannot be pluralized “Im go ing to Fes ond “My parents travel ky trams are both ssngrammatcal. You wil find thet there are a umber of abstract nouns that do net co-occur with the or the plural marker—*He i nthe trie, “The sincerity shows llores sone fu Eaviet, noted the fat that nouns that refer to concrete entities are more likely to carry nominal inflectional endings (possessive and plural) than nouns that are abstract. Wesee the same pattern with articles. When words ike shn trun and machine refer to conerete entities, they occur with the appropriate ar ticle at when those same words are used to refer to an abstract institution as Dpposed toa perticular place, a means of transportation rather than a pasticu Tar vehicle, ot a means rather than a particular pleco of equipment, he article {soften omitted. Like inflectional endings, articles ten to attach themselves to hous hat refer o physical entities, But remeraber that this is only tendency, int a hard and fast ule DEMONSTRATIVES (AND DEX) Deonstatves represent another spe of determiner. The demonstrative determiners and the artic the all deve from the same Old English part of Speech sce quite Hkely tat the orginal function of this orm was demon- Sfeatve and that the definite ate eventually evolved fom this usage. The functcn of demortratives is fo pont ems cut—this hak hat child hese fs owe ex, Demrstatives refit nity clled dean, Normally 9 Tort iraing dw nt depen on who ters he wor oom oem where iterate. lowover, dlc forms change teletence when ereomstances {hag Some pronouns and some adverbs share the quality of deus with hmv Tony lam eering to. aiferent person thon ou are hen Jou sy L Ths is person dei, I Tay °Moble i eriving tomOrOW” On ‘Meo, you know that tomo refer fo Wednesday Buti ter the same sr cathy, tno refers to Sunday. Ths temporal time) deni “The sot where {an sanding Is ere and, fom my pinta view where you Ising isthe Butt go to where ye ae standing hat spot boomes fere te and te spot I have vacated becomes she This spatial (Place) deals Demonsratves typically refet spain dens, When 1am pointing out someene oe something cove to me, chon ts my determiner he pee ‘Smrorthing isnt so ose, chose Da. To me the book Tar hong is teat while he one yout holding st back But ofcourse to you, the book yor ar holding ashok, hie ine tha nk. The pra forms hes and Tine work meaty the ame way Some ngage have thee oF more i ferent dice frms Yo expres relative distance. Japanese fc example has ane“ The Noun Praee anol i upset boceuse her children are mong back into the hose Traly dite This te His insincerity bothers me. tris ising ome ofits keys INTERROGATIVE DETERMINES Like other question words in English, interrogative determiners typically begin with the eters iin written texts—-Whio child at al the cand? Whose cari soe? What subject do you teach? In each case the wh word stands for fone of the deetminers discussed above. 1 cose this bok Which book do you chose? Thi is my ca Whose cat is at? oe the tne What time is? Whick and what have slighty different uses If the possible noun referents are constraived in some way, hick isthe approprite determiner For exam ple, if you and your sister are looking at five cars en a showroom flo, you night ask “Which cr should we buy?" In other words, kick i used when the ‘Options are clear When the options are not constrained aa isthe apprope ate determiner Which dress shoul Tear? Whe kind of shos should 1 bay? Wickford you bring? ng Wht projects have you started lately? Which boo ish boro? ‘What books hee yo rend this wear? Which el yours? What srt of person sould do that? Whose functions as a genitive and an interrogative determiner simultaneously. Like al interrogate wk words, the interrogative determiner appears frst fn the sentence. This will be discussed in more detail later. Summary of determiners Articles Town a tractor. Some windows were broken. ‘The house is diay. ‘Séme woman took my parking place Demonstratives I dont like this movie Hand me that hammer igeeronenens Pekin nd Petrino 6 Sunmary of detrminers (cont) | | ‘These cookies are delicious. | | ronson te os "een tr crepe sont | Oi ou nay Sl? | ienogies hit yen wan? | Wat color do you pee? | LI Predeterminers and Postdeterminers Occasionally, determiners will be preceded by predeterminers. ll the words in thiscategory express quantity—all, bt, all malliples, and ail fractions, All the plyers ft th field Half the stents mised Me bus Both my daughters lik scence. Tks tons ome tid the cost "This car weil sce you Poe Ue pox. “The determiner can sometimes be omitted Science All jurors must report ove "Tehnicaly lf and vt are predeterminers only if they directly pre cade the determiner of the noun. Constrctions containing the preposition of {in ll of the plaers or bath of my daughters don’t contain predeterminers in these cases all and bth are considered pronouns, which are then modified by prepositional phrases. However, despite the difference i structure its lear fat the phrases all the players and all f the players are virtually synonymous. ‘Ths sone ofthe few instances in English when different grammatical forms ‘zum o yield che same meaning ‘Some predeterminers can move into the ve phrase. Compare All eKits have had