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On the Structure of English Partitive NPs and Agreement*
Jong-Bok Kim
(Kyung Hee University)
Syntactic and semantic complexities of English partitive constructions
have given us many troubles in understanding English NP structures. The paper begins with the classification of partitive NPs into two types based on agreement factors and claims that enriched information on lexical entries can provide feasible generalizations for such constructions while capturing their syntactic and semantic properties in a systematic way. Rather than resorting to ad-hoc syntactic operations such as movement, the paper tries to show that the present lexicalist analysis can provide a viable alternative for the constructions in question.
Key words: partitive, agreement, HPSG, measure noun, floating quantifier, preposition, extraposition
1. Introduction
The complexity of the English partitive noun phrases, typically consisting of
* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 6th Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics Conference from July 30 to August 1, 2001, Jeju National University. I appreciate the participants of the conference for their constructive criticisms and comments. I am also grateful to Chung Chan, Sae-Youn Cho, Yongjun Jang, Yae-Shiek Lee, William O'grady, among others for comments and suggestions. Two anonymous reviewers also deserve special thanks for the criticisms and suggestions that helped improve the quality of the paper significantly. All misinterpretations and errors are of course mine.
Jong-Bok Kim310
a count noun phrase followed by of-NP, has provided challenges to generative
grammars. The two main research issues that are of concern, in particular, are
agreement and syntactic structure:
(1) Agreement:
a. Most of the people *appreciates/appreciate the complications of the
situation.
b. If no one at this time *answer/answers the door, just move along.
c. At least half of the participants *considers/consider the lectures very
informative.
d. All of the soda *were/was drunk by the little children.
e. Neither of the teams *have/has won any prizes yet.
f. Despite our best efforts, most of the work still *need/needs to be
done.
(2) Structure of the partitive NPs:
a. One of *students/the students came to see me last night.
b. Some of wire/*the wire has been stolen last night.
c. Some of *many problems/the many problems have been solved by the
students, but not all.
d. The teacher could recognize neither of *students/the students.
e. The team examined each of *the suggestion/the suggestions thor-
oughly.
The data in (1) suggest that the seemlingly syntactic heads such as most, no
one, half, all, and most are not the sole determiner in deciding the verb
agreement. It appears that these nouns are ‘number transparent’ in that they
allow the number of the oblique partitive NP (after of) to percolate up to
determine the number of the whole NP. In addition, the examples in (2) tell us
On the Structure of English Partitive NPs and Agreement 311
that the partitive NP seems to require a specific type of noun phrase after the
preposition of, either due to syntactic or semantic reasons. The goal of this
paper is to present a grammar of English partitive NP constructions that can
account for such complex properties in these constructions. The grammatical
framework this paper adopts is a lexicalist, constraint-based one that posits no
movement operations but allows rich lexical information in a systematic way.
2. Two Types of NPs
In English there are two main types of NPs: simple NPs and partitive NPs
given in (3) and (4).
(3) a. some objections
b. most students
c. all students
d. much worry
e. many students
f. neither cars
(4) a. some of the objections
b. most of the students
c. all of the students
d. much of her worry
e. many of the students
f. neither of the cars
As in (4), the partitive phrases have the quantifiers followed by of NP phrase,
designating a set out of which certain individuals are selected. In terms of
Jong-Bok Kim312
semantics, these partitive NPs in (4) are no different from simple NPs in (3).
This semantic reason led traditional grammarians (cf. Jackendoff 1968, Selkirk
1977, Chomsky 1970, Bresnan 1973) to link the two constructions by
transformation operations. For example, within transformation analyses such as
that of Jackendoff (1968), the noun following of is the head of the construction,
and the quantifier occupies the prearticle position as illustrated in (5). The
preposition of is then obligatorily inserted if the article is definite:
(5) NP
Det N
Prearticle Art students ⇒ several of the students
Several the
In a similar spirit, Jackendoff (1977) posits a null PRO to explain why
nothing (e.g. adjectives) can precede quantifiers. His assumed structure is given
in (6):
(6) NP
Q N'
many N PP
PRO of the men
As we can observe here, these syntax-based approaches posit otherwise
On the Structure of English Partitive NPs and Agreement 313
unmotivated abstract elements such as PRO and complex structures. We believe
such an analysis makes the grammar more complicated, missing various
generalizations we discuss in what follows. This paper tries to provide simpler
and more intuitive syntactic structures of English partitive NPs that adopt no
such transformational tools. The paper will show us that a simple analysis of
agreement in partitive NP constructions is possible if we adopt more
fine-grained theory of lexicon.
