categories
NOUNS
modified by their [1a] and by dubious [1b]. Like jokes, tactics can’t be modified by rather [1c]. [1d] and [1e] show that tactics can’t occupy the positions or assume the same functions as either rather [1d] or dubious [1c]. In short, tactics and jokes belong to the same category, which is probably the decision you came to by intuition.
Now check list [2], making a note of what each string tells you about extremely.
In contrast to jokes and tactics, extremely can’t be modified by either their [2a] or dubious [2b]. And, in contrast to dubious, it can neither modify jokes [2c], nor be modified by rather [2e]. Extremely has all this in common with rather. More positively, in common with rather, when it appears in a position in which it can be interpreted as modifying dubious [2d], it’s acceptable. So extremely and rather have the same distribution and so belong to the same category. They both specify the degree of the dubiousness of the jokes.
The same considerations would lead you to assign subtle to the same category as dubious. They both specify some characteristic of the jokes. The odd one out is could. Every attempt to incorporate could into the structure of the phrase results in an ill-formed string, so it must belong to yet another category.
I have mentioned only categories of single words. These are called lexical categories. ‘Noun’ is one lexical category. But you know from Chapter 2 that phrases have categories too. These are phrasal categories (e.g. ‘Noun Phrase’). Notice that, since their rather dubious jokes is a well-formed phrase, and since rather and extremely, dubious and subtle, and jokes and tactics belong to the same categories, it is predictable that their extremely subtle tactics is a well-formed phrase as well. It is also predictable that the two phrases belong to the same phrasal category, and have the same internal structure. As at the word level, this allows us to predict that, as whole phrases, they have the same distribution – they will be able to occupy the same positions in sentence struc-ture and have the same range of functions.
Instead of talking about individual words and phrases, then, we need to make more general statements about what does and what does not constitute a well-formed expression in terms of the categories involved. But first of all, we need to name these categories. In the rest of this chapter, then, I shall introduce some lexical categories by name and give hints on how to identify their members.
Nouns
For the purposes of identification, it is best to start with a very traditional definition of what a noun is: a noun is the name of a person, place, or thing.
There are problems with this traditional definition. For example, ‘thing’ has to
be interpreted very broadly, to include substances like butter and foam (since butter and foam are nouns), abstract concepts like honesty and multiplication (since honesty and multiplication are nouns), collections of things like federa-tions, crowds, and cutlery, and phenomena like gravity and time (for the same reason). Suspicions, accidents, refusals, and facts aren’t obviously things, yet suspicion, accident, refusal, and fact are all nouns. On the other hand, while behind and ahead might be said to stand for places, they are not normally taken to be nouns. Nevertheless the definition is useful as a starting point. Here are some further examples of nouns:
January, Frankenstein, Bugsy, Jessica, Java, Portsmouth, gorilla, university, jam, theory, inspector, nationalisation, gremlin, joke, tactic, gallon, furniture, year, couple.
You might ask why I so confidently insist that suspicion, honesty, and January are nouns when suspicions, honesty, and January are not strictly either people, places, or things. In answer to this, you need to recall what the point of categor-ising words was in the first place. By assigning a word to a particular category, we make a general statement about its distribution – i.e. about its possible syntactic positions and functions. Honesty, suspicions, and January are nouns because they occupy the same range of positions and have the same range of functions – i.e. have the same distribution – as other words that obviously are nouns by the traditional definition. In the final analysis, then, it is distribution that decides the matter. So I’ll supplement the traditional account of nouns with some distributional clues to their identification.
In addition, every category of words has its own range of possible word forms (its morphological possibilities). Nouns are no exception. This too can be useful in identifying nouns.
One morphological identifying feature of all nouns is that they have a geni-tive (or possessive) form. For example, Bill’s (as in Bill’s pancakes or those are Bill’s), mud’s (as in the mud’s consistency), and joke’s (as in the joke’s punch line).