the meses and The kids have all had the mesis. Here al till modifies fads even though ito longer precedes Bath can behave in exactly the same such constructons-—Both Kids ieveay—Both my nephews are altendng MIT; My nephews are Both alending MIT This phenomenon is sometimes called quantifier loa, since the pretesninee, which normally occurs before the subject nou head, can "lot" to the ght ofthe subject or tothe right of an auailiary verb (if there same). Jt [Bot] my sisters ve |b to Pari ‘Thor is also a group of words that can follow the determiner but must precede all achectives, Not surprisingly these are called postdeterminers. Like predleterminers all postdeterminers are quantifying terme, Canal and ond hal numerals fll into this catagory Those fe ainistrators are tobe He just mal is second hig mise Every tenth person weil be closer, Cardinal numbers often occur without 3 preceding determines There are feo lnrsards on the ref Sixteon candadates are running for meyer, Cardinal and ordinal numbers express specific quantities, while postde terminers like mamy, litle, and fee express nonspectie quantities Her many friends deserted her. Ta ikea ttte butter “The prgran as few bus. Be sure to distinguish between postdeterminer lite, which is eleacly a {quantifying term, and adjective lite which refers to size lite butler vereus ite gir, Postdeterminers ile snd few express rather different meanings, de. pending on whether or not they are preceded by a determiner Jos ite fh nthe system reduces the amount of faith almost zero, while fe has «Title ft nthe system projects a more optimistic outlook. Few behaves in exactly the sae way: Oscar fas fo friends suggests a sadder stete of alas than Oscar hes 2 fw rend. ‘Acar on by Dan Pirao (1997) exploits this diference between adjective lite and postdeterminer lite, The single frame shows a young stl siteng at table set for dinner: She is asking someone to pass the mint jellyand the ep thon eads, “Tired oft following her to school each day, Mary had ile lambs” els o Summary of predeterminers Summary of posdeterminers All the furniture was damaged. The one room in the ba was flooded. | Tata both those patterns My second choice is vanilla Half her clothes were stolen, | know the five people in that ca. This some third the cos A few people showed up. Sie pur in five times the effort, ny having a ite trouble with The fact that determiners, predeterminers, and postdeterminers are said to modify the noun in some way does not mean that they are peripheral. Tad tional school grammars often treat modifiers 3¢ somewhat extraneous items This has ld many English teachers to promulgate the notion of the "simple subject orthe “simple” direct abject, Le, the notin without any of ts modirs. this s extremely miseading, All he words in structure are important infact, ‘overlooking modifiers can have serious consequences. Certainly No nid ae aliaed means something very diferent from Chiron ar allowed. All the ds mn come means something very diferent from Hf the hie eas came. When we study NPs tat are complex clauses, the notion ofthe simple subject or simple object becomes even more ludicrous Determiners, predeterminers, and postdeterminers are an extremely het- erogeneous group semantically and yout have undoubtedly noticed that there fare quantifying torms in all three categories It s not alway~ easy to pigeor™ hole theseitems. But while the Boundaries between these categories are muddy at times, together this collection of lite function words provides a tremendous amount of crucial linguist information Genitives ‘You were briefly introduced to genitives in the determiner sction. Gnitives take various shapes. They can be determiners—her computer, their cabin, or pinion; they can be proper nours—Rosemary’s baby, ‘Nixon's pardon, Ms ‘illng’s book: or they ean befall noun phrases the ofice managers disk, hil’ oy the tall guy's shoes. Genitves often have internal grammatical structure, With the exception of genitive determiners, genitives ae noun phrases and each can contain is On Aetermine ust lke any other noun phrase. Ins plhrave like This bo’ father, this modes hoy not father; the genitive construction modifying father is act ally the phrase tis oy’ Ta childs furniture, «clearly modifies ld since ar@ The Noun Phrase riture does not occur with the indefinite article a. The entre phrase « ckil’s [sts] rie ‘A genitive phrase can contain another genitive phrase and that phase can contain another genitive phrase, and soon, In My aunt's bowen’ mothers ca, the genitive phrase moulfying car Is My mut» bojiends mother the genitive pphrose modifying mothe is My aunts Boyfiend; and the genitive phrace mod fying boyfriend is my aun. The genitive modifying aunt's the determiner my, Here we have structure embedded within stricture embeded within struc [IF l Each of these genitive phrases can be paraphrased by a single genitive deter mines—her cn his mothe, her boyfriend, my aunt My] aunt's | boyfriends | mother’s GENITIVE SEMANTIC TYPES have been taught to call constructions like those discussed above “pessesives,” but this label soften incornect. Only a fraction of genitive con structions actually express a possessive relationship, {wil use the term possessive