3. Base-Generation or Transformation?
Let us first discuss issues in deriving partitive phrases from simple NPs
through transformation mechanisms. As noted by Selkirk (1977), such an
approach misses clear contrasts between the two constructions.1
1. An anonymous reviewer points out that it is rather unfair to refute transformational analyses if we adopt a DP anlaysis. The reviewer suggests that within a DP analysis, the partitive pronoun some selects [PP [of [DP the boys]]] whereas the determiner some selects an NP (see (31) and (43) also):
(i) a. [some [NP boy]]b. [some [PP [of [DP the boys]]]]
The present analysis also does not claim that there is a direct relationship between such examples. The only conjecture we make is a correlation between partitive pronouns in (ii)a and pure pronouns in (ii)b:
(ii) a. Some of the students came home.b. Many of the students came home, but some still did not.
Even within such a DP analysis, we need to have a theory that account for how the partitive some in (i)b requires a PP whose FORM value is of and this preposition selects a DP. If this is the generalization we need to capture, we need a system in which some can refer to
Jong-Bok Kim314
First, the lower NP in partitive phrases must be definite and also in the
of-phrase no quantification NP is allowed as in (7):
(7) a. Each student vs. *Each of students
b. Some problems vs. *some of many problems/*all of some men
Second, not all determiners with a quantificational force can appear in
partitive constructions. As illustrated in (8), determiners such as the, every and
no cannot occupy the first position:
(8) a. *the of the students vs. the students
b. *every of his ideas vs. every idea
c. *no of your book vs. no book
Third, the simple NPs and partitive NPs have different restrictions on the
semantic head. Observe the contrast between (9) and (10) (Data from Baker
1989):
(9) a. She doesn't believe much of that story.
b. We listened to as little of his speech as possible.
c. How much of the frescoes did the flood damage?
d. I read some of the book.
(10) a. *She doesn't believe much story.
b. *We listened to as little speech as possible.
c. *How much frescoes did the flood damage?
its complement's daughter the boys in (i)b without violating the ‘locality condition’. The present analysis can be taken to be a syntactic attempt to solve such an issue within a lexicalist framework, not refuting other possible transformation analyses though there are few to refer to.
On the Structure of English Partitive NPs and Agreement 315
d. *I read some book.
The partitive constructions in (9) allow a mass, non-count, quantifier such as
much, little and some to cooccur with a lower of-NP containing a singular count
noun. But as shown in (10), the same elements serving as determiners cannot
precede such nouns.
Another issue concerns lexical idiosyncrasies, as noted in Selkirk (1977):
(11) a. One of the people was dying of thirst.
b. Many of the people were dying of thirst.
(12) a. *One people was dying of thirst.
b. Many people were dying of thirst.
The partitives can be headed by quantifiers one and many as shown in (11) and
(12). However, unlike many, the numeral one cannot serve as a determiner
when the head noun is collective as in (12)a.
Extraposition also shows another difference between simple NPs and partitive
NPs. Observe the contrast in (13) and (14):
(13) a. How many of the answers [to this classical mechanical problem] have
been found?
b. *How many of the answers have been found [to this classical
mechanical problem]?
(14) a. How many answers [to this classical mechanical problem] have been
found?
b. How many answers have been found [to this classical mechanical
problem]?
Jong-Bok Kim316
In both partitive and simple constructions, the PP to this classical mechanical
problem serves as the complement of answers. The difference emerges when we
see that the partitive construction does not allow this PP complement to be
extraposed as given in (13).
What the observations we have seen so far tell us is that we cannot simply
derive partitive constructions from simple noun phrases. The two constructions
induce quite different lexical and syntactic properties that no independently
motivated transformation mechanisms can capture.
4. The Structure of Partitive NPs with Quantity words
4.1. Analysis
The starting point of the present analysis is to classify partitive NPs into two
types based on agreement facts: Type I and Type II.
In Type I, the number value of the partitive phrase is always singular (cf.
Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman 2000).
(15) a. Each of the suggestions is acceptable.
b. Neither of the cars has air conditioning.
c. None of these men wants to be president.
In Type II, the number value depends on the head noun in the of-NP phrase.
(16) a. Most of the fruit is rotten.
b. Most of the children are here.
c. Some of the soup needs more salt.
