The structure of noun phrase and verb phrase in english Trinh Ngoc Thanh

60 TRINH NGOC THANH THE STRUCTURE OF NOUN PHRASE AND VERB PHRASE IN ENGLISH NHÀ XUẤT BẢN ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA TP HỒ CHÍ MINH TRINH NGOC THANH, PhD THE STRUCTURE OF NOUN PHRASE AND VERB PHRASE IN ENGLISH VNU-HCM PRESS - 2020 INTRODUCTION It has been acknowledged that nouns and verbs are two major parts of speech (Lyons, 1968) as they are universal features in languages (Robin, 1952) and furthermore, these two categories, mostly by nouns, embed semantic information of sentences (Algeo, 1995) Coming from these claims, the writing of this book continues to investigate nouns and verbs at both the internal and external dimensions of phrase structure In particular, the research work in this book combines an interdisciplinary combination of grammatical, syntactic, and semantic aspects into the investigation of noun and verb phrase structure in English Another focus of this book is the presentation of the underlying theories in the system of noun phrase and verb phrase structure in English language In response to the above stated aims, the main research question of this book is that: To what extent does an interdisciplinary review in linguistics contribute to our knowledge about the structure of noun phrase and verb phrase in English? To answer this research question, the author employs the reviewing of recent linguistic research through which relevant linguistic terms and critical issues are covered in a selective scope Further than that, the author also selects explanations in combination with examples for the purpose of illustrating key linguistic theories in the interdisciplinary field of grammar, syntax, and semantics The main chapters of the book are structured as follows Chapter 1: Syntactic Structure defines syntactic structure from both linear and hierarchical perspectives and then provides readers with a review of movement and selection as two key syntactic theories within the scope of this book The major approach of this chapter is to highlight concepts which are considered as the essence in reviewing noun phrase and verb phrase structure in the following chapters Chapter 2: Noun Phrase Structure firstly deals with the noun phrase structure from the organization of constituency tests in order to reveal the notion of headedness and the extent to which headedness considerably determines obligatory constituency in two maxims: dependency and independency in function The next section of this chapter further analyzes the notion of headedness from the combination of structural and semantic evaluations The author chooses three case studies of binominal structure, the adjective noun phrase, and recursive principles of X-bar levels so as to crack out the distributional issues of NP structure at the internal and external dimensions The last section of Chapter further presents the acquisition of determiner phrase and structural ambiguity in relative clauses so as to link the areas of grammar acquisition and semantic interpretation with the specific context of teaching implication for L2 learners The purpose of Chapter 3: Verb Phrase Structure is to present the reconsideration of semanticity in verb phrase structure of English This chapter firstly presents a theoretical review on types of information for the argument-taking in verb construction and subsequently reviews the system of tense-aspect-mood and types in complex verb construction The selective types of verb construction in Chapter include (1) verb-preposition construction, (2) double objects verb construction, (3) gerundive nominals, and (4) infinitives REFERENCES Algeo, J (1995) Having a Look at the Expanded Predicate In B Aarts and C Meyer (Eds.), The Verb in Contemporary English: Theory and Description (p 203-217) UK: Cambridge University Press Lyons, J (1968) Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics UK: Cambridge University Press Robins, R (1952) Noun and Verb in Universal Grammar. Language, 28(3), 289-298 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I: SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE 1.1 THE LINEAR PERSPECTIVE: A GENERATIVE CONSTRUCTION 13 1.2 THE HIERARCHICAL PERSPECTIVE: A MORPHOLOGICAL-SYNTACTIC CONSTRUCTION 15 1.3 THE HIERARCHICAL PERSPECTIVE: A PARTIAL CONSTRUCTION 16 1.4 COMPONENTS OF SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE 18 REFERENCES .20 CHAPTER 2: NOUN PHRASE STRUCTURE 2.1 HEADEDNESS: SELECTION & OBLIGATION 22 2.1.1 SELECTION FOR HEADEDNESS IN NP 22 2.1.2 THE OBLIGATORY CONSTITUENCY IN NP: INDEPENDENCY IN FUNCTION 25 Replacement test .26 Extension Test 27 2.1.3 THE OBLIGATORY CONSTITUENCY IN NP: DEPENDENCY IN STRUCTURE 29 Movement Test: Wh- Word Question 29 Movement Test: Passive Voice and It-Cleft Test 31 2.2 HEADEDNESS: THE PRINCIPLE OF DISTRIBUTION 35 2.2.1 BINOMINAL STRUCTURE 35 Binominal Structure [NP1+of+NP2] .35 Binominal Structure [NP Head - NP Mod] 37 2.2.2 THE ADJECTIVE NOUN PHRASE 38 2.2.3 RECURSIVE PRINCIPLES OF NOUN PHRASE AT X-BAR LEVELS .42 2.3 CASE STUDIES 45 2.3.1 THE ACQUISITION OF DETERMINER PHRASE 45 2.3.2 STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY IN RELATIVE CLAUSE 47 2.4 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 48 REFERENCES .49 CHAPTER 3: VERB PHRASE STRUCTURE 3.1 SEMANTICITY: TYPES OF INFORMATION 53 3.1.1 S-SELECTION AND C-SELECTION 53 3.1.2 LINKING PROBLEMS 54 1st scenario: Proposition and the corresponding syntactic category .54 2nd scenario: Grammatical relations of semantic roles 55 3.2 SEMANTICITY: THE SYSTEM OF TENSE-ASPECT-MOOD 57 3.2.1 TENSE 57 Present tense 58 Past tense 59 Present perfect tense 60 Future tense 60 3.2.2 ASPECT AND MOOD 60 Aspect and aspectual coercion .60 Aspectual coercion by time-span adverbials 62 Aspectual coercion by time-point adverbials 63 Mood and modality 64 3.3 COMPLEX VERB CONSTRUCTIONS 65 3.3.1 VERB-PREPOSITION CONSTRUCTION 65 Maximal projection .65 Case-theoretical implication 66 3.3.2 DOUBLE OBJECTS VERB CONSTRUCTIONS 67 3.3.3 GERUNDIVE NOMINALS 68 3.3.4 INFINITIVES .70 3.4 DISCUSSION QUESTION 71 REFERENCES .71 CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION REFERENCES 73 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Adjunct and Complement in VP structure 18 Figure 2: NP right movement of A-verb (left) and B-verb (right) following the Empty Categorical Principle (Ei=Empty) 67 Figure 3: NP-over-VP view of his performing the song .70 (17b), it is the transformation of VP was at the summit from a predicate of state to a predicate of change, the result of which is the shifting into ingressive coercion (17c) and (17d), on the other hand, refers to the aspectual coercion of VPs with adverb of manner quickly Similarly, they are undergone the similar aspect of additive coercion or ingressive coercion respectively for (17c) and (17d) The VP ran the game in combination with time-span adverbial in ten minutes in (18a) indicates the completion of the event, and thus reflected the aspect of completive coercion through the transformation from a process predicate to an event predicate Meanwhile, (18b) expresses the combination of time-span adverbials with durative adverbials In this situation, (18b) reflects two transformations of aspectual coercion: (1) additive coercion of VP won the game (from a boundary predicate to an event predicate) and (2) habitual coercion of VP won the game in ten minutes for five months (from an occurrence predicate to a predicate of habitual states) Aspectual coercion by time-point adverbials Consider the following examples of (19) with adverbial expression starting with PP at: (19) (a) Julia ran at seven o’clock sharp (b) Julia ran to the summit at seven o’clock sharp (Dölling, 2014, pp 213) According to Dölling (2014)’s explanation, the two VPs in (19a) and (19b) have the shift from predicate of occurrences to predicate of boundaries The boundary in (19a) is defined as the beginning of running process and in (19b) it is the boundary from the beginning of running to the summit The shift of boundary-related notion in return creates the aspectual coercion of inchoative coercion 63 Mood and modality In short, mood refers to a grammatical category of lexical verbs indicating an emphasis of modal meaning in three types: indicative (e.g I will leave early), imperative (e.g Shut up!), and subjunctive (e.g An athlete must have a balanced diet, be she resting or training); meanwhile, the term modality emphasizes the usage of modal auxiliaries via (a) epistemic modality to express the truth of utterance or via (b) nonepistemic modality to denote speaker’s attitude toward the situation (e.g You must pay me back now!) and other related factors of the situation (e.g willingness, possibility, or ability) (Declerck, Reed & Cappelle, 2006, p 39) According to Palmer (2001), the system of modality can be further elaborated into the following categories: a Epistemic and Evidential: these two types are classified as Propositional Modality and both of them are related to the accuracy of the proposition The epistemic modality links with speaker’s judgment for the facts in the values of speculation, deduction, and assumption Meanwhile, the evidential modality is used as the means to indicate the sensory and reported evidences (the two main types) for the facts The Epistemic modality is marked in the English system while the other type appears in other language system (e.g Central Pomo) b Deontic and Dynamic (=Nonepistemic): these two types are classified as Event Modality The main difference between the deontic and dynamic modality lies on the external or internal conditioning factors toward the relevant individual Thus, deontic modality refers to the influence of external source on the aspect of obligation or permission while dynamic modality has the link with the internal concern of ability or willingness Both of deontic and dynamic modality are marked in the English system 64 3.3 COMPLEX VERB CONSTRUCTIONS 3.3.1 VERB-PREPOSITION CONSTRUCTION In the 1989 article, Aarts examined verb-preposition construction (or verb particles construction) in the structure of V+NP+PP in two types of verb construction: A-verbs as in the construction of small clause in the structure [VPV [IP (=Inflectional Phrase)NP+PP] and B-verbs as in the construction of [VP V+NP+PP] The main difference between these two verb constructions is the kind of theoretical model of analysis The structure of A-verbs follows Kayne (1984)’s binary branching model which is composed of NP as subject and PP as particle and the small clause (SC) functions as complement of head V Meanwhile, the structure of B-verbs does not take SC complement; instead, B-verbs select an NP and a PP in their sub-categorization According to Aarts (1989), the distinction between A-verbs and B-verbs has two implications in the analysis of verb-preposition construction in terms of constituency, namely maximal projection and case-theoretical implication Maximal projection This implication testifies the argument whether the element preposition functions as an independent maximal projection in the wellformed configuration of [V NP PP] in general One way to test its constituency is the addition of adverbs such as right and completely before the preposition (in the specifier position) The following set of examples in (20) and (21) illustrate the addition of adverbs before the preposition off, indicating the well-formedness of the verb-preposition in [V NP PP] against the configuration of [V PP NP] in (22): (20) (a) I cut the branch off (b) I switched the radio off 65 (21) (a) I cut the branch right off (b) I switched the radio completely off (22) (a)*I cut right off the branch (b)*I switched completely off the radio (Aarts, 1989, p 284) Case-theoretical implication The distinction A-verb and B-verb has a case-theoretical implication in identifying possible NP movement in the analysis of verb-preposition In terms of theory, the case-theoretical implication for A-verb and B-verb can be explained as follows First, it is the NP-movement following the Empty Categorical Principle and as a result, the NP in the construction of A-verb [VPV [IP(=Inflectional Phrase) NP+PP] and B-verb [VP V+NP+PP] is undergone the right movement as illustrated in Figure below (adapted from Aarts, 1989, p 284-285) Note that the right movement is from ei on the left branch to NP i on the right branch (=empty category) On the case-theoretical implication of B-verb, consider the following examples: (21) (a) I switched off the light (b) I looked up the information (Aarts, 1989, p 284) In light of Empty Categorical Principle, NP movement in (21a) and (21b) indicates that the movement of [NP the light] and [NP the information] from the empty category to the right branch corresponds to the S-structure of (21a) and (21b) This NP movement may be considered as Heavy-NP-Shift only when the heaviness in NP movement turns out to be a case-marked trace (Whitney, 1982) According to Aarts (1989)’s analysis, on the heaviness of caseassignment for NPi in (21a) and (21b), the replacement of [NP the light] and 66 [NP the information] with pronoun violates the judgment of