Basic English Syntax with Exercises

adjective phrase (AP)

2.1.6 Labels

There are also other phrases associated with the verb (VPs), with adjectives (APs) and indeed with every kind of word category that we have discussed (noun phrases – NPs, inflectional phrases – IPs, CPs and degree adverb phrases – DegPs).

2.2.1 The subject

Clearly some of these sentences have a special status in one sense or another and it is certainly not typical to find AP or VP subjects. They are included here however to provide a fuller picture of the set of possibilities.

2.3.1 Substitution

Pronominalising adjective phrases is more restricted than the other phrases we have considered. It appears that only APs functioning as predicates can be pronominalised and not those which are modifiers:

2.3.1 Substitution

As we can see the pronoun for APs is so, though as it is restricted to predicative APs and it also plays a role in Pronominalising VPs, we might consider it as a general pronoun for replacing predicates. Nevertheless it can still be used as a constituent test as anything that functions as a predicate is a constituent of one type or another.

2.3.2 Movement

The fact that the answer to (103a) is a preposition phrase and that to (103b) is an adjective phrase is an indication that these wh-elements are prepositional and adjectival respectively.

3.1.2 Endocentricity

In other words, a preposition phrase which behaves as an adverbial phrase is an adverb phrase headed by the preposition. Clearly this is something that would not be allowed by the X-bar rules in (1). Evidence favours the X-bar perspective and there is no reason to believe that just because something functions adverbially it is categorially the same as an adverb. For example, even when PPs are used adverbially, they still have different distributions to AP:

3.1.2 Endocentricity

As we see in (9), a PP modifier of a verb must follow it, while an AP modifier may precede or follow it, even if the two modifiers have virtually the same interpretation. Thus a phrase headed by a preposition has a different categorial status to one headed by an adverb, supporting the X-bar claim that phrases have heads of the appropriate kind.

3.1.5.1 Adjunction to X-bar

Let us take an example to demonstrate how this might work. We know that an adjectival phrase can be used to modify a noun, as in:

3.1.5.1 Adjunction to X-bar

Thus, the adjectival modifier is an adjunct of the noun. We will argue in a later chapter that adjectival modifiers follow the specifier of the NP and hence adjectival phrases are attached in a position between the specifier and the head. As we see in the following, this puts them as adjuncts to the N':

3.1.5.1 Adjunction to X-bar

The part of the structure containing the AP is recursive with an N' as the mother and an N' as one of the daughters. This means that there is room for more APs, as demonstrated by (36):

3.1.5.2 Adjunction to phrase

These clauses are not complements of the nouns, the nouns in (37) all being intransitive, and cannot be specifiers as they follow the head. Like AP adjuncts, they are recursive, demonstrating a clear property of an adjunct:

3.1.5.2 Adjunction to phrase

Again, we could keep adding NPs and relative clauses indefinitely, each relative clause adjoined to a successively higher NP. Incidentally, note that here we see that adjuncts may appear on different sides of the element that they modify. While an AP adjunct precedes the N', the relative clause follows the P.

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

Even if we claimed the determiner to be adjoined to the NP rather than the N', so that it would always precede AP adjuncts, which are adjoined to the N', as in (13), the non-recursiveness of determiners would remain a problem:

4.2.3 Adjunction within the DP

Adjunction within the DP itself is a rather limited phenomenon. We know that APs and PPs act as modifiers of nouns and adjoin within the NP, but these do not adjoin within the DP ever as can be seen by the fact that they never precede determiners or never modify pronouns:

4.3 Multiple Determiners

So what is the proper analysis of multiple determiners? The easiest case to deal with is the post-determiner. We argued in chapter 1 that these are adjectival elements which are undefined for the F feature and hence are neither functional nor thematic adjectives. The fact that they may be modified in the same way as thematic adjectives, however, indicates that they head APs:

4.3 Multiple Determiners

We can see from this that the traditional term ‘post-determiner’ is a rather misleading one as they are not determiners, nor even heads but whole adjectival phrases. Where is this AP situated? Clearly it follows the determiner and what follows the head is its complement. But determiners do not take AP, but NP complements. It must therefore be the case that post-determiners occupy a position within the NP complement of the determiner, the specifier position of the NP complement. Thus, we have the following structure:

5.4.2 PP modifiers

The other main modifier in the VP is the PP. This differs from the AP modifier in its distribution in that it always follows the verb. Thus a PP modifier has a far more restricted distribution than an adverbial one:

5.4.2 PP modifiers

The only way for (176a) to have been generated would be to adjoin the PP to the left of the lower VP. However, PPs never adjoin to the left, only to the right, and moreover this would necessitate the verb moving over the PP adjunct. As this is impossible for AP modifiers, we can assume that it is impossible for PP modifiers as well. In (176b), assuming the locative PP to be the complement of the verb, the only way for this to get behind the PP adjunct would be for it to move. And hence we can assume that there is a backwards movement that PP arguments may undergo which is similar to the movement that clausal complements undergo, as discussed in section 3.8. That PP complements may undergo such a movement is supported by the following data:

7.4.1 The position of the relative clause inside the NP

There are two possible adjunction sites inside the NP: the N' and the NP itself. There is some evidence that relative clauses are adjoined to the N'. For example, if it is the case that the adjectival phrase is adjoined to the N', then the fact that the relative clause can be adjoined lower still than APs indicates that they must also be adjoined to N' and not to the NP:

7.5.1 Topicalisation

So far we have claimed that AP modifiers of VP and of the clause are adjoined to various places inside the IP. There is another position in which we can find both VP and sentential adverbs which appears to be outside the IP altogether:

8.1.2 Clauses without IP

One argument which favours this analysis is that different verbs take different types of small clauses as their complements and what determines the type of the clause is the head of the predicate part of the clause following the subject. The verb consider, for example, takes an AP type and a DP type of small clause, but not a PP type:

8.1.2 Clauses without IP

The verb, order, on the other hand, takes PP types, but not AP or DP types:

8.1.2 Clauses without IP

Besides the problem that under this analysis the head of the predicate is not the head of the clause, a major problem facing it is that it forces us to assume that the inflection can subcategorise for a whole set of different complements, ranging from DPs to PPs. But functional heads do not normally display this amount of freedom in their complement taking abilities. In all the cases we have considered so far, the agreement head selects for a v/VP complement, i.e. complements with [–N, +V] features. But if I can select for DP, AP and PP complements as well, i.e. [+F, +N, –V], [–F, +N, +V] and [–F, –N, –V], this must mean that it imposes no categorial conditions on its complement whatsoever. This is not true as bare NPs, non-thematic vPs, IPs and CPs cannot act as predicates inside small clauses: