Download noun - Chapter 4

Chapter 5
Nouns and noun phrases
Noun Phrases
NPs usually function as
 Subject
The students have a presentation.
 Object
The students chose a group leader.
 PC
She is the group leader.
 Complement
We were talking to a student.
*preceded by a prep
Properties of Prototypical Nouns
A. Inflection: Nouns typically inflect for number (singular/plural) and case
(plain/genitive)
student >students
plain
student’s>students’
genitive
B. Function: Nouns are typically heads of phrases.
C. Dependents: Certain dependents occur in NPs
Determiners
The students are preparing for their presentation.
Pre-head adjectives Careless students are fooling around.
(modifier)
Relative clauses
Students who have presentations are nervous.
(modifier)
PP complement
The loss of blood terrified me.
Nominals:
Subclasses of nouns
 Pronouns
 Proper nouns
 Common nouns
he, she, mine, myself
Fatima, Riyadh, Olaya
table, book, chair
Number and Countability
Number is the system contrasting singular and plural.
1.
Nouns with fixed number
A. Singular only nouns
Nouns which have a singular form but no plural
Footwear, nonsense, linguistics, italics, phonetics, news
The final /s/ is not a plural marker. The news is good. Linguistics is a great
class.
B. Plural only nouns
Nouns which have plural form but no singular
Alms, clothes, scissors, cattle, police
The police are helpful. The police have arrive.
2. Count and non-count nouns
Furniture, chair
One chair, two chairs
*one furniture?
3. Subject verb agreement
Their dog eats a lot.
Their dogs eat a lot.
Determiners and Determinatives
Det can be part of the NP
The determiner position can be filled by:
Determinative
The city is crowded.
Determinative Phrase (DP)
Almost all students
passed.
Genitive NP
Her child is sick.
Definiteness
Definiteness marks the NP as definite or indefinite.
Which determiners are definite and indefinite?
Definite: the, this, these, that, those, all, both, which,
whichever, what, whatever.
N.B.: that is a demonstrative not a relative pronoun
Indefinite: a, each, ever, some, any, either, no another, a few, a
little
Determinatives as Modifiers
N.B.- Determinative = category, Determiner = Function
Some determinatives function as modifiers
Determiner
The younger son had died
Modifier
I feel all the better for my
holiday.
Determinative Phrases (DP)
In DPs, the head is a determiner.
Dependents: other determiners which serve as modifiers
preceding the head.
Not many people turned up.
Complements
The complement of the noun that corresponds to the
object of the verb has the form of PP.
Verb + Object
Noun + PP
I criticized her decision.
My criticism of her decision made her
upset.
Sandy married Pat.
Sandy’s marriage to Pat.
The properties of the PP complements.
a) They correspond to object or subject NPs in clause
structure.
b) The choice of preposition is specified by the head noun.
c) The PP is obligatory because the noun makes little sense
without it.
The Fused head construction
The head is fused, or combined, with a dependent, and
forms a single word.
1. Simple
Kim has lots of friends, but Pat doesn’t seem to have any.
2. Partitive
Some of his remarks were quite flattering. (explicit)
I have two photos of her, but both are out of
focus.(implicit)
3. Special
Many would disagree with you on that point.

Simple
Kim has lots of friends, but Pat doesn’t seem to have any.
1.
The fused head can be expanded and retrieved from the
context. For example, any can be expanded by adding any
friends.
2. Partitive
Some of his remarks were quite flattering. (explicit)
I have two photos of her, but both are out of
focus.(implicit)
In
an explicit partitive, the fused head is followed by a
partitive PP complement. It is considered partitive because
it means “some remarks from the set of his remarks.”
In the implicit partitive the of complement is understood
rather than being overtly expressed. Both refers to both of
them.
3. Special
Many would disagree with you on that point
Many is understood as “many people” but this represents a
special interpretation because people is not retrievable
from the context.
Fused determiner-head
Simple
Partitive
Special
They sent six copies though I had ordered
eight.
They sent twenty copies but several were
damaged.
This is infuriating.
Almost all determiners can occur in this construction
except the, a, every, and what.
The, a, every
1.The is replaced by appropriate form of that.
The impact of war is more serious than the impact of drought.
The impact of war is more serious than that of drought.
2. A is replaced by one.
I need a pen but I haven’t got a pen.
I need a pen but I haven’t got one.
3. Every is replaced by everyone.
He inspected a dozen of cars but every dozen of cars was
defective.
He inspected a dozen of cars but every one (of them) was
defective.
Fused Modifier Heads
An adjective serves as modifier and as head at the same time.
Simple: Should I wear the red shirt or the blue?
Partitive: The youngest of their children was still at school.
Special: The French don’t take these things too
Seriously.
Modifiers cannot fuse with the head as readily as determiners
can:
Kim had hoped for a favorable review, but Pat wrote [a critical].*
Pronouns
Personal
Reciprocal
I like them. Your sister drives herself.
They dislike each other
We were helping one another.
Interrogative Who saw them leave?
What do you want?
Relative
The guy who helped us
The book which you recommended
Personal pronoun
1st person
I
we
2nd person
you
you
3rd person
he, she, it they
Gender
The masculine: used for males humans or animals (he)
The feminine : used for female, political entities,
personified inanimate (she) France has recalled her
ambassador.
The neutral: used for inanimates or for male and female
animals (it)
Inflection
Inflection
The personal pronouns have a great a mount of inflectional
variation than other nouns. In the first place there is a
distinction between reflexive and non-reflexive forms,
and secondly they have up to four case -forms.
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Case in coordination
Kim and I went over there.
They invited Sally and me.
Genitive case (dependent and independent)
I’ve lost my key
This is mine.
Reciprocal pronouns
Each other and one another.
They are similar to the reflexives in their complement use:
Lee and Pat cursed themselves
Genitive Case
Genitive NPs as subject-determiner
[The teacher’s car] was stolen.
They phoned [my mother].
Genitive vs possessive
The term ‘possessive’ is often used instead of ‘genitive’
especially for pronouns, but it is important to see that the
semantic relation between the genitive NP and the
following head is not limited to that of possession.
Consider these cases:
Her father, her infancy, her anger vs. her car.
Other uses of the genitive
Subject She didn’t approve of [his being given a second
chance].
Fused Head They accepted Kim’s proposal but not Pat’s.
Oblique The argument was sparked by a casual remark of
Kim’s.
Predicative Everything in this room is Mary’s.
Attributive They have just moved to an old people’s
home.