genitive only for those construction that do indeed describe a postession relationship, These can be paraphrased loosely with the verb have eam [rome Gan | | The childs bicycle was smashed to bits. [The child had a bicycle] | | wetngs pier etn Wtangetevenn [They own a yacht) A bully stole my kids’ cookies at recess, [My kids had cookies} ‘Their yacht won't fi in this harbor. have « mother In some languages (eg, Chinese and Hawaiian), something thet is seen as permanently possessed by the possessor reeives a special geritive masher In Hamish’s hair is black (amish has hi ‘My mother isa surgeon these languages body parts and kinship terms are among the nouns that are marked for inalienable possession. (Inahensble” simply’ meane that posses sion cannot be surrendered oF transferred to someone else) English makes no formal distinction between allenable and inalienable possession, although the semantic difference does have an effet on reflexive and passive constructions 25 you wil se late. In the following sentences the relationship between the genitive and the noun is not one of ownership oF possession Susan's application was dened Madonna's performance wa oustanding. Pleasso's last panting vas so Susan did not possess an application; she engaged in an activity by ap plying I is even possible that no physical application form was invelvel Maclonna di not possess a performance; she performed. Picasso did not own the painting; he created it. Such genitives ae called subject ganitives becouse the relationship ofthe genitive word to the noun it modifies i rather lke the relationship ofa subject to ite predicate. ‘The police dit believe Mary's story. [Mary told story] Hemingway's novels are exciting, (Hemingway weote the novels | ‘The government was surprised by [He defected | | suc we | Carol resented the ci Fs refal, (The child refused] “The Dean's lecture a8 boring [The Dean lectured | “Mozart’s quartets are magnificent. [Mozart composed quatets| A sentence like Marge's new now! ion the tables potentially ambiguous. s this {a norel Marge owns or one she wrote? The answer of course depends on the real world context. In some genitive constructions, the relationship ofthe genitive word to the roun it modifies is ike the relationship of a disect objet to is ver. In ‘Max’ promotion made kis happy, Maxis not doing anything or possessing any thing Here the implication is that someone has promoted Maw. The elation ship of Mas to promotion is that of direct object to is verb, Mar’ isan object enilive» The Noun Phrase Object genitves “The city's destruction was total [Something destroyed the city} she was upset by that neighbor's [Somebody murdered that murder neighbor] Freddie's eviction shocked everyone. [Someone evicted Freddi} {vos surprised by Nixon's pardon. [Someone pardoned Nixon {an paraphrasing a genitive, be sure to avoid the passive construction. Since the affected! party, not the agent is the subject of a passive, a passive paraphrase twill give ou the wrong resul 1 for example, I paraphrase the city’s destruction a5 the city tas destroyed by something, the city becomes the subject ofthe para Phrase, nt its object. But He cil’ isan object genitive, nota subject genitive ) ‘Sometimes 4 genitive can be ambiguous, A phrase Hike Syl photograph ts amblguou i thew ways Syl’ tight be jrmonive genie (ae os the photo}, a subject genitive (she took the photo}, or an object genitive (some tone photographed hes) The sentence Li hat heard about James betrayal as 0 potential meanings. If Jane betrayed someone, the gertve isa subject Reni Eves if someone betrayed Jane, the genitive isan object gertive. The sentence Can be "disambiguated” ifthe genitive construction also includes a prepost tional phrave that acs as patent, asin Lis had heard aout Joe's tage of her {friends This is 2 deat example of how the grammar ofa structure and its se ‘antics can diverge. Grammatially Jan's raya of er fends is an NP con- thiming the noun head betray which is modified by the genitive Jene's and the prepositional phrase of hr ions, Semantclly however Jane’) is acting like En agent subject, betrayal ss acting Me a ver and of har fronds is acting ike a petientdiect object. Similarly, if Jane is the one being betrayed, the sentence Ean be disambiguated by including an agent—Li had Red about Jon’ bral by Her boss, (ANhough you are accustomed to thinking of agents as subjocts and of patients ax subjects or objects, agents and patients do occur in preps tional phrases. You wall sce more ofthis in Chapter 4.) ‘Nouns that are modified by subject and object genitives are often, but not always, deverbal nouns, ie, nouns derived from verbs. Betrayal, rfisal, ccc fio, and destin ape al rested from verbs by the addliton ofa sufi: the ‘nous murder and pardon derive from identical verb forms. Each ofthese nouns Sil caries some verbal force and its not sugprsing that their genitive modi fiers behave rather lke subjects and cbjects Genitive nouns are not always marked by {In Old English, most geni- tives were marked with inflectional suffices but after the Norman invasion that pattern changed somewhat. French genitives have always been prepositional onstruction, eg, le raion de Mare ("the house of Marie") and as