On the Structure of English Partitive NPs and Agreement 317
d. Some of the diners need menus.
e. All of the land belongs to the government.
f. All of these cars belong to me.
As shown in (16), when the NP following the preposition of is singular or
uncountable, the main verb is singular. When the NP is plural, the verb is also
plural. In terms of a semantic perspective indefinite pronouns such as some,
half, most and all may take either singular or plural verbs, depending upon the
meaning of the of-NP phrase. If these phrases tell us how much of something
is meant, the verb is singular; but if they tell us how many of something is
meant, the verb is plural. Expressions in (17) also exhibit similar behavior in
terms of agreement.
(17) half of, part of, the majority of, the rest of, two-thirds of, a number of
(but not the number of),...
We assume that the most effective way of capturing both similarities and
differences between Type I and Type II constructions is to resort to the lexical
properties of partitive nouns. One obvious similarity of the two types is that
they are pronouns serving as the head of the constructions and in addition select
an of-NP[definite] phrase as seen from the contrast in (18):
(18) a. *neither of students, neither of the two linguists
b. *some of water, some of the water
This basic lexical information can be represented in a feature system of
HPSG as given in (19):2
2. See (26)-(30) for what we mean by the fact that a PP is definite.
Jong-Bok Kim318
(19) a. Type I: neither
HEAD pronoun
FORM of
COMP(LEMENT)S PP
DEF +
b. Type II: some
HEAD pronoun
FORM of
COMPS PP
DEF +
As represented in (19), both Type I neither and Type II some are lexically
specified to require a PP whose semantic value is definite.3
3. As an anonymous reviewer points out, there is of course a clear semantic reason for the partitive pronoun to select a definite NP: one cannot select things out of an indeterministic set. However, this does not mean that we can purely rely on semantics in the c(omplement)-selection. Though it is a general tendency that there is an isomophic relation between c-selection and s(emantic)-selection (see Grimshaw 1979), there are cases where such a one-to-one mapping relation does not hold. For example, ‘verbs of becoming’ show us that it is hard to rely on s-selection alone (cf. Pollard and Sag 1994):
(i) a. Kim *grew/*got/turned out/ended up a successb. Kim *grew/*got/*turned out/ended up doing all the workc. Kim grew/got/turned out/*ended up to like enchovies.
The contrasts here seem to be related to the lexical properties or c-selection of the verbs in question. Partitive constructions are no exception: they also need to refer to syntactic as well as semantic aspects of the lexical properties, which will be clear in due course.
What we thus assume is that the grammar needs to access to c-selection as well as s-selection information (syntax as well as semantics), as indicated by various peculiar syntactic properties of the constructions in question. That is, the grammar we assume in the
On the Structure of English Partitive NPs and Agreement 319
There are two things to be noted in order here: the feature DEFINITE and
the lexical representation. The reference to the feature ‘definite’ seems to reflect
a correct generalization in there and partitive constructions, in particular with
determiners such as a, the, and some:
(20) a. *there be [+ definite] N XP (Milsark 1977)
b. *Det of [- definite] N (Milsark 1977)
However, such a pure dichotomy between definiteness and indefiniteness runs
into a problem when checking with more determiners.
(21) a. There are *the/*all/*most/three boys in the garden.
b. Some of the/*most/*twenty boys are red-haired.
c. Half of the/all/*most/*twenty boys are read-haired.
Like numerals but unlike the and all, most is blocked in the crucial position of
partitives. One solution that one could take is to adopt more than just one
dichotomy as suggested in Barwise and Cooper (1981). They distinguish
between a weak-strong among determiners and a definite-indefinite contrast
among NPs. The weak-strong contrast is reflected in there-sentences, whereas
the definite-indefinite contrast is relevant in relation to the partitive construction.
Since the partitive constructions are only sensitive to definite and indefinite
distinction, the feature DEFINITE will do justice to the present analysis.
A second issue is, as noted by an anonymous reviewer, that if we simply list
every lexical item with its own information every time, we then loose
present analysis is the one that can refer to all the grammatical information (e.g., syntax, semantics, phonology, pragmatics) in the same parallel level (cf. Jackendoff 2002). We believe that a better, complete theory would be the one that can capture syntax as well as semantic properties of the constructions in question. This paper focuses on the syntax aspect.
Jong-Bok Kim320
appropriate linguistic generalizations, the generalizations about classes of words
with common behavior. In the present context, both types of partitive nouns
select a definite PP. One effective way of eliminating such a ‘vertical’
redundancy is hierarchical classification of words (cf. Flickinger, Pollard and
Wasow (1985) and Pollard and Sag (1994)).
The concept of hierarchical classification, introduced to avoid the ‘vertical’
redundancy, is essentially assigning words to specific categories (formally
termed), and an assignment of those categories to superordinate categories
(supertypes). For each sort, certain constraints are stated (the constraints are of
course declared in terms of constraints on feature structures). The constraints
each type carries correspond to properties shared by all members of that sort.
The technique of hierarchical inheritance further ensures that a type inherits all
the constraints of its supertypes. Thus, a word assigned to a type obtains all the
features and constraints associated with its supertypes, in addition to its own
constraints. Due to the organization of the lexicon in this hierarchical fashion,
we now can avoid stating redundant information for each lexical entry. That is,
the only information we need to encode in a lexical entry is the information that
is not inherited from the supertypes of that lexical element.
Interpreting this in the present system, we could assume that English noun
system roughly has the following hierarchical classification:
(22) Noun
common-noun pronoun proper-n
relative-pn partitive-pn personal-pn
type1 type2
On the Structure of English Partitive NPs and Agreement 321
Given this inheritance hierarchy, we then can move the general properties of
partitive nouns on the type partitive as in (23):
(23)partitive
FORM ofCOMPS PP
DEF +
type1 type2
Thus the common properties of the pronoun partitives will be inherited onto its
two subtypes type1 and type2 whose membership includes neither and some
respectively.
However, the two types are different in terms of agreement: type1 pronouns
are lexically specified to be singular whereas the number value of
type2pronouns is identical to that of the selected PP. Within our system, this
difference can be teased out in the hierarchy as in (24):
(24) partitive FORM of COMPS PP DEF +
type 1 type 2 HEAD NUM sng HEAD NUM α
COMPS NUM α
The only thing we added is the number value to the head value of the pronoun.
The difference between the two types is then just a matter of the NUM(BER)
value. Given this inheritance system, an instance of type1 and type2 partitive
Jong-Bok Kim322
noun will have the following lexical information, some inherited from its
supertypes and the other as its own constraints:
(25) a. Type I: neither
pronoun HEAD
NUM sing
COMP PP DEF +
b. Type II: some
pronoun HEAD
NUM αDEF +
COMP PP NUM α
If we represent this difference in terms of syntactic structures, it would be
something like those given in (26) and (27):
(26) NP[NUM sng]
N[NUM sng] PP
neither P NP
of the students
(27) NP
N[NUM α] PP[NUM α]
Some P NP[NUM α]
of the students
One question that may rise, as an anonymous reviewer pointed out, is how a
On the Structure of English Partitive NPs and Agreement 323
PP can have number values and be even definite. There are two types of
prepositions: those that function as predicates and those that serve as argument
markers (see Sag and Wasow 1999). As for the PPs headed by these markers,
as in the partitive construction, their semantic features are identical with the
prepositional object NP:
(28) a. John is in the room.
b. John gave a book to Bill.
The preposition in in (28)a is a predicative preposition selecting two arguments,
whereas to in (28)b is simply an argument marker. Put it differently, the
preposition to in (28)b just indicates what role its object NP (Bill) plays in the
situation denoted by the verb gave. Meanwhile the preposition in in (28)b
functions much like a verb, introducing new predicates and having its own
argument structure. Such a distinction can play an important role in binding
facts as noted by Sag and Wasow (1999):
(29) a. The housei had a fence around iti/*itselfi.
b. To make a noose, you wind the rope around itselfi/*iti.
c. Susani wrapped the blanket around heri/herselfi.
Once we accept the view that the preposition around can either an argument-
marking or predicative preposition, we could easily account for the variability of
binding possibilities observed in (29). It seems that around in (29)a functions as
a separate predicate, around in (29)b the preposition around just marks one of
the arguments of the verb wind, and around in (29)c can ambiguously be either
an independent predicate or an argument-marking, as represented in (30):
Jong-Bok Kim324
(30) a. argument-marking-p
PHON around
HEAD preposition
SUBJ
COMPS NP
b. predication-p
PHON around
HEAD preposition
SUBJ NP
COMPS NP
What we need then is to assume that the PP headed by an argument-marking
preposition will have the identical syntactic-semantic information to its object
NP, and to posit a general theory of binding in terms of argument-structure
roughly stating that an anaphor must be bound by a preceding argument in the
ARG-STR (argument-structure) (Sag and Wasow 1999). The argument structure
of the main verbs in (29) will look like the following:
(31) a. verbPHON had ARG-ST NP, NP
b. verbPHON windARG-ST NP, NP, PP [ANAPHOR+]
c. verbPHON wrappedARD-ST NP, NP, (PP[ANAPHOR+])
On the Structure of English Partitive NPs and Agreement 325
Thus, itself in (29), the object of a predicative preposition, is not an argument
of had. This explains why it cannot occur here. Since the verb wind selects the
PP complement around itself in (29)b, the preceding binder rope can binds this
anaphor. But the pronoun cannot occur here since it is bound within the same
argument structure (binding domain). In wrap, when the PP complement is one
of its argument, the prepositional object can be anaphoric. But when it isn't an
argument, the prepositional object can be a pronoun.
In this respect, we assume that of in the partitive construction is just an
argument marker, playing no semantic role. This is identical to the claim that
the complement PP in the partitive construction will have the identical
syntactic-semantic information to its object NP as represented in (31):4
(32) NP
N PP[SYNSEM ꊺ]
... P NP [SYNSEM ꊺ]
of .....
As an anonymous reviewer did, one could wonder how the present analysis
deals with cases where pronouns such as some and neither appear without the
PP complement or when they are used as a determiner:
(33) a. I ate some apples.
b. I bought lots of apples, but some are rotten.
4. The SYNSEM here means syntax-semantics. In addition, this idea could be in a similar line with the assumption of inserting the preposition of in the construction.
Jong-Bok Kim326
As in (33), there are several different usages for words like some, neither,
few, and so forth. The pure pronoun usage in (33)b can be easily predictable by
assuming that all the PP complement is optional. This relation can be easily
captured with a revision of the hierarchical structure in (20) as in (34):5
(34) pronoun
relative-pn indefinite-pn personal-pn
partitive-pn nonpartitive-pn
type1 type2
What this hierarchy implies is that indefinite-pn has two subtypes partitive-pn
and nonpartitive-pn. One main difference between the two types is the
subcategorization information: the former selects a PP[of] whereas the latter
requires nothing. Thus pronouns such as someone and anyone would be
instances of nonpartitive-pn. However, pronouns such as some, neither, most,
each, and so forth will be both partitive-pn and non-partitive. We then see how
the true indefinite pronoun and the partitive pronoun are interconnected.
4.2. Consequences
The present system makes the English grammar much more simple and in
addition bring us several welcoming consequences.
First, the system enables us to provide a straightforward account for the
5. But for the determiner usage, there seems to be no direct syntactic connection with the pronoun usage as we discussed in section 3, though a finer-grained study remains to be developed. Also see (43) for a simple lexical entry for the determiner usage of such pronouns.
On the Structure of English Partitive NPs and Agreement 327
contrast in (35).
(35) a. many of the/those/her apples
b. *many of some/all/no/ apples
(35)b is simply out since many requires an of-PP prhase whose definiteness is
positive.
Second, the lexicalist system also can capture the fact that the quantifier
pronouns affect the number value as well as the countability of the of-NP
phrase. One difference between Type I and Type II is that Type I selects a
plural of-NP phrase whereas Type II has no such a restriction. This is illustrated
in (36) and (37).
(36) Type I:
a. one of the suggestions/*the suggestion
b. each of the suggestions/*the suggestion
c. neither of the students/*the student
(37) Type II:
a. some of his advice/students
b. most of his advice/students
c. all of his advice/students
The only additional specification we need is that the PP complement of Type I
is plural, as shown in (38). As for Type II, no further specification is required.
Jong-Bok Kim328
(38) a. Type I: neither pronoun
HEADNUM sing
FORM ofCOMPS PP DEF +
NUM plural
Third, this line of approach can thus explain a clear contrast given in (39) and
(40) (cf. Baker 1989):
(39) a. Most of John's boat has been repainted.
b. Some of the record contains evidence of wrongdoing.
c. Much of that theory is unfounded.
(40) a. *Each of John's boat has been repainted.
b. *Many of the record contained evidence of wrongdoing.
c. *One of the story has appeared in your newspaper.
The contrast here tells that not all quantity words are acceptable with singular
count-noun. This contrast falls out naturally within our Type I and Type II
division resorting to enriched lexical information.
Fourth, the system proposed here also predicts the differences between simple
NPs and partitive NPs.6
(41) a. much advice
b. much of the advice
(42) a. *much story
6. The noun agrees with the determiner in the value of NUM as well as COUNTABLE (e.g. much furniture, *many furniture/*much students, many students)
On the Structure of English Partitive NPs and Agreement 329
b. much of the story
(43) a. *many advice
b. *many of the advice
The contrast observed here is easily expected, given the minimal difference
in the lexical information:7
(44) many and much as pronouns:
many mucha. HEAD pronoun b. HEAD pronoun
COMPS PP[def, plural] COMPS PP[def, nonplural]
(45) many and much as determiners:
many mucha. HEAD det b. HEAD det
COUNTABLE + COUNTABLE --
The analysis also can capture extraposition facts, given the general
assumption that the complement of a lexical head can be extraposed but not the
complement of the complement. Let us see the contrast here again (data
repeated here):
(46) a. How many of the answers [to this classical mechanical problem] have
been found?
b. *How many of the answers have been found [to this classical
7. As a reviewer points out, only when the feature COUNTABLE is positive, the NUM is plural. Such a relation could be captured by an underspecification mechanism. Since every feature structure needs to be well-resolved, that is, cannot be left unspecified, the current system needs to resort to a sort of type hierarchy that links the two feature attributes and states the relation.
Jong-Bok Kim330
mechanical problem]?
(47) a. How many answers [to this classical mechanical problem] have been
found?
b. How many answers have been found [to this classical mechanical
problem]?
As an anonymous reviewer points out, one could assume that many of the
answers is a strong QP (DP) whereas many answers is a weak QP (NP), and
that this difference induces the difference in the extraposition. Though such
semantic factors could play an important role in the possibility of extraposition,
the syntactic position of an extraposed phrase is also a key factor (Selkirk
1977):
(48) a. A review came out yesterday [of a new book about French cooking].
b.*A review of a new book came out yesterday [about French cooking].
The contrast here can be hardly relegate to the semantic difference between the
extraposed phrases.
The present analysis does not claim that such the difference in extraposition
is a pure lexical property: It is rather a misunderstanding to take the present
analysis to takes such a claim. We attribute the difference in extraposition to
interfaces among lexical, syntax, and semantic information. Let us see the
structural differences of these two examples within our analysis:
On the Structure of English Partitive NPs and Agreement 331
(49) NP
N PP
many P NP
of D N'
the N PP
answers to this ... problem
(50) NP
N N'
many N PP
answers to this...problem
As seen from the contrast in the structures, the PP to this ... problem in (49)
is much more deeply embedded than the one in (50).8
So far, we have seen that our lexical treatment provides us with an explicit
grammar of two different types of partitive constructions. In particular, it
accounts for their differences and similarities in a systematic way. The structures
projected from the lexical information also leads to an adequate explanation of
the constructions.
8. This is in line with the analysis of Akamajian (1975) suggesting that “no element may be extraposed more than one cycle up from the cycle containing it (where the cyclic domain is S or NP).”
Jong-Bok Kim332
5. Partitive NPs with Measure nouns
5.1. Facts
In addition to the two types (Type I and Type II), there is another type of
partitive constructions. These are partitive NPs with measure nouns. There are
several differences. First, partitive NPs with measure nouns, in addition to
allowing of-phrases with a definite NP, can be followed by an of-NP phrase that
contains a bare NP as illustrated in (52) (Quirk et al. 1985).9
(51) a. one pound of those beans
b. three feet of that wire
c. a quart of Bob's cider
(52) a. one pound of beans
b. three feet of wire
c. a quart of cider
Also measure nouns cannot occur in simple noun phrases (unlike partitives
with quantity words). They require an of-NP phrase obligatorily (cf. Baker
1989).
(53) a. *one pound beans (one pound of beans)
b. *three feet wire (three feet of wire)
c. *a quart cider (a quart of cider)
(54) many beans, some wire, much cider, no yogurt, one strawberry
Further, unlike partitive nouns, quantity words may not be preceded by
9. This is one main point in which measure nouns part company with quantity words: *many of beans, *some of wire, *much of cider, *none of yogurt, *one of strawberries.
On the Structure of English Partitive NPs and Agreement 333
numerals.
