Linguistics/English 394
Spring 2007
Prof. Suzanne Kemmer
Rice University

Assignment 3

Honor Code: For this assignment, work by yourself. Don't discuss the assignment content with anyone in the class or outside the class until after the submission deadline. You can use the Huddleston and Pullum (2005) textbook and the materials on our course website, but don't use dictionaries or other reference works. Don't use the web either, except for Question 6 if desired. It would hinder more than help for most of these anyway.

Submit the assignment, as all assignments, via WebCT, so that we can log its submission. If you use a handwritten tree and cannot get it up onto your file for submission to WebCT, submit the assignment without the tree and indicate "please see hardcopy", and bring a hardcopy to class that Tuesday.

NPs: Definite or indefinite?

(Based on Exercise 4 from Huddleston and Pullum Chapter 5.)
State whether the underlined NPs below (in the contexts given) are definite or indefinite. If the NP is indefinite, state whether it is indefinite specific, or indefinite non-specific.

a. I left my backpack in the library.

b., c. No, go without me. I want to stay in and watch a movie tonight. It's a great old film I haven't seen for ages.

d., e. There were lots of morel mushrooms growing under the tree. I picked several of them.

f., g., h.
--Which question did you answer?
--We were supposed to answer both of them.
--Are you sure? I thought we were supposed to do either (a) or (b).


Functions and categories within NPs

(This is Huddleston and Pullum's Chapter 5, Exercise 5.)
For each underlined expression below, give (a) the function within NP structure, and (b) the category of the expression. Functions, for parts of NPs like these, include things like determiner, modifier, fused determiner-head, fused modifier-head, complement (and its subtype indirect complement), and adjunct (choose all that apply).

(Head and dependent are also functions but they are more general than the specific syntactic functions we are asking about here. Subject, Direct Object etc. are additional functions but they function at the level of a sentence as a whole, and we have no sentences here, only NPs, so we can't identify these clause-level syntactic functions.)

Categories found within NPs include things like Determinative, Determinative Phrase, Adj, AdjP, Genitive NP, PP, Clause (or S), and N. (These lists are probably not exhaustive.)

There are twenty underlined expressions in all. Note that some expressions we ask you to analyze come right next to each other. Separate underlining means separate expressions. Where the underlining runs continuously, that is intended as one expression, and you should analyze it as one syntactic category with one function. Write each expression and then your answer, so we can see which one you are answering.

her interest in language

a brick wall

the people who need most help

three Canadian soldiers

its many virtues

a very useful discussion of the problem

a person of impeccable taste

even the director herself

several things you forgot to say

a Vietnam war veteran

that large a deficit

NPs: Fused head structures

Draw a syntactic tree for the following sentence, which contains an NP with a fused head structure. Explain in words why the NP is a fused head structure.

Rineke Dijkstra's recent photographs, all of visitors to parks, are at the Marian Goodman museum. (Source: the New Yorker 2/12/07)

Adjectives: Which functions are possible with which adjectives?

(Based on Exercise 1 from Ch. 6 of Huddleston and Pullum)
For each of the following adjectives, decide whether it can be used in attributive function, predicative function, and/or postpositive function. Give a whole-sentence example for each function in which a given adjective can be used, and a NON-possible sentence, starred with an asterisk, that you use to illustrate any cases of non-occurrence of a function . (Non-native speakers of English can try their created sentences out on native speakers to find out if a native speaker judges them as possible, but they should not ask linguists).

a. marine
b. politic
c. latter
d. prime (in the sense of numbers divisible only by themselves and 1)
e. prime (in the sense of 'first in rank, authority or significance')


Adjectives vs. verbs: Either or both?

(Based on Exercise 4 from Ch. 6 of Huddleston and Pullum)
Which of the underlined words below are adjectives, which are verbs, and which are ambiguous between the two categories in the examples given? Give evidence for your answers.

The trains aren't running today.
She sounded quite impressed.
Flying planes can be dangerous.
His act was completely unamusing.
His act was amusing the crowd.


What part of speech? Syntactic expansion of kind of

(For this question, unlike the others in this assignment, you can use the World Wide Web to get examples if you wish.)

The phrase kind of has long occurred in English noun phrases in the meaning 'type', as in a kind of lizard, the kind of person who..., etc. In this kind of structure, kind of is not a constituent, that is, the two words do not belong syntactically and semantically closer together than they are to other elements. Instead, the parsing is DETERMINATIVE kind [of N], where of is a preposition that is part of a PP that follows and is dependent upon the head noun kind.

In recent centuries, the expression has been changing its syntax; it is expanding its syntactic possibilities/range of occurrence. Find some evidence that kind of in some contexts is becoming a constituent. What part of speech (or parts of speech) do you think this new constituent can be? Give examples to show some different functions kind of can serve. (Hint: you might look for different categories that kind of can modify.) Suggest possible syntactic structures for your examples and comment on the change in structure and function that kind of is undergoing/has undergone.

(You can use your own examples, or try searching for kind of in on-line forums or chats to find some good colloquial uses. )

Prepositions: Grammaticized uses

The Huddleston and Pullum textbook gives a number of grammaticized uses of prepositions, in which a preposition, although still introducing a noun phrase in a PP, has taken on a grammatical role that seems rather different from its original use in describing spatial relations or movement through space.

Find 3 more examples of grammaticized uses of prepositions different from the uses illustrated on p. 136. Explain the function of each of your grammaticized prepositions (similarly to the way our textbook authors Huddleston and Pullum explain the grammatical function of the specific grammaticized prepositions they describe on p. 136. ) Say why the prepositions in your examples fit the criteria for grammaticized prepositions given on p. 137.

Prepositions vs. verb particles

(Based on Huddleston and Pullum Ch. 7, Exercise 4)
The word up is a particle in We folded up the map but not in We climbed up the mountain. What syntactic differences can you find between the two constructions? Use the differences you find to say for each of the following which of the two kinds of construction it belongs to.

a. I looked over my shoulder.
b. I had no time to look over my report before the meeting.
c. Stop looking up her skirt.
d. Could you please look up these names in the database?

© 2007 Suzanne Kemmer
Last modified 13 February 2007