Now we're going to look a bit more in-depth
at the structure of these noun phrases. And
in particular, where it is that we're going
to put these elements, these determiners,
that frequently occur at the left edge of
the noun phrase. So elements like "the" or
"a" or "this" or "these" or "those" or "that".
A question that any syntactician would ask
about these is where exactly in the structure
they are. And there are two hypotheses that
one could entertain. The first hypothesis
would be to suppose that that determiner is
in the specifier position of the noun phrase.
One reason one might think that the determiner
is in the specifier position of the noun phrase
is that it is in complementary distribution
with these subject-type noun phrases, the
possessors inside the noun phrase which look
as though they should be inside the specifier
position. So we get things like "the girls'
admiration of the picture" or "the admiration
of the picture" and we see they're in complementary
distribution, because you can have one...
that is to say you can have one or the other,
but not both together. So you can have "Michael's
book" or "the book", but you can't have "Michael's
the book" or "the Michael's book" in English.
So determiners and these possessive noun phrases
are in complementary distribution, and the
typical explanation for complementary distribution
is that there's a single position, and these
two different items are competing for that
position, so you can have one but not the
other. So that would give us a structure where
the determiner is in the specifier position
of the noun phrase.
But if we just put the determiner on its own
in the specifier position of the noun phrase,
we actually have a structure which is not
consistent with x-bar theory as we've been
looking at it so far, because what our x-bar
schema has given us is structures where you
have the head of the phrase, it may or may
not have a complement, it may or may not have
a specifier, but those... the complement and
the specifier, where they occur, are phrases;
not just heads but full phrases. So we can't
just have the determiner as the specifier
of the noun phrase. One way we could deal
with just is just to say "this is a case where
the determiner, it's just a limit case, where
the determiner is projecting a whole phrase,
a whole DP, it just happens that it doesn't
have a complement and it doesn't have the
specifier, and so the whole phrase consists
only of the determiner. And that would resolve
the problem for x-bar theory. But it has worried
people that in all of these cases with these
determiners, so with "the" and "a" and "this"
and "that" and "those" and "these", all of
these we're only seeing the determiner; we're
not seeing it with any other material. So
that looks a little bit suspicious if we're
saying that it's a full phrase. And that's
one of the reasons why people have come up
with an alternative hypothesis about the structure
of these phrases with nouns in them.
The second hypothesis, then, that one might
have about the structure of nominals and in
particular as to where the determiner is,
is to say that rather than having the determiner
project a determiner phrase which is the specifier
of the noun phrase, instead, to suppose that
the determiner is the head that takes the
noun phrase as its complement. The effect
of that would be, if we're sticking with x-bar
theory, would be to say that the structures
which up until now we've been calling noun
phrases are in fact determiner phrases. They're
projections of the determiner. That determiner
takes the noun phrase as its complement. The
idea that what we've been calling noun phrases
up till now are really determiner phrases,
that is that the determiner takes a noun phrase
as its complement, and projects a determiner
phrase, has been called "The DP Hypothesis".
If that hypothesis is correct, we actually
have a very close correspondence between the
structure of sentences and the structure of
noun phrases. So in the case of sentences,
they're built up around verb phrases... we
have a verb which projects a verb phrase,
and then that verb phrase is the complement
of a functional head "Inflection" or "Infl"
or "I". In the case now of the DP, so in the
nominal domain, we have a noun phrase projected
by a noun. That noun phrase is then the complement
of a functional head, a D in this case, that
takes the noun phrase as its complement. So
the noun corresponds to the verb, the D corresponds
to I. We have a functional category taking
a projection of a lexical category as its
complement in both cases.
At this point, we should go back and consider
how we're going to analyse cases where instead
of just a determiner, we have a possessor.
We could say, or we might think of saying,
that well, we have evidence for the DP hypothesis
where we've got a determiner like "the" or
"this", but in the case of where we have a
possessor, that that possessive phrase is
in the specifier of the NP; that's how we
started out. But that would mean that where
we have the possessor, we have a whole NP,
whereas when we have the determiner, we have
a DP. That would mean that where we have "Mary's
collection of mushrooms" with a possessor,
that would be an NP, and "the collection of
mushrooms" with a determiner, would be a DP.
That would give you different categories.
But that's the wrong answer, because those
two cases have exactly the same distribution.