(55) a.*one many of the books, *several much of the beer,
b. one pound of beans, three feet of wire
What makes these types more complicated is the existence of defective
measure nouns:
(56) a. *a can tomatoes/a can of tomatoes/one can of tomatoes
b. a few suggestions/*a few of suggestions/*one few of suggestions
c. *a lot suggestions/a lot of suggestions/*one lot of suggestions
5.2. Analysis
In terms of agreement, these types are similar to Type I: The number of
measure nouns rather than that of the of-NP phrase determines the number
value of the main predicate.
(57) a. A can of tomatoes is/*are ....
b. Two cans of tomatoes are/*is .......
In this respect, I claim the measure noun itself is the head of this
construction and selects an of-NP as its complement. But unlike Type I, there is
no definite restriction on the of-NP complement.
(58) poundHEAD nounSPEC(IFIER) DetCOMPS PP [of]
Jong-Bok Kim334
Notice that our system again resorts to lexical information.
There is a set of words whose behavior leave themselves somewhere between
quantity words and measure nouns. These are words such as dozen, hundred,
and thousand.
(59) a. three hundred of your friends
b.*three hundreds of your friends
c.*three hundreds of friends
d. three hundred friends
(60) a. several thousand of Bill's supporters
b.*several thousands of Bill's supporters
c.*several thousands of supporters
d. several thousand supporters
(61) a. hundreds of friends/*hundreds friends
b. dozens of roses/*dozens roses
c. thousands of supports/*thousands supports
The singular hundred when used as noun obligatorily requires PP[of] as well as
a specifier whereas the plural hundreds requires no specifier though it selects an
of-NP complement. This lexical information is represented in (62):
(62) hundreds hundredHEAD noun HEAD noun
a. SPEC b. SPEC [ ]COMPS PP [of] COMPS PP[of]
It is hard to attribute such peculiar properties to any syntactic process. If the
grammar refers to the enriched lexical information that may be required
independently, we would be expected to encounter such lexical idiosyncrasies.
On the Structure of English Partitive NPs and Agreement 335
6. Floating Quantifiers
The final point we would like to consider is the so called floating quantifier
constructions such as given in (63):
(63) a. all four of your sons
b. all four lions
c. all of the senators
d. all the senators
(64) a. both of the alligators
b. both the alligators
c. half of the money
d. half the money
The free distributional possibilities of quantifiers like all shown in (65) have led
to assume the transformational approaches we have seen earlier.
(65) (all) The students (all) have (all) been (all) being (all) kicked out.
Rather than adopting a movement process, following Kim and Sag (2002),
we treat adverbs like all as a VP modifying adverb rather than a floating
quantifier. The distributional possibilities in (65) can be simply captured by this
as represented in (66):
(66) VP
Adv VP
all ......
Jong-Bok Kim336
Since all is lexically specified to be a VP modifying adverb, it can appear in
any VP position.
(67) [The students vp[have vp[been vp[being vp[kicked out]]]]].
One remaining position that requires an explanation is the sentence initial
position. Considering that only a handful number of quantifiers can appear in
this position, wecan simply assume that they select a definite NP.
This adverbial treatment also renders the grammar simple for adverb
stranding in VP ellipsis constructions. The fact is that an adverb cannot precede
a VP ellipsis position:
(68) a. Kim has often visited grandmother, but Bill never has.
b.*Kim has often visited grandmother, but Bill has never.
(69) a. Only a few of the teachers have check out books, but the students all
have __.
b.*Only a few of the teachers have check out books, but the students
have all __.
Though one could attribute the ungrammaticality to pragmatic factors such as
focus, the present analysis can offer a simpler lexicalist analysis. Given the
assumption that adverbs require elements that they modify as argued in Kim
and Sag (2002), there is nothing for adverbs like never and all to modify in
(68) and (69).
7. Conclusion
We hope to have shown that the complexities of partitive constructions
On the Structure of English Partitive NPs and Agreement 337
cannot be simply captured by syntactic operations that link simple noun phrases
with partitive constructions. The constructions induce various lexical, idiosyncratic
properties that cannot be derived from phrase structure rules or syntactic
operations. The information of their peculiar properties is encoded in our mental
dictionary, lexicon. In midst of these lexicon properties, grammar should provide
generalizations for learners too. The system we have presented here can both
draw generalizations as well as peculiarities.
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접수일자: 2002. 3. 31.
게재결정: 2002. 10. 14.