[Lexicog] Nouns

[Ron Moe]

I recant on the issue of parsers choking over spaces. I can see that a
parser could be taught to recognize 'hot dog' as a compound word, which it
really is. This doesn't mean that it is now easy to label 'hot dog' in a
dictionary. We would have to give some sort of statement like,
'orthographically two words, but actually a single compound noun'. It would
be nice if there were a short way to say that.

However I do not recant on my statement that single words and lexical
phrases are quite different. I will reiterate what I said before. 'Grits' is
not a noun phrase. 'Have a fit' is not a verb. If I want to pluralize a noun
in English, I add '-s' to the end. If I want to pluralize a noun phrase, I
do not add '-s' to the end. 'Grits' is not a good example since it is plural
in form and singular in agreement. (But that is another issue.) The plural
of the noun 'cat' is 'cats'. The plural of the noun phrase 'cat with a bushy
tail' is 'cats with bushy tails'. (The '-s' on 'tail' does not pluralize the
phrase; it pluralizes 'tail'.) The compound 'cat-'o-nine-tails' is not
plural, and the plural is not 'cats-'o-nine-tails'. Nouns and noun phrases
do not behave the same. Idiomatic phrases do not act morphologically or
syntactically like single words. The lexical phrase 'kick the bucket' is not
a verb word. The past tense is not 'kick the bucketed'. It is 'kicked the
bucket'. The past tense morpheme is suffixed to the end of a verb word, not
a clause fragment.

I do not deny that 'grits' in 'Mike ate grits for breakfast' obeys some of
the same syntactic rules as a NP in the same position:

It was grits Mike ate for breakfast.
It was cold, left-over grits Mike ate for breakfast.

But that doesn't mean it *is* a noun phrase.

And it is simply NOT true that all the grammatical rules that apply to a
single word or non-lexical phrase also apply to lexical phrases.

Mike walked up the stairs.
Mike gobbled up the grits.
Up the stairs walked Mike.
*Up the grits Mike gobbled.
*Mike walked the stairs up.
Mike gobbled the grits up.

Obviously, and I say it again *obviously*, we are dealing with two different
things. Idioms/lexical phrases/phrasal verbs (or whatever else you call
them) are functioning differently than single words. There is a mismatch
between semantics and syntax at this point. The mismatch gives rise to odd
syntactic behavior. We must not confuse syntax and semantics. For too long
syntax has ruled over linguistics. We must free ourselves from the tyranny
of the syntacticians. (Semanticists of the world unite!) (Don't worry. I'm
not a revolutionary. But I am quite serious on this point.) I frequently
hear statements that confuse syntax and semantics. I too find it difficult
to consistently make a distinction because I was brainwashed in my early
training to look at semantically based behavior as if it was syntactic (e.g.
case *grammar*).

We must remember that there are two types of lexical phrases--fixed and
non-fixed. The fixed phrases act like single words. In fact most (if not
all) of them probably are single words. (I'll make no emphatic claims here.)
If we wrote fixed phrases as units (e.g. 'ofcourse' or 'of-course') much of
the confusion would be avoided. A compound is a single word, so we should
expect it to behave like a single word, morphologically and syntactically.
(The expression 'compound phrase' is an oxymoron.) So we can assign a part
of speech to a compound or a derivative. Single words have a part of speech.

However the non-fixed phrases do not act like single words. Phrasal verbs
like 'gobble up' have rules of their own. Non-fixed phrases exhibit several
unique behaviors: (1) their constituent parts can be inflected (e.g. gobbled
up), (2) other words can be inserted (e.g. gobble it up; be in progress, was
still in progress; be in a good mood, be in a really good mood), (3)
obligatory constituents can vary but only to a limited degree (e.g. be in a
bad mood, make "somebody's" day, make my day, make John's day), and/or (4)
they resist being broken up by transformational rules (e.g. The news made my
day. ?My day was made by the news.).

Note that the head noun of a noun phrase can be omitted for pragmatic
reasons, just as most any constituent can be omitted:

I'll take the red apple, you can have the green __.
I'll take the red __, you can have the green __.

The entire phrase can be replace with a pronoun:

I don't want the green apple, you can have _it_.

The entire phrase can be omitted:

The red apple fell on the floor, and __ was stepped on.

So the notion of NP in syntactic rules is a bit fluid. But compare:

Mary had a fit and so did John.
Mary had an apple and so did John.
Mary laughed and so did John.

Mary had a fit and John did too.
Mary had an apple and John did too.
Mary laughed and John did too.

Mary had a fit and John had one too.
Mary had an apple and John had one too.
*Mary laughed and John had one too.

The same rules do not always apply equally to verbs and lexical phrases.
'Have a fit' is not a verb. It patterns with 'have an apple', not with
'laugh'.

Ron Moe

-----Original Message-----
From: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
[mailto:lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of
billposer at alum.mit.edu
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2006 12:26 PM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Lexicog] Nouns


Actually, Chomsky and I believe pretty much all generative grammarians
as well as many non-generative syntacticians would call "grits"
BOTH a noun AND an NP. As a word, its a noun, but when it appears in
a sentence it may be an NP by itself. Frankly, I don't see how one
could do otherwise. If you deny that "grits" in a sentence
such as "Mike ate grits for breakfast" is an NP, you miss the fact
that its syntactic behaviour is exactly parallel to what presumably
everyone will concede are NPs such as:

	"cold, left-over grits"
	"my grits"
	"the grits that he bought in Georgia last week"

Chomsky and his followers may have some odd theory-peculiar notions,
but I don't think that this is one of them.

Bill





Yahoo! Groups Links








------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> 
Protect your PC from spy ware with award winning anti spy technology. It's free.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/97bhrC/LGxNAA/yQLSAA/HKE4lB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~-> 

 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lexicographylist/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    lexicographylist-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/