grammaticality due to the reason that the pronoun – as being the unmarked case-does not allow the pronoun to be on the right of the preposition as in (22a) and (22b): (22) (a)* I switched off it (b)* I looked up it (Aarts, 1989, p 284) Figure 2: NP right movement of A-verb (left) and B-verb (right) following the Empty Categorical Principle (Ei=Empty) 3.3.2 DOUBLE OBJECTS VERB CONSTRUCTIONS Pesetsky (1995) hypothesized that the internal structure of two determiner phrases (DPs) in the double objects verb constructions can be divided into two types: one is case-marked object by the head V and the other is case-marked object by the null element G Consider the double object construction of give in the following example: (23) (a) Bill gave Sue [ construction] G element a book] [double object (Pesetsky, 1995, p 123) 67 There are at least three ways to distinguish two types of objects in the double object construction The first way is the inclusion of the caseassignment element to Pesetsky (1995) explained that the double object construction in (23a) has the null element G for the second object (a book) The inclusion includes the overt case-assignment element to (to Sue) before the null element G (a book) results in the to-object construction in (23b): (23) (b) Bill gave [G element a book] to Sue [to-object construction] The second way to distinguish case-marked object by the head V and casemarked object by the null element G is the process of passivization The passive voice of (23b) allows the movement of the case-mark object of the first object (Sue) as in (23c): (23) (c) Sue was given [G element a book] The third way to distinguish the two types of object in the double object construction is the relation between semantic roles and grammatical relations The assignment of semantic roles for NPs in (23a), (23b), and (23c) is as follows: (23) (a) [Bill: agent] gave [Sue: recipient] [G element a book: theme] (b) [Bill: agent] gave [G element a book: theme] [to Sue: goal] (c) [Sue: recipient] was given [G element a book: theme] All of these three analyses indicate case-marked object by null element G in the double object construction is consistently assigned the semantic role of theme The semantic role of case-marked object by the head V is recipient in the position of first object in (23a) and subject in the passive structure of (23c); meanwhile, its assignment is as goal in the to-object construction of (23b) 3.3.3 GERUNDIVE NOMINALS In the phenomenon of English nominalization, Zucchi (1993) 68 discussed the transformation of VP construction into NP construction of normal noun and English gerundive nominals (a syntactic derivation ing of – nouns) Zucchi used the verb of perform as the example in the following transformation of nominalization: (24) (a) the performance of the song (b) the performing of the song (c) his performing of the song (Zucchi, 1993, p 33) On the formation of (24a), the theoretical aspect of lexicon specifies that the selection and subcategorization of perform is neutral without any specification of [+N] or [+V] features while other idiosyncratic properties (e.g phonetic representation and semantic content) are marked with the specification of [+N] or [+V] features Under the neutral specification of [+N] or [+V], redundancy rule further indicates the change in the suffixance in the prediction that any word with this suffix is considered as N The other way to view the formation of (24a) under redundancy rule is the existence of two separate lexical entries of perform: [+V] and performance: [+N] with sub-categorization features, phonological representation, and semantic interpretation The formation of English gerundive as in (24b) is arguable in the paradigm between lexical derivation and syntactic derivation From the lexical derivation, the sub-categorization of the verb perform assigns the frame of [ NP] as the verb perform itself is transitive verb Meanwhile, the syntactic derivation allows the rule of [N V-ing into the semantic possibility of specifying arguments for subject of the verb The formation of English gerundive as in (24c), according Zucchi’s analysis, reflects the aspect of NP-over-VP view which can be adopted into the syntactic analysis of [NP [NP his] [VP performing the song]] The NPover-VP view includes two following assumptions: 69 (a) gerundive nominals are NPs (b) the NP node directly dominates a VP node (Zucchi, 1993, p.47-48) Figure 3: NP-over-VP view of his performing the song 3.3.4 INFINITIVES According to Pries (2006), the binding of infinitives with the head verb highly correlates with the determination for the case controlling of the action governed by the empty category in the structure of infinitives This determination considerably depends on the element of empty category known as PRO (pronounced as “big PRO” with the combined features of [+anaphoric] and [+pronominal]) Also, the determination for the case controlling for PRO is considered an empirical problem in view of the notion of government in Government and Binding theory (GB theory) Consider the following examples of infinitives: (25) Jill tried [PRO1 to be seen t1] (26) Jill never expected [PRO1 to be seen t1] (27)*Jill never expected [PRO1 to seem to t1[that Sue likes coffee]] 70 (Pries, 2006, p 6) In terms of semantic evaluation, examples (25) to (26) illustrate the assignment problem of corresponding semantic roles of Agent or Theme with the position of PRO1 The main reason is that the empty PRO may be ungoverned and thus allows the grammatical projection of either subject of the verb (Jill) or another pronoun into the empty slot The position of t1 refers to the problem of Tense-raising as the event variable for predicates in (25) and (26) Example (27) denotes the government problem with the case controlling for uncontrolled clause [that Sue likes coffee] and the evaluation of its ungrammaticality 3.4 DISCUSSION QUESTION Discuss the grammatical and semantic relations in the sentence structure of SVO in English Give examples to illustrate your arguments What sort of problems can be predicted in the subject-predicate relationship? Compare the transformation from verbs into nouns from morphological changes and from the nominalization process (i.e gerundive nominals) For instance, consider the transformation of the verb perform into (the) performance and (the) performing In English, it may be possible to use Simple Present Tense to refer the time point of t0 for past, present, and future events Can you think of some possible causes of this phenomenon? Consider the case of give something to somebody Does this structure represent double object construction or verb-preposition construction? Explain in more specific details REFERENCES Aarts, B  (1989). Verb­Preposition Constructions and Small Clauses in English Journal of Linguistics, 25, 277­290 71 Declerck, R., Reed, S., & Cappelle, B (2006). The Grammar of the English Verb Phrase: The Grammar of the English Tense System Germany: de Gruyter Mouton Dölling, J (2014) Aspectual Coercion and Eventuality Structure  In Robering K (Ed.), Events, Arguments, and Aspects: Topics in the Semantics of Verbs, (pp.189-226) The Netherlands: John Benjamins Kroeger, P R (2005). Analyzing Grammar: An Introduction UK: Cambridge University Press Pesetsky (1995) Zero Syntax USA: MIT Press Pires, A (2006) The Minimalist Syntax of Defective Domains: Gerunds and Infinitives The Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing Zucchi, A (1993) The Language of Propositions and Events: Issues in the Syntax and the Semantics of Nominalization USA: Kluwer Academic Publisher 72 Chapter 4: CONCLUSION This content of this book covers the review of noun and verb phrase structure in English language from the combination of grammatical, syntactic, and semantic perspectives It firstly reviews key terms from the representation of linear and hierarchical perspectives in defining syntactic structure Into specific cases of NP and VP in English, the content of the following chapters clarifies the notion of headedness in NP structure and the consideration of semanticity in VP structure While the review of NP structure in Chapter argues for an extension of headedness with related aspects of obligation and distribution in internal and external structures of NP, the coverage in Chapter places a focus on the centrality between subject and predicate through which this chapter introduces types of information, the system of tense-aspect-mood, and complex verb constructions Nevertheless, the content introduced in this book is limited in brief explanation of theories and discussion on examples from selective references In order to enlarge discoveries in the noun and verb system in English language, future review on the same topic can be drawn from the scope of