Basic English Syntax with Exercises

proper noun

1.3.4.2 Nouns

Another class of nouns for which the plural form is not entirely natural is the proper nouns, i.e. names. Again, there is probably a semantic reason for this: names name individuals and individuals come in ones. Once again it is possible to find proper nouns used in the plural with the right semantic context:

1.3.4.2 Nouns

In the first case, the plural proper noun is used because it refers to two individuals who happen to have the same name (Ronny Corbet and Ronny Barker in this instance). In the second, the family name Smith is used in the plural to refer to the collective set of individuals of that family and in the third case the name Einstein is not used as a name at all, but as a word to describe an individual with certain properties (high intelligence in this case).

2.1.2 Phrases

This could mean exactly the same thing as (7), on the assumption that Prudence is a postwoman and Dennis is a doctor. In this case the arguments seem to be the postwoman and the doctor, a sequence of words made up of a determiner followed by a noun. But what status do these sequences of words have in the sentence? It seems as though they function as single words do in (7), inasmuch as they constitute the same arguments as Prudence and Dennis do. Thus these two words seem to go together to make up a unit which is the functional equivalent of the proper nouns in the original sentence. This unit is called a phrase. We can represent this as follows:

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

The first consists of a determiner and a noun, which we have so far been describing as a head followed by its complement, in the usual English pattern. The second a pronoun, and we have claimed that pronouns are ‘intransitive’ determiners, i.e. determiners without an NP complement. The third consists of just a proper noun and the last just a plural count noun. These last two examples are puzzling: how can they be considered as DPs when they contain no determiner? Perhaps these are not DPs at all, but simply NPs. But if this is true, as all the examples in (1) have the same distribution, they must all be considered NPs. Thus, the pronoun should be categorised as a noun and the determiner in (1a) is not the head of the phrase, but some other element within the NP, perhaps an adjunct or a specifier (it is on the wrong side to be considered a complement).

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

If pronouns are determiners, this observation is accounted for. But if pronouns are nouns something else must be said to account for why they cannot appear with determiners. Some nouns do not sit well with determiners. In English, proper nouns are not usually accompanied by a determiner:

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

Yet, in some circumstances we can use determiners with proper nouns:

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

This suggests that there are two different empty determiners: one which is definite and the other indefinite. The interesting thing is that these empty determiners differ in other ways. The empty definite determiner takes only NP complements headed by proper nouns whereas the empty indefinite determiner takes only NP complements headed by plural nouns. This is perfectly normal behaviour for a head, as heads do place restrictions on their complements.