Before introducing further lexical categories, I will look at the relation between lexical and phrasal categories, using nouns and Noun Phrases as an example. In Chapter 2 we saw that an NP is a phrase that contains, and is centred on, a noun.
Their rather dubious jokes is an NP and it contains the noun jokes. But it contains words of other categories as well. Why does the phrase as a whole have to be of the same category as jokes? Why can’t it be of the same category as their or rather or dubious? The answer crucially involves the notion of head introduced in Chapter 2. Let’s revise this briefly.
In Chapter 2 I showed how rather modified dubious, rather dubious modified jokes, and their modified rather dubious jokes. At every level of structure in the phrase, it is jokes that functions as head. It is the category of the head word that determines the category of the phrase a whole. The other words are present only because of the function they (directly or indirectly) have in respect of the head
1The nouns are: Max, Adrian, daylight, West, clouds, chill, air, conversation, lights, steamer, thoughts, minds, men, Adrian, result, tiredness, sand, shoes.
LEXICAL AND PHRASAL CATEGORIES (NOUN AND NOUN PHRASE)
noun. So, you can think of their rather dubious jokes and their extremely subtle tactics as expansions of jokes and tactics respectively.
It is the head noun that determines the number (singular or plural) and the gender (masculine, feminine, or neutral) of the Noun Phrase as a whole. This can be seen by considering what pronoun could be used to replace the NP in a sentence:
[3] their extremely subtle tactics – they, them [4] their extremely subtle tactic – it
[5] an extremely subtle actress – she, her [6] an extremely subtle actor – he, him.
Tactics, to take just the first example, is the plural head noun. So the NP as a whole is plural, as indicated by the fact that it could only be replaced by the plural pronouns they or them.
Before I comment further on the relation between NP and N, here is a phrase marker of their extremely subtle tactics, in which I have filled in all the informa-tion about categories introduced so far:
[7]
For the topmost node, I have categorised PHRASE-a as a Noun Phrase (NP). In order to say that tactics is a noun, I have introduced an extra node, immediately dominating tactics, which I have labelled N.
Noun Phrases, of course, may contain more than one noun. But (with one exception to be discussed in a moment) only one noun in a Noun Phrase can function as its head. In each of the following sentences, first identify the subject NP and then all the nouns contained in those subject NPs, indicating which is the head noun.
[8] The man devouring the plums is grinning broadly.
[9] The comedy actress John met in the foyer seemed excited.
In [8] the subject NP is the man devouring the plums. It contains two nouns, man and plums, and it is clear that man is the head noun. The appropriate pronoun to replace the whole Noun Phrase would be he – a singular masculine pronoun – which is consistent with the number and gender of man but not with the number and gender of plums. In [9] the subject NP is the comedy actress John
met in the foyer. It contains the nouns comedy, actress, John, foyer. The appro-priate pronoun is she, a feminine pronoun that is consistent only with the gender of actress. Actress is therefore the head noun.
As the discussion of these examples implies, it is the head noun that deter-mines what sort of thing or person the whole NP refers to. The subject NP of [8] refers to a man – it is a man (not plums!) that is doing the grinning. In [9]
the NP refers to an actress – it is an actress who seemed excited (not John, or comedy, or the foyer).
I have mentioned that, in an NP, constituents that modify the head noun are typically optional – they can be omitted without affecting the well-formedness of either the NP itself or the sentence in which it appears:
[10] Their extremely subtle tactics confuse me.
[11] Their tactics confuse me.
[12] Tactics confuse me.
The question that I want to raise here concerns sentence [12]. On the one hand, I have said that tactics is a noun. On the other hand I’ve said that, wherever poss-ible, sentences should be analysed into a two-part, NP + VP, structure. Clearly, the VP is confuse me. But this seems to suggest that tactics is the NP – i.e. a full Noun Phrase. In [12] then, is tactics just a noun, or is it a full Noun Phrase?
There might seem to be a conflict here. The same apparent conflict crops up with proper nouns, which generally don’t appear with modifiers, as in [13]:
[13] Max confuses me.
In [13], is Max just a noun or is it a full NP? Think about this question before reading further. Can you think of any way of resolving the conflict?
As suggested, the conflict is only apparent. We don’t have to choose between these alternatives. Max in [13] – and tactics in [12] – is both a Noun and a full NP. In saying this, I am allowing that a Noun Phrase can consist simply of a head noun. If we say that an NP consists of a (head) noun plus its modifiers, and if modifiers are typically optional, it follows automatically that NPs can consist just of a head Noun.
As regards proper nouns – i.e. names (e.g. Max) – these do not, as names, admit of any modification. They are full NPs in their right. So I shall represent names as in [14]
[14]
LEXICAL AND PHRASAL CATEGORIES (NOUN AND NOUN PHRASE)
Some further remarks may help to clarify this point. I have mentioned that pronouns stand in place of full NPs. Just as we can replace the subject NPs of [10] and [11] by they, so we can replace the subject NPs of [12] and [13] by pronouns (they and he respectively). On the other hand, if you try replacing a simple noun (as opposed to a full NP) with a pronoun, you will get very odd results. Consider again
[15] [The ducks] are paddling away.
The ducks is an NP and it contains the noun ducks. Only the whole NP can be replaced by a pronoun (as in [16]), not the simple noun ducks (see [17]):
[16] They are paddling away.
[17] *The they are paddling away.
This clearly shows that simple nouns as such cannot be replaced by a pronoun.
Since tactics in [12] and Max in [13] can be replaced by pronouns, they must be analysed as being full NPs as well as simple nouns.
In [16] we see that the pronoun they has assumed the position and function of a full NP. So they is itself an example of a one-word NP. It is a pronoun and pronouns are in themselves complete NPs. In terms of a phrase marker it would be represented as in [18].
[18]
(The subject NP of [12] – tactics – is neither a name nor a pronoun, so it will receive a different treatment, for reasons explained in Chapter 7.)
Now decide whether tactics in [10] – Their extremely subtle tactics confuse me – is a full NP or not.
By the pronoun test, it is not a full NP: *Their extremely subtle they confused me is ungrammatical. An NP consists of a simple noun and its modifiers. Their and extremely subtle are the modifiers and tactics is the (simple) noun within the NP.
The discussion illustrates the close relation between the function of subject and the phrasal category of NP. In [12] and [13] tactics and Max are functioning as subjects. They therefore count as full NPs in those sentences. But in Their tactics confuse me, it is the whole phrase (their tactics) that’s functioning as the subject, not the simple noun tactics itself; tactics there is just a constituent (albeit the central constituent) of the phrase functioning as subject.
So, more generally, when single words have the functions that full phrases have, we need to treat them as full phrases of the appropriate category. In fact,
I opened Chapter 2 by discussing a sentence that consisted of two one-word phrases, namely Ducks paddle, where ducks is a simple noun that counts also as the subject NP, and paddle is a verb that counts as a VP. The simple verb paddle counts as a full VP in that sentence because it functions, by itself, as a complete predicate.
The idea of one-word phrases sometimes causes difficulty because words are traditionally contrasted with phrases. After all, words are just words, but phrases are sequences, or strings, of words. However, in this context at least, it is necessary to understand ‘word-sequence/string’ as meaning ‘a sequence/string of one or more words’.