a result ‘ofthe Language contact between French and English after the eleventh century, Modern English uses both the inflection and the preposition to mark genitive relaionships Entities fairly high onthe animacy scale, people and higher onder creatures, equi an inflected possessive genitive ook, fhe dog’s dish, He ies perch inanimate nouns typical Benitive—the shape of the rock, (lor of that hat, the lop ofthe table. There sre, however, many contents ‘whith the use ofan inflected genitive with an inanimate noun f perfectly ac ‘coplable—The baling’ design tas ery functional. The of genitive is almost never ‘used to modify'a human possessor. The coal f jesse and “Ihe oie of Marin {arcungrammatica, but Spanish and French speakers who ae earring English ‘a asscond language often make this very mistake Because such prepositional Constructions are required inthe Romance languages. “The of genitive is called 2 periphrastic genitive. The term priphrastie is used to desebe a construction that uses extra words ather than an invletional sufi to communicate grammatical information. Perprasic isa grammatical term it has nothing to-do with the semantics of the genitive construction, A gemtive of any semantic type can theoretically be a perphrastic genitive. At You will sce later English has a number of nomgenitve, periphrastic con Btructions as well (na nontechnical contest, the term perilinic refers to any ‘While the periphrastc form ofthe genitive can be used with any seman tic ype, itis most often used when the noun being modified is inanimate For this reason some genitives are more likely tobe periphrasic than others. Gene itives that reflect partwhole relationships and measurements ary frequently periphrastic. ‘When 2 periphrastic genitive expresses 2 patt/whole rdationship the nowt ‘phase being modified isthe part and the NP within the prepositional phrase fers to the whoe—the legs of etal, Bi side of the abet OF course, infected er tives can expres par/wwhole relationships too, and here the infect noun (or ‘genitive pronoun) refers tothe whole—the hooks acer, a t's, he dx al the top of the table the dog’s tit inert twa Tots prt Body pats ike the dg’ ti ne sometimes considered part/ whole genitive and sometimes (inalienable) possessive genitives. Ether analysis ean be supported. Parvnhole geritves ‘The roof of the house blew off during the big storm That woman scratched the heod of my ear with her keys ‘The tees branches swayed in the wind My cars battery is dead. / Its batery is dead,n The Noun Phrase Genitives of measure have an interesting history In Old English, the plural genitive marker was nots as itis in Modern English, but rather a vowel, usu: Bly a (Revisit the Old English word for stone atthe beginning of this chap: ter) Sometime later, vowel suffies were lost English and s0 the phual gen five had no ending at all. Eventually most plural genitives took on the |! genitive marker, However in many regions of the United States, you can stil hear speakers say “He lives three mile down the rad” or “That ceiling is ten foot tall” And we all use the old genitive of measure i expresions like “T™m five fot fou” The lack of a plural marker on mile and fot ta remnant of this Ancient form. We see the same phenomenon in ani inh stick anda fio our Tecra “a nine fches stick e completly angrammaticl Tn genitives of measure, the measurement term isthe noun head and the entity Being measured always takes inflectional or periphrasic genitive form. the length ofthis room the baby’s length [ressucmet tm [ett eg meme] eyeing mesa (mean Genives of measure None of my students knows the czcumference ofthe earth. The length ofthe tral surprised the jurors. She calculated the weight ofthe shipment. Tas intimidated by the man’s siz. | Doses tnow satya weigh? “There are genitive types that have not been discussed here, many of which are hand to characterize semantically. Consider the semantics ofa winter’ day {girs schoo, for pity’ sake, an how's run, None of these fits comfortably in the ‘ategories desebed above. For example, a winter’ day ancl a hours rum can Dbebest paraphrased with adverbs—a day i winter, rm for ]an hour. As You can sc, the semantics of genitives is very complex. Nevertheless, this brief dis Cassion should give you a good sense ofthe richness of the category. Summary of pent semantic ypes } | Possessive Carol's suit was wrinkled ‘The child’ face was sunburned Subject Frank Llayd Wright's homes ate priceless now: | “The boy’ lie outraged his mother Summary of genie seman types (cont) Object Daphne's promotion pleased everyone Victoria was upset about the rejection of her proposal Partwhole The book's cover was tom, ‘The roof of the bar blew off Measure ‘The weight of the cargo was calculate. DOUBLE GENITIVES English speakers sometimes exploit double genitive constructions, com stcuctions in which the genitive is marked both inflecionally and periphrat cally. In Im reading a novel of Austen's, Austen is matked by [and at the ‘ime time occurs in nof prepositional phrase. In other words, Austen is marked Such constrictions are highly constrained in terms of fem, The noun head is usally indefinite, ie, preceded by the article». The genitive NP (i, the INP carrying the (-s] sui) must have highly specific reference t often cone thins 2 pronoun or a proper noun, A friend of Bill's is coming over later. ‘An ides of yours hasbeen adapted by the boss. An admirer of my mother's sont her a dcen ross, “Dh rend of Bil’: coming over is ungrammaticl as is “A fed of a guy's coming ver "Normally, double geitives are used when a speaker wishes to refer to one ofa clase of individuals, Expressions ikea frend of mine, a fim of Res, Ot @ student of hers are perfectly acceptable, but Pa husband of mine sind? car of Reba an odd. The sizeof the category seems to bea constraining factor here An in dividual might have lots of riend fans, and students, but a woman typically Jus only one husband and most of us have only one or two cars. Ann Wierzbicka has also argued that the double genitive “is particulary suited to calletve categories, where all members con be viewed as equiistanced with respect tothe person who provides the point of reference” (Wierzbicka, 1997 AB) Inter words, the members ofthe category are undifferentiated. Speak- {of English avoid sentences like Acid of mine gre me that neclae (even i the speaker has many children). precisely because children are not undifleren- tiated in the way that shits or fans areSurprisingly, demonstrative determiners can appear in the nour head of a double genitive constuction. 1 ca stand those ots of Suse “That msc of Stans 6 simply afi This ids of teins i got In these sentences the NP fs ighiy definite: the speaker knows that the hearer f= familiar at some level with the cats the music and the idea. Constructions like these are often used emphatically. fea stand ose ts of Susan's sounds such stronger than Jct stand Susans cts, In fat even a noun ike ald cam be used in an emphatic double genitive That cl of mine (The noun head in a double genitive construction can sometimes be preceded by the definite article the when the geitve is followed by a restrictive relative clause ~The frond of mine too gave me this dress tants it back, Relative causes ‘ill be explained in Chapter 5) drive me insane! I Old and Middle English the genitive marker wa albvays attached tothe ‘noun head being made genitive. The Queen of England's rae would have been the Queen's rte af England. tn the modern version Englend carries the peritive smather even though it not England's robe. The Chavcer story which mad- ten readers know as The Wife of Baths Tale was in Chaucer's manuscript Th Wifes Tile of Bah nthe seventeenth century, a group genitive developed whereby the entie noun phrase receives the genitive marker—[the Quesh of Engin’ roe. Today, complex constructions are often marked with the gen pecially i casual speech the devin who Tes arond the core ca ipheastic paraphrase makes it clear exactly which part of the structure is receiving the genitive marker Ti isthe car ofthe dentist toko lives around the comer. ismorist Dave Barry (1997) pokes fan at this const per column bade) ction in his newspe ‘Mr. Language on the butchered apostrophe.” (Underining (Recently did your esearch assistant Jai Smith make 3 yrammatily tereating latent garding where her ir, Vickie, park at The Mim er ae A: Yes. She ad, quote: “She comes and park in whoever's not here's space That day” Can hat sen ce be diagramed? ‘A-Not without powerful pharmaccutcls (P.7) While group: mitives may not be acceptable in most forms of edited Eng- lish, they re quite common in informal discourse. Generic Reference Nery the article refers to one entity but in a sentence he A meta ray is ‘lags catre the speaker swing the Indefinite ait eer tothe ey fire cls of manta rays. The definite arc tetpialy teers wo spi nt tis indlscourse, but in Thebes omnivore, the speaker i fering tothe Species as whole, nota specific animal In these sentences the artiste an TThave generic reference Purl nouns without determiners can also have generic reference—Boys willbe bys obras reali isan av sry hospitable When determiner iSuded, nach NPs typaly cease to have generic reference and the resting sentence ten sound edid-The cobras av elf The bye wl Be bos: 2TH Italian ae wry hora ‘Not suprisingly, the predetermine lf an also he used to ef tol the mera of dass but only when ft curs without a determiner camels Fi Al fw-yerols ar efit, When determine is added, the generic enovis canola he comet pity A he ewer re den "hs you can se, there ate four distinc strstr communicating seneic referenceplurality, the indefinite atl, the definite article, and the prede- qerminer all Not ll ofthese strategies work in all situations We can sey Te ach’ wate may be etinc and Bacon's bles maybe etn! But ot "A Baca warler ay be ext Proper Nouns ous allo uot sou he pps thigh an ens in wo Se things re especialy omar tu notably the people an paces wes every dy, rot surprising tht humane have aways asgned pec Its tothe, te, names Linguists typically use the trm proper noun for “names” This term i someviat problemate however becruse we use it rather diferent than do Eglin teachers or oer nonlinguists Trationel grammar books routinely {dened 2 proper nown asa word or words that refer oa speieperon place ‘rth But is poole to refer to something very spec without ever ws ing aproper noun ep the oman i eh ho Standing ot aca te Soh: