Syntactic constraints

As may be seen by looking at dictionary entries, the word class label of a word (noun, verb, preposition, etc) is a designation of the syntactic operation of a word. So, the label ‘noun’ indicates in a fairly specific way where in syntactic structure a word with that label may operate, i.e. as head of a noun phrase, as a modifier immediately before the head in a noun phrase. The label ‘adjective’ indicates that the word so labelled may operate as head of an adjective phrase, or as modifier after a determiner and before a noun modifier in a noun phrase. But in general these broad word class labels are not in themselves sufficient to specify all the constraints operating for individual items in the class: they refer to the class as a whole. Not all nouns, for example, may operate as noun modifiers. There is therefore a need to subclassify, particularly in the open classes.

In the case of nouns, then, a subclassification needs to be made into those that may function as modifiers in noun phrases and those that may not. Again in the case of nouns, a number of compatibilities with determiners need to be accounted for. This will entail a subclassification into count nouns and mass nouns, the latter being compatible with a ‘Ø’ determiner, some and the, and the former being compatible with ‘Ø’, a, the, some, many etc (compare butter and saucepan). Furthermore, some nouns may be followed by particular post-modifiers; for example, determination may be followed by a to-infinitive clause (his determination to succeed); affection by a prepositional phrase introduced by for (his affection for Lucy); regret by a that-clause (his regret that he had failed). This syntactic constraint also needs to be accounted for by subclassification.

In the case of verbs, a basic distinction needs to be made between those which function as the head of a verb phrase, i.e. lexical verbs, and those which have an auxiliary function. Auxiliary verbs need to be further subclassified into primary auxiliaries and modal auxiliaries, and according to the position they may occupy in the verb phrase. Lexical verbs, on the other hand, have to be subclassified according to the types of structure in which they may occur. Basically this involves the kinds of object, complement and obligatory adjunct that may co-occur with a particular verb, sometimes called the ‘complementation’ of the verb. For example, there will be a subclass of verbs like remember, which enter a ‘SVO’ structure, where the object may be a noun phrase (Do you remember Jim), a that-clause (He remembered that he was supposed to phone her), a to-infinitive clause (He remembered to phone her), or a wh-clause (Do you remember where I hid the key?); and which also enter a ‘SVOC’ structure, where the object is a noun phrase and the complement is an adjective phrase (I remember him bald) or a noun phrase (I remember him a young man).

This kind of subclassification obviously goes much further than the traditional distinction between ‘transitive’ and ‘intransitive’. However, this latter distinction is important from another point of view: part of the lexical information about a verb is its ability or otherwise to be made passive, or more accurately for the clause in which it occurs to be made passive, and the transitive-intransitive distinction represents this information. Transitive verbs are those taking objects, i.e. entering mono-transitive, di-transitive and complex-transitive structures, and this is a pre-requisite for the passive transformation. The notion may have to be broadened, however, to take account of the fact that some prepositional phrases functioning as adjunct may become the subject of a passive clause e.g. My chair has been sat on.

We have seen that to take account of the syntax of adjectives a subclassification into attributive adjectives and predicative adjectives is required, since some adjectives are restricted to one or the other of these two positions, e.g. mere to the attributive position (a mere boy), and asleep to the predicative position (the boy is asleep). A subclassification of adjectives also needs to be made in order to distinguish between those adjectives which may take complements and those which may not, and to indicate which kinds of complement are involved in each case. For example, ready may be followed by a to-infinitive clause (they are ready to admit defeat) or a prepositional phrase (they are ready for their meal); sorry may be followed by a to-infinitive clause (I am sorry to call at this hour), a that-clause (I am sorry that you are disappointed) or a prepositional phrase introduced by for or about (I am sorry for Jim, about the mess).

Adverbs, as we discussed earlier, are subclassified into intensifying and non-intensifying, the latter functioning as head in an adverb phrase and the former as modifier in an adverb phrase or an adjective phrase. One group of adverbs presents an interesting problem of classification. Compare the status of off in the following clauses: Jim jumped off the bus; Jim jumped off. The first of these clauses would be analyzed as: S:NP V:VP A:prep P, ie off would be classed as a preposition. The second clause would be analyzed as: S:NP V:VP A:adv P, i.e. off would be classed as an adverb. But consider The meeting is off, where off would again be classed as an adverb. But this case is different from Jim jumped off, since here off could not be completed with a noun phrase to become a prepositional phrase. In other words, in Jim jumped off the word off appears to be both adverb and at least potentially preposition. We can either assign off to both the class of prepositions and the class of adverbs, or we can create a new class of words, adverb-prepositions, which would include those which function like off, but not like to (a preposition only), nor like away (an adverb only).

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 785