Open AccessMore heads and less categories: A new look at noun phrase structure
Author(s) -
John Beavers
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
proceedings of the international conference on head-driven phrase structure grammar
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1535-1793
DOI - 10.21248/hpsg.2003.3
Subject(s) - determiner , noun phrase , determiner phrase , linguistics , noun , syntax , quantifier (linguistics) , computer science , semantics (computer science) , proper noun , natural language processing , verb phrase , nominalization , artificial intelligence , mathematics , philosophy , programming language
Much literature in syntax has assumed that all noun phrases arecategorically headed by the determiner or the noun, with well-formednesscategorial in nature. In this paper I develop a theory of noun phrasestructure in which both categories project noun phrases, arguing that thisbetter fits the indeterminacy of the criteria often cited for determiningheadedness (Zwicky, 1985, inter alia). The only categorial differencesbetween determiners and nouns are their semantics and selectionalrestrictions, and the conditions that determine well-formedness aresemantic in nature. Specifically, a well-formed noun phrase must havesome restrictive semantics associated with nouns coupled with someoperational semantics associated with determiners (e.g. as a generalizedquantifier), and from this I show how we can derive structuralwell-formedness. Thus the need for categorial well-formedness isnullified, providing an analysis with greater cross-linguistic import,being compatible with languages without determiners.