Other features are shared by some nouns and not by others. In other words, there are several categories of the noun category. I’ll mention four sub-categories of noun: proper vs. common and count vs. mass.
proper nouns are names, spelt with an initial capital. Examples from the above list are: January, Frankenstein, Bugsy, Jessica, Java, Portsmouth. These generally constitute Noun Phrases in their own right.
All other nouns are common nouns. What follows normally applies only to common nouns.
All common nouns can combine with the (the definite article) to form a Noun Phrase (e.g. the accident, the mud, the cutlery). In any two-word phrase (w1 + w2) of the form [the + w2], w2 will always be a Noun (N).
NOUNS
In addition, common nouns that refer to things that can be counted – count nouns –
(a) can combine with a/an (the indefinite article) to form a Noun Phrase (e.g. a stream, an accident). In phrases of the form [a/an+ w], w will always be a Noun.
(b) can combine with numerals (one, two, three . . . ) to form a Noun Phrase, and with expressions like several, many, etc..
(c) can be marked for plural. The regular marking for plural is the suffix -s (singular nouns lack this suffix). But there are several irregular plural markers:
singular plural
accident, accidents,
man, foot, analysis, sheep. men, feet, analyses, sheep.
mass nouns refer to ‘things’ that cannot be counted (so they are sometimes called non-count nouns). Examples are butter, foam, cutlery, furniture, honesty, grace. Mass nouns don’t normally display any of the above possibilities. They cannot normally appear in a plural form (*foams, *butters, *honesties). Nor can they normally follow a/an (*a foam, *a butter, *a furniture), numerals or similar expressions (*one foam, *nine furnitures). But they follow some (some foam, some furniture). In a two-word phrase of the form [some+ w], w will be a noun. Also, they combine with the.
The above remarks have been qualified by ‘normally’ because it is often possible to turn a mass noun into a count noun precisely by modifying it with a/an, or a numeral, and/or giving it a plural form. This usually involves a change of meaning: a mud, two butters (a kind of mud, two kinds of butter);
a beer, three beers (a kind of beer, or a drink of beer). (See also with an honesty that surprised me.)
Many nouns are both mass and count. For example, theory can stand alone or with some (cf. we need to do some theory) as a mass noun, but it can also be preceded by a and by numerals and be plural as a count noun (a theory, theories, three theories). Other examples are suspicion, egg, cake, and charity.
Proper nouns, because they anyway stand for single, identifiable individuals, do not normally have any modifiers at all or appear in a plural form. However, in special circumstances, even they can be modified by the or a and appear in a plural form: the Ewings (= the Ewing family), the Henman of Wimbledon fame, the Einsteins of this world, a pensive Holmes. Here they are treated as if they were common nouns.
Now identify all the nouns in the following passage. The list is given in the footnote to the passage.
As Max and Adrian were talking, the daylight was fading from the West. Clouds were gathering and there was a chill in the air. They decided to end their conversation.
Lights were shining from a passing steamer. Pessimistic thoughts filled the minds of both men, but Adrian pushed them aside as being merely the result of his tiredness.
Besides, he had sand in his shoes.1
If you included they, them, and he on the grounds that they stood for persons and things, that’s reasonable. They are pronouns. pronouns are used to stand in place of complete Noun Phrases (NPs). In the above passage, they stands for Max and Adrian, them stands for pessimistic thoughts, and he for Adrian. As you saw in Chapter 1, substituting single words like these is an important test for whether a sequence of words constitutes a phrase or not. In substituting a pronoun, we test more specifically whether the phrase is an NP.
Here are some further examples of pronouns:
definite pronouns: she/ her, it, I/me, we/us, you, they/them reflexive (definite) pronouns: myself, itself, ourselves, etc.
indefinite pronouns: something, someone, anything, anyone demonstrative pronouns: this, that, these, those
interrogative (question) pronouns: who, which, what possessive pronouns: mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs.