Граматика / English Syntax

We have so far looked at data which strongly suggest that the of-string in the review of books-NP is a true constituent, whereas the of-string in the lot of books-NP is not. We turn next to a piece of evidence that will clinch the matter. Consider (33):

(33)A lot of books were destroyed by the fire.

This example is very instructive. Notice that the verb were agrees in number with what is evidently a plural Noun Phrase. As the number of an NP is determined by its Head, we conclude that books is the Head of the NP a lot of books in (33).

Summarising the evidence we have amassed so far, we can say that there are three di erent processes (movement, coordination and clefting) which suggest that the sequence of books in the NP a lot of books is not a constituent. Furthermore, the observed number concord between a lot of books and a following plural verb leads us to conclude that books is the Head of the overall NP.

Notice that both (22) and (23) reflect the fact that of books is not a constituent, and that books is the Head. We now need to decide between these two analyses. One thing that will immediately strike you is that in (22) a lot of and in (23) lot of are analysed as constituents. This looks a bit funny, as intuitively we don’t feel these strings to be units. I will return to this matter in a moment.

Deciding between (22) and (23) is quite straightforward. Recall that we established that books is the Head of the NP a lot of books. If this is so, then the representation in (23) is automatically ruled out because Specifiers must agree with their Heads (cf. *those book, *this windows), as you’ll remember from earlier chapters. In (23) the Specifier is singular, while the Head is plural.

The correct representation of the NP a lot of books, pending further possible evidence, would seem to be (22), where a lot of is regarded as a complex Specifier. Additional support for this analysis comes from the fact that we can substitute many for a lot of.

An objection to (22), hinted at above, could be the fact that intuitively a lot of doesn’t look like a constituent. However, if we allow ourselves to view grammar in a slightly di erent way than we have been doing so far, namely as a system that is constantly in a state of flux in which shifts in patternings can occur, then maybe (22) becomes less strange. We could hypothesise that initially lot was the Head of the NP a lot of books, but that over time users of the language have begun to feel that a lot of somehow functions as a complex Specifier. A process like this is an instance of grammaticalisation, which happens when elements which formerly behaved like individual lexical items regroup and attain a particular grammatical function (e.g. Specifier, Modifier, etc.). All of this is speculative, and you

may want to consult the Further Reading section at the end of this chapter for references to discussions of this topic in the linguistic literature.

14.2.2A Giant of a Man

We now turn to a construction that bears some similarities to the one discussed in the previous section.

(34)a A giant of a man

b That idiot of a policeman c These nitwits of politicians

dThose geniuses of doctors

Because they contain two prominent nouns we will call NPs like those in (34) Binominal Noun Phrases (BNPs). I will refer to the leftmost noun as N1, and to the rightmost noun as N2. Just like in the construction we discussed in the previous section, it is not immediately obvious which of the two italicised nouns in the examples above is the Head of the BNP. In discovering what the best analysis is for binominal NPs we will follow the same line of argumentation as we did in the previous sections.

Let’s start by looking at some of the characteristics of BNPs. First of all, they are often used as negative qualifications, though not always, as (34)d shows. Notice that the NPs that can occur in this construction can be either singular ((34)a–b), or plural ((34)c–d). In the singular both nouns are singular and N2 is always preceded by the determiner a. In the plural both nouns are plural, and nothing precedes N2. Any plural determiner can precede N1.

Draw two trees for the NP a giant of a man. In one of these assume that a is a determiner, giant is the Head and of a man its Complement. In the other tree, again take a to be a determiner, giant of a to be a complex Modifier in the shape of an NP, and man to be the Head. Use triangles for the complex modifier and for the PPs.

The trees are as follows:

(35)NP

(36)NP

In (35) N1 is the Head and the PP of a man is its Complement. By contrast, in (36) N2 is the Head and giant of a is regarded as a constituent that modifies man. (I have assigned the label ‘NP’ to giant of a which may seem somewhat odd, but this problem is peripheral to our present concerns.) We now need to see which of the representations above fits in best with the evidence we can gather.

At first sight, (35) looks more plausible than (36). This is because intuitively we don’t feel that giant of a in (36) forms a unit. However, we shouldn’t be relying on our intuitions, at least not exclusively, but argue systematically for or against either of these analyses.

