No Null Nouns - corpora@parles.upf

No Null Nouns
Alex Alsina
UPF
April 15, 2010

Aim of the talk
To argue that apparently headless NPs are
really headless.
Examples:
(1) a. M’agrada més aquest llibre antic amb tapes de
cuiro.
b. M’agrada més aquest antic amb tapes de cuiro.
c. M’agrada més aquest amb tapes de cuiro.
d. M’agrada més aquest antic.
e. M’agrada més aquest.

Aim of the talk
Structure of a headed NP:
DP
D′
D NP
N′ AP
N A
aquest llibre antic

Alternatives to choose from
A. Structure of an NP
with an empty head:
DP
D′
D NP
N′ AP
N A
aquest ∅ antic
B. Structure of an NP
without a head:
DP
D′
D NP
AP
A
aquest antic

Existing work
The majority position is in favor of alternative A:
Bosque 1989, Bosque i Gutiérrez-Rexach 2009,
Brucart 2002, Brucart i Rigau 2002, Wheeler
1991, among others.
At this point I can’t cite any work explicitly
assuming alternative B, although it is the natural
assumption in analyses within LFG, HPSG, and
other frameworks that factor grammatical
information into different structures.

Structure of the talk
Argument 1: positing empty nouns has the
effect of making a potentially empirically
contentful hypothesis unfalsifiable.
Argument 2: two types of determiners: those
that may, and those that may not, introduce
headless NPs.
Argument 3: prenominal adjectives: not
possible in headless NPs.

Argument 1
The empty noun reduces a hypothesis/claim to
unfalsifiability.
The claim that every XP is the projection of an
X 0 (the projection claim) is a strong claim (a
falsifiable claim) provided an X 0 is always a
word—a lexical item with a phonological
representation and a syntactic/semantic
representation.
If we have evidence that some string of words is
an XP, we predict that it should include a word of
category X in the right position.

Argument 1
What counts as a counterexample to this claim?
Eg: a phrase that behaves in all respects like a
PP but does not include a preposition.
Headless NPs are exactly this case.
They are counterexamples to the projection
claim.
Two responses: (a) keep the claim but make it
untestable, (b) abandon the claim.
The majority position has been (a): we allow
empty Ns so that headless NPs are no longer
counterexamples to the projection claim.

Argument 1
In fact, once we allow empty X 0 s, the projection
claim is no longer a strong claim: it makes no
predictions; it just tells us how to represent
phrases.
What’s the use of having untestable hypotheses
(hypotheses that do not lead to testable
predictions)?
Better to abandon the projection claim: not all
phrases have a head.
This spares us from introducing a new
hypothesis (the empty X 0 hypothesis) whose
function is to make another hypothesis vacuous.

Argument 2: two types of Ds
(2) a. Hem insistit en cada situació (compromesa) (que es
va presentar).
b.*Hem insistit en cada (compromesa) (que es va
presentar).
(3) a. Hem insistit en aquella situació (compromesa) (que
es va presentar).
b. Hem insistit en aquella (compromesa) (que es va
presentar).

Argument 2: two types of Ds
Weak determiners: cada, sengles, qualque, cert,
mon, ton, son, llur, tot*, etc.
Strong determiners: aquest, aquell, quin, quant, cap,
un, algun, tant, molt, etc.
If we allow empty nouns, we either cannot account
for the difference in behavior or we have to restrict
the null N in the appropriate position in relation to a
strong determiner.
The assumption that a strong D can license an
empty N is ad hoc.
* Tot, as in tota reclamació, tot document, not as
in tots els llibres, tota l’estona, etc., where it is a
predeterminer.

C-structure and f-structure
An alternative that assumes syntactic information is
factored into a categorial structure (c-structure) and
a feature structure (f-structure) as parallel, copresent
levels of representation.
A string is grammatical if it satisfies the wellformedness
conditions on both structures.
Let’s start with the c-structure: a syntactic tree of the
usual sort, satisfying
Lexicalism: every X 0 dominates a fully formed word—a
unit satisying morphological integrity and consisting
at least of a phonological representation—of
category X.

C-structure
The usual inventory of categories: V, N, P, A, D, C,
VP, NP, DP, etc.
Functional categories ok, provided they comply with
Lexicalism.
X-bar Theory:
X′′ YP X′ ( ′ )
X′ X ( ′ ) ZP
Economy of Expression: all c-structure nodes are
optional and are only used if needed for semantic
reasons or to satisfy well-formedness conditions.
(Bresnan 2001)

C-structure of the noun phrase
Words of category D in Cat.: el/la, cada, sengles,
qualque, aquest, aquell, quin, cap, molt, etc.
Spec of NP is reserved for SpecA (specificational
adjectives): altre, dos, tres, primer, segon, últim,
seu, nostre, etc.
D always has an NP as its c-structure complement,
if it has any complement.
Spec of DP is reserved for predet. tot/s and adv.
such as fins i tot, exactament, només, almenys, etc.:
tots els llibres, només aquelles notes, etc.

Example c-structures
DP
D′
D NP
SpecA N′
N PP
aquell altre castell de cartes

Example c-structures
DP
D′
D NP
SpecA
aquell altre
DP
D′
D NP
N′
PP
aquell de cartes
DP
D′
D
aquell

F-structure
However, the principles given so far allow
headless noun phrases with weak dets:
cada *(proposta) nova
cada *(paquet) que arriba
cada *(estudiant) de doctorat
*cada
They are excluded by well-formedness
conditions on the f-structure.
F-structures: formally, attribute-value matrices
that satisfy a uniqueness condition requiring
each attribute to have a unique value.