large amount of text data One of these implementations the usage of corpus has been applied to investigate language change over a short span of time or traditionally conducted as in the field of diachronic linguistics The edited work of Aarts et al (2013), for example, focused on the implementation of corpus in three parameters: contemporary language change in the recent past, verb patterns and constructions, and corpora methodologies Their works covered a range of techniques for the purpose of revealing corpus findings regarding the radical change of verb system In terms of contribution, the writing of this book can be seen as an initial development in the field of syntax-particularly to be used in the 73 context teaching, learning, and researching the structure of noun phrase and verb phrase in English language This book should be used as a reference material for students at tertiary level and above as those who should acquire previous learning in grammar, syntax, and semantics In terms of teaching, the content of this book can be compatibly integrated with the syllabus which is devoted to teaching sessions on NP and VP structure Furthermore, the examples, explanations as well as theories covered in this course book are also suitable for creating linguistic exercises and examination questions in general REFERENCES Aarts, B., Close, J., Leech, G., & Wallis, S (2013). The Verb Phrase in English: Investigating Recent Language Change with Corpora UK: Cambridge University Press 74 ACKNOWLEGEMENT I want to express my special thanks of gratitude to Dr Tin Dang, Ms Dung Huynh, Ms Thu Le, and Mr Long Tran, members in the Book Reviewing Committee, in their feedback and suggestion for the initial drafting of this book BIOGRAPHY Trinh Ngoc Thanh holds PhD Degree in English from Tamkang University, Taiwan He is currently a lecturer of English at Faculty of Foreign Languages - Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Education His major research interests include Corpus Linguistics, L2 Writing, and International Relations 75 THE STRUCTURE OF NOUN PHRASE AND VERB PHRASE IN ENGLISH Trinh Ngoc Thanh, PhD Chịu trách nhiệm xuất nội dung TS ĐỖ VĂN BIÊN Biên tập NGUYỄN THỊ NGỌC ANH Sửa in SIN KẾ DUYÊN Trình bày bìa TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SƯ PHẠM KỸ THUẬT TP HCM Website: http://hcmute.edu.vn Đối tác liên kết – Tổ chức thảo chịu trách nhiệm tác quyền TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SƯ PHẠM KỸ THUẬT TP HCM Website: http://hcmute.edu.vn NHÀ XUẤT BẢN ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA THÀNH PHỐ HỒ CHÍ MINH Phịng 501, Nhà Điều hành ĐHQG-HCM, phường Linh Trung, quận Thủ Đức, TP Hồ Chí Minh ĐT: 028 6272 6361 - 028 6272 6390 E-mail: vnuhp@vnuhcm.edu.vn Website: www.vnuhcmpress.edu.vn VĂN PHÒNG NHÀ XUẤT BẢN PHÒNG QUẢN LÝ DỰ ÁN VÀ PHÁT HÀNH Tòa nhà K-Trường Đại học Khoa học Xã hội & Nhân văn, số 10-12 Đinh Tiên Hoàng, phường Bến Nghé, Quận 1, TP Hồ Chí Minh ĐT: 028 66817058 - 028 62726390 - 028 62726351 Website: www.vnuhcmpress.edu.vn Nhà xuất ĐHQG-HCM tác giả/ đối tác liên kết giữ quyền© Copyright © by VNU-HCM Press and author/ co-partnership All rights reserved ISBN: 978-604-73-7687-2 Xuất lần thứ Số lượng in 250 cuốn, khổ 16 x 24 cm, XNĐKXB số: 1552-2020/CXBIPH/438/ĐHQGTPHCM QĐXB số 118/QĐ-NXB, cấp ngày 29/06/2020 In tại: Công ty TNHH In & Bao bì Hưng Phú Đ/c: 162A/1, KP1A, Phường An Phú, TP Thuận An, Bình Dương Nộp lưu chiểu: Quý III/2020 Bản tiếng Việt ©, TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SƯ PHẠM KỸ THUẬT TP HCM, NXB ĐHQG-HCM TÁC GIẢ Bản quyền tác phẩm bảo hộ Luật Xuất Luật Sở hữu trí tuệ Việt Nam Nghiêm cấm hình thức xuất bản, chụp, phát tán nội dung chưa có đồng ý Trường đại học Sư phạm Kỹ thuật TP HCM Tác giả ĐỂ CÓ SÁCH HAY, CẦN CHUNG TAY BẢO VỆ TÁC QUYỀN! ... interdisciplinary combination of grammatical, syntactic, and semantic aspects into the investigation of noun and verb phrase structure in English Another focus of this book is the presentation of the. .. characterization of the head noun (Givon, 2001) while the modifier of noun- in the form of other strings of words22 is viewed as subordinates to the head in the internal structure of NP (Jespersen, 1924) In. .. the verb follows the arrangement of syntactic structure designating the position of NP In the system of intransitive verb sleep in English language, the NP following after the main verb (main