So phrases where you've got a possessor and
phrases where you just have a determiner,
overall they have the same distribution, and
we want to say they have the same category,
so we'd like them both to be DPs. How is that
going to work out in the case of possessors?
Well, one hypothesis here is to say that that
clitic "'s", the thing that expresses possession,
to take that to be a D. That would mean that
in the case of "Mary's collection of mushrooms",
that "'s" would be the D, where Mary would
actually occur in the specifier position of
the DP. This analysis would still give us
an explanation for the complementary distribution
for determiners like "this" and "that" and
possessives like "Mary's". The whole possessor
is not occupying the same position as the
determiner, but that little "'s" element is.
So you can have one or the other, but not
both, so we still retain that explanation.
It's also completely consistent with this
that the possessor doesn't have to be just
a word like "Mary"; that specifier position
is a position for phrases, and indeed we can
have full phrases there, so as well as "Mary's
collection of mushrooms" we can have something
like "My friend's collection of mushrooms"
as well as "Joanna's hat" we can have "the
Duchess of Cambridge's hat", so the possessor
is, as we expect under this analysis, can
be a full phrase itself, because it's occupying
a specifier position.
We've seen that, just as in verb phrases,
so too in noun phrases, it seems that there
can be arguments of the head. So, a verb like
"hate" takes two arguments: an experiencer
and a theme. And the experiencer is what appears
as the subject, whereas the theme is what
appears as the object. So in a sentence like
"the cat hates the dog" we can only interpret
it as "the cat" experiencing some emotion
with respect to "the dog"; this sentence doesn't
tell us anything about how the dog feels about
the cat. In exactly the same way, when we
have an nominal, we have something like "the
cat's hatred of the dog", and again that initial
noun phrase expresses the experiencer, it's
the cat that's experiencing the emotion, and
it's the dog that's arousing the emotion,
and that's fixed for those two positions.
In the case of verb phrases, we captured this
by saying that lexical items are stored in
the mental lexicon of speakers along with
the information about the phrases that they
select, and those phrases that they select
are also phrases that they assign thematic
roles to. So that information is found in
the lexical tree associated with each item.
So we've seen that there's an elementary tree
for "hate" that has a complement, we would
now say "DP", and that would express the theme,
the thing that is hated, and a specifier DP,
and that is going to be the position for the
DP which expresses the entity that experiences
the emotion.
Since we see exactly those same arguments
in the case of the nominal, we'd want to say
that the noun "hatred" also has an elementary
tree where we see the phrases that it selects.
In this case it selects the PP headed by "of"
as its complement, and then it also selects
a specifier which is what expresses the experiencer
in this case, that's where you're going to
find the DP corresponding to the person or
entity experiencing the emotion. So that will
give us an elementary tree for the noun phrase
with a specifier and a complement.
We've seen, then, to build up a sentence,
you construct it then from these elementary
trees. You've got the VP, then for the verb
"hate". It's got slots for DPs, so you'll
substitute arguments into those slots, and
then we also have the functional head I. It
has a slot for a VP, so those combine, and
you have the I taking the VP as its complement.
And then, as a final step, the specifier of
the VP moves to become the specifier of the
IP.
We build up the nominal in exactly the same
way, so you have an elementary tree for the
noun, it has slots for the arguments (in this
case a PP and a DP), so you put elements into
those argument slots. Just as the VP then
combined with the elementary tree associated
with I, so this noun phrase is going to combine
with the elementary tree associated with the
determiner, with the D. So, those will then
get... those will then combine and we'll have
a structure for a... projected by the D, the
D-bar with the determiner and the noun phrase
in this case. But now it looks like we have
a problem, because we've got the wrong order.
We've got "'s", and then the subject and then
the rest of the N-bar.
That is to say, we've got something like "'s
cat hatred of the dog", and that's clearly
the wrong order, but if you think about it
that's exactly the same problem that we had
in the case of the sentence. We had reason
to think that the subject of the sentence
originates in the VP, but that puts the subject
on the wrong side of that inflectional element;
it would come after a modal like "will", whereas
we've seen that it comes before. The way that
we solved that in the case of the VP is to
suppose that the subject of the VP moves to
become the subject of the IP, and we can use
exactly the same solution in the case of the
nominal. So we'd say that the subject of the
NP moves to become the subject of the DP,
and that then will give us the right order
for the DP, and it will also give us a tree
which reflects the selectional properties
of the heads in that structure, the fact that
that possessor noun phrase is actually an
argument of the noun.