F-structure
Every word form has a vocabulary entry that
specifies its c-structure information and its fstructure
information.
In forming the f-structure of a phrase:
The f-structure of a phrasal category is that of its
head;
The f-structure of a functional category is that of its
complement phrase.
Thus, the f-structure of a DP is the unification of
the f-structure of the head D and of the N head
of the complement NP.

Sample vocabulary entries
aquell: D SPEC [DEM +]
NOMB sg
GÈN masc
aquella: D SPEC [DEM +]
NOMB sg
GÈN fem
cadira: N PRED ‘cadira’
NOMB sg
GÈN fem
calaix: N PRED ‘calaix‘
NOMB sg
GÈN masc

Sample det-noun sequences
DP
D′
D NP
N′
N
aquell calaix
PRED ‘calaix‘
SPEC [DEM +]
NOMB sg
GÈN masc

Sample det-noun sequences
DP
D′
D NP
N′
N
aquell cadira
PRED ‘cadira‘
SPEC [DEM +]
NOMB sg
GÈN masc
fem

The two types of Ds
Another condition that f-structures must satisfy:
Completeness: every f-structure with a thematic
role must have a PRED feature. (Bresnan 2001)
Words of categories N, V, A generally have a
PRED feature.
Dets split into two groups: some don’t have this
feature (the weak dets) and some have an
optional [PRED ‘pro’] feature (strong dets).
See vocabulary entries of a D of each type:

Example Ds of each kind
aquell: D SPEC [DEM +]
NOMB sg
GÈN masc
(PRED ‘pro’)
cada: D SPEC [DISTR +]
NOMB sg
això: D SPEC [DEM +]
NOMB sg
GÈN masc
PRED ‘pro’

Nounless DPs of both kinds
DP
D′
D
aquell
DP
D′
D
cada
SPEC [DEM +]
NOMB sg
GÈN masc
PRED ‘pro’
SPEC [DISTR +]
NOMB sg
Ill-formed fstructure:
violates
completeness

The role of null nouns
Having empty categories would play no role
in explaining the contrast between the two
kinds of determiners.
We would need some additional principles to
tell us when the null noun is possible and
when it is not.
In this theory, null nouns are excluded by
Economy of expression and Lexicalism.

Argument 3: prenominal adjectives
Prenominal adjectives:
must appear before a noun,
follow SpecA, if there are any
Examples: bon, mer/a, mal/a, presumpte/a,
antic/ga (‘former’), trist/a (‘insufficient’).
(4) a. un bon amic, *un amic bon, *aquest amic sí que
era bon, *era un bon.
b. una mera suposició, *una suposició mera, *aquesta
suposició és mera, *era una mera.
Strings not allowed by X-bar theory given.

Explaining prenominal As
Two subtypes of A:
A [+preN]. Ex: bon, mer, mal, etc.
A [-preN]. Ex: dolent, bo, policial, etc.
Many As are unspecified: belong to both
subtypes.
New c-structure rule (Sadler and Arnold 1994):
N A N
[+preN]
Postnominal APs are projections of A [-preN].

Structures with prenominal As
DP
D′
D NP
N′
N
A N
[+preN]
un bon amic
DP
D′
D NP
SpecA N′
N
A N
[+preN]
els dos presumptes culpables

Excluding illicit structures
Why are *un bon, *la mera illicit DPs?
[+preN] adjectives must appear in the configuration
[ N A [+preN] N ].
By Lexicalism, both categories in this structure must
be words (or dominate words) of the same category.
Words have phonological representation.
N
A
[+preN
bon
N
A N
[+preN
bon
N
A N
[+preN
bon ∅

What does the null noun do for us?
If we have a null noun as a vocabulary item, we
cannot explain these facts. A representation
such as the following is possible:
N
A N
[+preN]
bon ∅

What does the null noun do for us?
A hypothetical construct such as a null category
should only be posited if there is clear evidence
for it, if its presence is crucial for explaining
some facts.
There is no evidence for the null noun.
In addition having a null noun complicates the
explanation of certain facts considerably.
It complicates the explanation of the behavior of
the two classes of determiners.
And it makes the explanation of preN adjectives
practically impossible.

Therefore
We are much better off without the null noun.
Thank you

References
Bosque, Ignacio (1989): Las categorías gramaticales. Relaciones y
diferencias. Madrid: Síntesis.
Bosque, Ignacio; Gutiérrrez-Rexach, Javier (2009): Fundamentos
de sintaxis formal. Madrid: Ediciones Akal.
Bresnan, Joan (2001): Lexical-functional syntax. Oxford: Blackwell.
Brucart, Josep M. (2002): «Els determinants». A: Solà, Joan et al.
(dir.), vol. 2: 1435-1516.
Brucart, Josep M.; Rigau, Gemma (2002): «La quantificació». A:
Solà, Joan et al. (dir.), vol. 2: 1517-1589.
Sadler, Louisa and Douglas J. Arnold. 1994. Prenominal adjectives
and the phrasal/lexical distinction. Journal of Linguistics 30:187–
226.
Wheeler, Max W. (1991): «Dels quantitatius i altres elements
especificadors». Els Marges 43: 25-49.