Before discussing the trees above further, let us briefly return to the phrases in (34). Recall that the issue that we are investigating is which of the two nominals is the Head of the BNP. A criterion for headedness that has been put forward by linguists is to say that the Head of a construction is the element of which the phrase as a whole is a kind. With regard to the BNPs in (34) it is easy to see that N2 qualifies as the Head in each case. After all, a giant of a man is a kind of man, not a kind of giant and an idiot of a policeman is a kind of policeman, not a kind of idiot, etc. So there is some initial evidence for an analysis of BNPs along the lines of (36) where N2 is the Head.

Now, let us take a closer look at (35). The syntactic claim that this tree structure makes is not only that N1 is the Head, but also that of a man is a constituent. We should now test whether this is indeed the case. Contrast the following sentences:

(37)*[Of a man], he was a giant — .

(38)The company didn’t announce the release of the record, but [of the CD] they did (announce the release — ).

Moving the of-string to the left results in ungrammaticality in (37), but not in (38). Again, as in (25) and (26), we notice a di erence between the ofstring in (37) and the undisputed Complement of the CD in (38) (cf. They released the CD). The di erent behaviour of the two of-strings is likely to be due to the fact that in (37) of a man is not a constituent.

What about rightward movement?

In the following sentences, try moving of a man and of a CD by the Pope to the right (cf. (27) and (28) above):

(i)A giant of a man was arrested.

(ii)The release of a CD by the Pope was announced.

The results are as follows:

(39)*A giant — was arrested [of a man].

(40)The release — was announced [of a CD by the Pope].

Again, the string introduced by of in (39) behaves di erently from that in (40). As we have seen, in (40) the of-string is without doubt a Complement, but not in (39).

Let’s now try to apply the coordination test. We get the following results:

(41)*We spotted a giant [of a man ] and [of a woman]

(42)We announced the release [of a CD] and [of a record]

In (41) it is impossible to coordinate the of-strings, whereas this poses no problems in (42). This again suggests that the PPs are constituents in (42), but not in (41).

Now, using (31) and (32) as a model, apply the cleft test to the of-strings in

(i) and (ii) of the previous exercise.

The results are as in (43) and (44):

(43)*It was [of a giant] that a man was arrested.

(44)It was [of a CD by the Pope] that the release was announced.

All the data we have been looking at show that in the second sentence of each of the pairs the of-string is a constituent. The ungrammaticality of the first sentence in each pair suggests that the of-strings there are not constituents.

At this point in our discussion it is beginning to look as though (35) is not an appropriate representation for the BNP a giant of a man. In other words, there are strong reasons for taking N2 to be the Head of BNP constructions. What other evidence can we find that could decide the matter? What about Subject–verb agreement when we pluralise BNPs? Recall that when

we discussed the NP a lot of books we saw that a following verb must be plural, cf. (33), repeated here:

(45)[A lot of books] were destroyed by the fire.

On the basis of this sentence we decided that books is the Head in the bracketed NP above. In the case of BNPs we cannot use this test because either both N1 and N2 are singular or both are plural:

(46)A giant of a man was arrested after the incident.

(47)Giants of men were arrested after the incident.

Consider next the following BNPs (all are attested examples, so no apologies for their political incorrectness):

(48)this oceanic barge of a woman

(49)another bitchy iceberg of a woman

I want to concentrate here on the Adjective Phrases that precede N1 in these examples. Notice that in (48) oceanic is a possible modifier for barge, but not for woman. However, in (49) the situation is the other way round: bitchy is a possible modifier for woman but not for iceberg. Our analysis of BNPs must allow for an AP that precedes N1 to modify either N1 or N2. Now, if we adopt a structure like (35) for (48) and (49) the trees would look like this:

(50)NP

Spec N0

NPP

(51)NP

Spec N0

NPP

What these structures encode is that in (50) oceanic modifies barge of a woman, and in (51) bitchy modifies iceberg of a woman. While (50) is not ruled out, the structure in (51) is clearly inappropriate because bitchy should modify a constituent which has the noun woman as its Head.

If we now adopt structures like (36) for our NPs in (48) and (49) we get the following results:

(52)NP

Here we get the right results in both cases: in (52) oceanic modifies barge, while in (53) bitchy, along with iceberg of a, modifies woman. Notice that both modifiers are sisters of N0.

Why can’t oceanic in (52) be a sister of the N0 woman?

The answer is that there would then be a semantic clash between these two elements, as the combination oceanic woman is meaningless. It appears, then, that tree structures like (52) and (53) make the right predictions regarding (48) and (49).

