Keywords - L322.3 F00

Intermediate Syntax

Week 3

Week 3: The Logical Structure of the Noun Phrase--Part 2.

• Phonological Form

• The phonological form is spelled out late
• All syntactic and morphological processes must apply first.
• These will be covered in next section.

• Irregular forms

• FOOT expands into two lexical forms (words): foot, feet.

• FOOT is a set of lexical features assigned to the lexical entry for foot.
• FOOT+[-Pl] is spelled out as foot.
• FOOT+[+Pl] is spelled out as feet

• The default for nouns (and verbs) is that the lexical form splits into a stem and an inflectional suffix
  • This might be considered a lexical process called Spell-out
  • The default applies to BOOK, for example:

(1)

• Singular nouns do not split into a stem plus a derivational suffix, with the exception of a few Latinate nouns: radi+us, radi+i.
• Irregular nouns like foot, feet do not split into a stem plus a morpheme.
  • Because the feature [±Plural] may be either [-Plural] or [+Plural], the lexical entry FOOT has two lexical items: foot, feet.

• Definiteness

• Operator

• Discourse item
• Real World Knowledge (the sun, the dog)
• [DEFINITE] (or [DEF])
• Demonstratives

• [+Dem]
• [+Close]

• Category: D (Det, Determiner)

• Nouns as arguments of number

• Number: [±Pl]
• Number = [+Bound, +Weak]
• [+Pl] morphemic form:

• default = '-s'.
• rare = '-en'.
• merge: mice, teeth, lice, geese, feet.
• unmarked merge: deer, antelope, sheep, elk
• plural only: cattle, police; scissors, pants, shears, tights

• Qu < object>

• Definiteness:

• [±Def]
• [+Def]

• [±Dem]

• [±Prox]

• [+Dem] = this
• [-Dem = that

• [-Def]

• What is 'a'?
• (Surprise)
• 'a' is a quantifier marked as [Def].

• English nouns are marked for two operators (for now).
  • definite, quantifier
• [D NULL] is [-Def]

• Count:

• [±Count]
• Lexically derived plural + singular.

• Quant

• Quant --> [±Count]
• [+Count] --> all definite numerals
• [-Count] --> SOME, MANY, MUCH, FEW, A FEW, SEVERAL.

• Spell out

• [+Def, -Dem] = the
• [-Def] = a/an, one, NULL

ONE	Spell Out	lexical features
Qu		category
+		Ct
--		Pl
		Def
+ --	one	Emph Def
-- --	a, an	Emph Def
--  +	[NULL]	Emph  Def
+ +	one	Emph Def

TWO	spell out	lexical features
Qu		category
+		Count
--		Plural
+		Quantified
+		+FV (Fixed Value)
	two

• and so forth.
• Qu and D are both operators.
  • Quantification is implicit in all English noun phrases
    • Yet to be discussed are the non-countable quantifiers (many, few, etc.)
    • No countable noun can be undesignated for the feature of quantification.
      • In Hungarian and Chinese, nouns can be unmodified for quantification.
  • Definiteness is implicit in all English noun phrases.
    • Every NP is either definite or indefinite
    • No NP can be left unmodifed for the feature of definiteness.
    • Generics are special problem, but are probably indefinite as they do not point to the existence of a specific object.
• The argument structure for the NP (as far as we are concerned) is the following:
  • D < Qu < N >> (or)
  • DEF < QUANT < OBJECT >>.
    • This is probably the more accurate representation.
• There are other operators, but we probably won't find the time to cover them.

course outline.322

This page last updated 3 OC 2000