Many steers dtine proper noane fers of capa, Bt of out we dort speak in capt eters and cpaliation rules change Fromgeneration to generation and from language to language. In modera German, for example all nouns eve capitalized. Prior to the twentieth century, English Speaking writers routinely capitalized nouns that were not mares, Wiliam Byrd THe highly educated early eighteenth. century American writer capitalized Pa. yes, Espctations, Vegetable, Gunpouer Irom and Tongue. The Declaration of he ddpendence. writen iy Thomas Jefferson and edited by the Continental Con press declares that all men are created esa that hey are endowed by the Creator with certain ‘natenabe Right that among these ae Lf, Let and the pursulof Hap fines (Grob and Beck 1963p. 197) “The nineteenth-century romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley capitalized Silence, Est, Po ‘and Death Capitalization is merely an editorial convention and such conventions change fairy quickly Clearly, we need a more precise definition for the term proper now. Lin {gusts characterize proper nouns in two says. The frst is semantic. Linguists ave fond of saying thst proper nouns have unique reference. But what does this ‘mean? There ae tens of thousands of Maria Garcias inthe workd and as many Joh Smite, mo how cart sul names awe ungue severe? Proper nouns have unique relerence only in those cases in which both speaker and hearer are familiar wih the referent at some level. You wouldn't approach a stranger and immediately begin talking about Henrietta and Ralph ‘without any indication of who these people were. Proper names have vniae reference only in a particular setting. Alice Wate, for example, has unique re troncein the canon of Americao literature but nt in the English-speaking werld Bt large. There ste many Rovald Reagan i the world but inthe context of mod em American history this name refers toa single individual Ifa speaker wishes to use a proper name that is unfamiliar tothe hearer, s/he wil typically inteoduce it into the discourse by explaining the reference in some way. All f the passages below are from Patricia Cornwall's novel From Peter Field (1995), In each passage the proper noun i double underined and the information that identifies that proper noun is single undertined. (Under lining ade) ‘Alot Gault wists were sting hens bose, hands in thle aps... The ‘one exception vas eoman piso guand named Fl. (pp. 23-28) ve were greeted by a woman in er fis ith dark hat. es fae. and ned gjen. She intodced herself as Commander Frances Penn the New York Trait alice. p25) Late | rove Lucy and ato work wth ne and ef he at he fice ith dling muses chit (p22) efore using a proper noun, a speaker must asses the knowledge ofthe heares. An American can feey use the proper notin Bil Clivtion without elab- Pre Ne ” contion but the name Janos Kalar would probably require some explaining, {Radar was the premier of Hungary fom 1956-58 and 1961-65.) Upon hear ing Peis, most of us thnk ofthe capital of France, but someone living in Honey Grove, Texas, would be more likely to think of the town just up the road. Celia. Cuz is a household word among salsa fans in Miami but it would probably ‘draw Blank looks on the south side of Chicago, where blues men like BB. King and Buy Guy are cultural icons ‘The context in which a proper noun will have unique reference depends ‘on many factors. Occasionally, an individual is so famous within a culture that jet the frst name is adequate—-Michelangelo, Evite, Judes ess generally has Unique reference in Protestant northern Europe but not i Catholic Hispanic culture. Usually a fist name works in an extremely limited context—a family, S club, a small group of friends. When there was only one John in an Anglo Sixon village, no other designation was necestary. When a second John moved tothe willage, the Bist might have become John the brewer and the second John {he baker ultimately John Bresser and John Baker. Scores of English surnames re from trades-Shocmaker, Smith, Weaver, Webster (a female weaver), Brewster (2 female brewer). Wight, Miler, Cook, Cooper, Fowler, Middle ames and designations like John Brewer, J oF John Brewer I enhanced the Zecil uility of proper names. Inthe United States, probably the only desig Inton that caries true unique reference these days is one's socal security ‘amber. 1m essence, a proper noun is a special shorthand. Instead of referring to sameone asthe thirty seventh president of the United Stats, can simply say Richard Nixon" The phrase “the thiety-seventh president ofthe United States” ‘iso has unique reference, but i ia cumbersome and atcane way to refer to {mn individual, Simlanly, I could refer to New Orleans, Lousiana, by providing it Longitude and latitude, but while this would identity i uniquely it would striously impede comminication. Linguists also categorize proper nouns in tems of their grammatical char ‘sterstics Common nouns may oF mey not oceur with a determiner depend ing on the grammatical context Proper nours, however, are invariable in this regard. Ifa proper noun occurs with a determiner (almost always the article fhe) it will always occur with that determiner Ist occurs without a determines, it wll never take a determiner