As a final piece of evidence in favour of an analysis in which N2 is the Head in BNPs consider the phrase below:

(54)a hell of a problem

Hell of a-BNPs are very common in English. If our proposed analysis of this type of Noun Phrase is correct then problem is the Head, as in (55):

This analysis is corroborated by the fact that in spoken English we can contract the sequence hell of a to helluva. Even in written English this contraction has been attested.

All in all, we have overwhelming evidence in favour of an analysis of BNPs in which N2 is the Head. Again, as in the case of the string a lot of in NPs like a lot of books, a sequence like hell of a in (55) seems to be an unlikely constituent. However, almost certainly this construction is in an intermediate stage of development, and our grammar should allow for patterns like (55), as there is supporting evidence for them.

14.3 Verb Complementation

In this section we will be looking at verb complementation, an area of English grammar about which much has been written, and about which there is a great deal of disagreement among linguists. The term verb complementation refers to the description of the Complement-taking properties of verbs: i.e. which Complements they take, and how these Complements are realised.

In Chapter 5 we looked at ways in which the grammatical functions (GFs) of English (Subject, Direct Object, etc.) can be realised. Some of these function–form pairs were quite straightforward, and needed little justification. Thus, the claim that Direct Objects can be realised as NPs (as in

I kicked [the ball ]), or as finite clauses (as in Everyone thinks [that she is lovely]) is an uncontroversial one. Other function–form relationships are less straightforward (e.g. that DOs can be realised as nonfinite clauses, as in the type of constructions we discussed in the previous chapter). In these cases it is often hard to establish which string of words in a sentence realises a particular GF. In Chapter 5 we made a number of tacit assumptions about these less obvious cases. Having acquainted ourselves in the preceding chapters of this book with the skills to set up reasoned analyses of sentences, we are now in a position to assess those early claims.

Before proceeding let us briefly recapitulate the subdivision of the class of main verbs in English. As we have seen, main verbs can be either transitive (i.e. they take internal arguments) or intransitive (no internal arguments). Because they do not pose any analytical problems we’ll leave intransitive verbs aside, and deal only with transitive verbs.

The main area of disagreement with regard to English verb complementation concerns sentences that conform to one of the following patterns:

Here are some examples for each pattern:

Pattern 1

(56)Jim wanted [to leave London].

Pattern 2

(57)My sister believes [Jim to be a loner].

(58)We persuaded [Jim to stay].

(59)My friends want [Jim to stay].

(60)The prime-minister allowed [the finance-minister to increase taxes].

Pattern 3

(61)I considered [Jim a dunce].

(62)I considered [Jim foolish].

(63)I want [the kids in the car].

Pattern 4

(64)I heard/made [Jim leave the flat].

Pattern 5

(65)I saw [Jim leaving the flat].

Pattern 6

(66)I had [the TV repaired].

If we apply Though-Movement the result is (70):

(70)Leave London though he wanted to — , he still loves the place.

(71)*To leave London though he wanted — , he still loves the place.

Again, only the verb and its DO can be moved. Infinitival to is left behind, and cannot also be moved. (Notice that these data confirm our conclusion in Chapter 8 that the infinitival marker to is not part of VP, but positioned inside ‘I’.)

The data we have looked at so far show that to leave London in (56) is not a VP-constituent. However, even if it is not a VP, it could be some other type of constituent. In (67) we analysed this string as a clausal Direct Object of want with an implicit Subject. Can we apply Passivisation, also a Movement process, to this DO? The answer is ‘no’, as (72) shows:

(72)*To leave London was wanted by Jim.

It now seems that to leave London is not a constituent, VP or otherwise. I use the word seems advisedly here, because it is important to remember that the constituency tests work in only one direction: if a string of words can be moved, it must be a constituent; if it cannot be moved, it is not necessarily not a constituent.

Let’s apply some further tests. Another major test for constituency is Substitution. We should check to see whether to leave London in (56) can be replaced by a proform.

Can you think of a way to replace the string to leave London with a proform?

The following sentence shows that to leave London can be replaced by the pronoun it:

(73)Jim wanted it.

The fact that to leave London can be replaced by it entails that this string is a constituent.

Taking stock at this point, we have found that there is so far only semantic evidence, and one piece of syntactic evidence (namely Substitution) in favour of the analysis in (56) in which to leave London is a constituent.

We turn now to the tests introduced in Chapter 12.

Construct one or more sentences in which to leave London is coordinated with to travel to Sicily.