Thus, we aways teer to the Hague, the Neth lands, the Midlands, the Mies, bat never to “the Chicago or “the Nigeria Sim ily, i proper noun ends im a paral [twill always do so: there is no contrasting singular form. We say the Netherlands but never “the Netherland, Most proper nouns, especially names of people are invariably singular in form ‘One ofthe reasons that determiner fe doesn’t co-occur with proper nouns | in English is thatthe definite articles used to expres the fact that both speaker land hearer are familiar with the referent in question. The very use ofa proper oun assumes thatthe referent is uniquely ientifiable to both the speaker and the hearer. The fect that some proper nouns invariably facade dt as part of the “name” is.a diferent matter) Be aware, though that some languages like Greek do use the definite article with proper nouns, even the names of people” ‘The Now Phrase There is one class of proper nouns in English in which the article heb in- variably included as part of thename. These ae proper noun phrases, the heads of which are common nouns in ther contexts—the Brooklyn Bridge, the Emi State Building the Snake Rive, the Love Bat, the Red Sew the Rll Stas Be- cause the common nouns bridge, building, river, bt sea, and stone do eo-oceue with the it seems natural to include the article, even when these words appeat in proper noun phrases. This creates an intersting contradiction in writen texts In these phrases th is ivariably port ofthe proper noun, yet editing con vention dictates that He not be capitalized, (There are common noun heads that jecur with the in some proper nouns and not in others—the Bay of Fundy vee ss Biscayne Bay) In some cases Hei part of the proper noun simply by virtue of @ naming convention. Ship names for example often include the artcle—the Titan, th (Queen Mary. the United States, the acronyms of broadcasting companies do ot contain the artcle-NBC, CBS, PBS, while in Great Britain they do-the BBC. ‘Obviously, there ae occasions when we do sy things ike the Mian of my child, ll the Susans inthe elas or He too George nthe fly. But here Mi fami, Susan, and George have lost their proper nou status, They do not have Unique reference in these contexts nd that i why we Find detorminers and plural markers occurring with these forms. (While Mam, Susan. and George fare not technically proper nouns here, they are ofcourse still capitalized in ‘written texts) Non-Count Nouns While the ability to pluralize sone of he distinguishing characteristics of nouns 235 class not all nouns have contrasting singular and plural forms, Phrases ike ta rvs, tse Sond, and “ter measles are ngrammatica. Nouns that cane not be directly preceded by cardinal numbers are called non-count nouns. (Many grammar books us the term mass noun but this term sa it mislead: {ng because some ofthe nouns in this category don’t refer to "masses”) Many non-count nouns are concrete, i, they refer to things that have a physical reality In order to count a concrete, non-count noun, a speaker must ‘hoose 2 patitive, which will usually be a container ora measurement of sone kind-—four pounds of rc, six buckets of sand, thre yards of sil: a carton of, milk. Thee are actually a hmited riamber of parttves; some are very genera and ean be used with » wide variety of non-count nouns while others can be used with only a few. Most partitives of weight and measurement are quite flexible We can have two pours of anything that can be weighed —sale, owt fats, oregano, mercury, ete. We can have our gallos of anything that i iqaid or suitably viseous—water, ketchup, gas, ol, milk, molasses. Some partitves Aare much more limited. Only afew things are counted in bar (soap, gold choco Tate, fumps (ugar coal), or sticks (gum, butter, dynamite). Only paper is ‘counted in rams and only bread i counted in loos. Because concrete, non-count nouns cannot he counted without parttives ‘hey don't coon with numerals or the article», which entails the meaning nea gud, “ew dyramites. A speaker can use a non- with the expectation that no one will awe, Nobody nd nothing are negative indefnites no referents exist fr these pro Nobody came. Nothing ttiers her nothing about the stole fle sat no ome i the brary. Since natody and nothing already contain a negative form as part of the pro noun, neither form occurs with the negative particle informal edited English fthough sentences like didn’? sce nothing are quite common in conversational iscourse Tt should be obvious that all the indefinite pronouns were once nouns or numerals preceded by a quantifer—some + Body, no thing, every + one No boxy sos writen as feo separate words until the cighteenth century and itis ‘nly wconatrat om wu prourndaton of double vm hal prevent frm writing "noone for no oe tay. Since it behaves exactly ike ody, wel reat hmone a8 a pronoun also. Someone, something, noone, and nothing can also be classified as quart ing pronouns this isnot incompatible with being indefinite. As you will ce in Chapter 5, there are adverb indefnites as well as pronoun indefinites—some time, sometshere, someon, anytohere. Indefinite Promowns and Gender Indefinite pronouns are neuteal i terms of gender and this creates prob Jems when an indefinite pronoun isthe antecedent ofa personal pronoun. Con sider the eentence If anyone calls fl him2/her? that Im out. Since the speaker can't possibly know the identity of anyone, i 6 impossible to assign gender ‘What orm then should by choses fr the subsequent personal pronoun? As you have already seen, most English speakers use thymic ax gender neutral pronouns, even in contexts in which the antecedent appears to be singular. anyone cl tel them Im out everyone must pack thei mo ch | sate someone inthe shadoss and they were tating me, Anyone who thinks they conf this fo Traditional grammars argue that anyon, soncone, and eveyone are singulae pronouns because they end in “ane” es tre that these pronouns fake Sing 4 verbs But in most ofthe examples above, he number implied by the indet ow Phones o rites actually indeterminate. ln Ifanyore calls. the number could be any ‘where from zero to any reasonable finite rumber: in Ezergrne mast pack her ron lun, there f a presumption that cere is more than one potential unchpacker ‘only in Ts sortae in the shadows docs the indefinite pronoun clearly tee t0 2 single individual. For this reason, speakers seem espetsally wing tose they ‘wen the antecedent is anyone or eeryone. Certain quantifying determiners pose ‘exadly the same problem ond speakers often emplay exactly the same sakaton Every stunt mst pack thetr om lunch, Each cll el! bring thet Birth cite (Although the noun head is singular in both these case erry presupposes more than one student and exh more than one eid.) alted English usually requires the solutions discussed inthe personal pronoun section, INTERROGATIVE PRONOUNS When a speaker wishes to learn the identity of someone or something, s/he typically uses an interogative pronoun to solic Hat information, Interrogs tive pronouns always begin with the letters wh in written texts thus they are ltr called wh words. The interogative pronoun, mgardless of is amma tea funtion, is almost always the first word in the sentence, The one excep tion is in those enars wheve the interagative i the ject which case some speakers place the preposition before the int Who lf the dor op What is Matilde eating Whois a subject [What i a direct object] ‘Whe did you oa your co to? [Who isan indirect object] To whom did you loon your car? (To whom isan indirect object] What id Maggie call Ceirie? [What isan object complement} What is his name? [What is 2 subject complement] I you have problems identifying the grammatical function of an interrog ative pronoun, simply recast the question as 2 statement seth questioning in toration-—Maild i ening what? Mage called Cedric wha? Nermal word order should make the grammatical funtion of the wh word cleat "There are adverb interrogates as well—twhere, een, ay, and hos We will, iscus interogative constructions in detail in Chapter 3. Wh forms also func tion as relative pronouns and these forms will be discussed in Chapter 5 Noun Phrases in Discourse Weve already discussed the fct that noun phrases allow us to “deploy” peo: ple and things in conversation. But of course conversation isa teow ay sleet End the kind of NP we choose in discourse will depend on howe much we think‘our hearer knows, IF we assume thatthe referent i no acessible to our hearer, we may use an NP containing the article eto introduce the referent into di course oF we might use a proper name with an accompanying explanation Thought a biyele lst ek Lust night met Derek Walcot, «famous poct. If the referent is identifiable to the hearer becsuse it has already been in troduced into the conversation or if tone of those things that fs uniquely identifiable even though it may be new fo the conversation, th article th or & proper noun can be used, The bike isa temon, Mr. Walcott invited me to his next reading. 1 an se the moon. che reforents not only identifiable to the hearer buthasboen talked about enough to become familia, we might choose a demonstrative determiner 1 really hte that ie That man i fabulous write, IF the referent of the NP isthe current center of attention, we mast often ‘choose a personal pronoun, 1 0 $9 oer fa lesan hor He has published both poems and plays The following chart is based very loosely on Grundel, Hedberg, and Zacharski (1993). Referent _—_—Referent is now Referee is Referens Introduced identifable to” identfale and current centr of tohearer hearer familar to hearer attencen met a ‘The poor guy This guy did't He looked homeless man was looking even havea extremely yesterday for food. coat on ‘old | Sue married a Buzz has This man 1 don ike boxer named temble is truly tobe near Barz temper, mean. Sue 6 Summing Up NPs are the actors and the influenced in human discourse, Without NPs there Would be no agents, no patients, no experiencers, no recipients. es no acc lent thatthe frst words that babies acquire are nouns. Our world Is full of things with physical reality and nouns allow us to refer to thoce things: But ‘whi NPs often reer to entities, they can also refer to abstractions and ever spostions The grammatical roles they play—subjet, diet object, indirect, ‘jt, subject complement, and abject complement-place NPs into 2 complex ‘elodonship with the vero phrase. This relationship wil be explore inthe next chapter