The English Noun Phrase in its Sentential Aspect - Vinartus

The English Noun PhraseIn Its Sentential AspectbySteven Paul AbneySubmitted to the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy on8May1987, in partial fulllment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor ofPhilosophy in LinguisticsABSTRACTThis dissertation is a defense of the hypothesis that the noun phrase isheaded by afunctional element (i.e., \non-lexical" category) D, identiedwith the determiner. In this way, the structure of the noun phrase parallelsthat of the sentence, which is headed by In(ection), under assumptionsnow standard within the Government-Binding (GB) framework.The central empirical problem addressed is the question of the properanalysis of the so-called \Poss-ing" gerund in English. This constructionpossesses simultaneously many properties of sentences, and many propertiesof noun phrases. The problem of capturing this dual aspect of the Possingconstruction is heightened by current restrictive views of X-bar theory,which, in particular, rule out the obvious structure for Poss-ing, [ NP NPVP ing ], by virtue of its exocentricity.Consideration of languages in which nouns, even the most basic concretenouns, show agreement (AGR) with their possessors, points to an analysisof the noun phrase as headed by an element similar to In, which provides aposition for AGR I call this In-like element \D". D and In belong to theclass of non-lexical categories, which I prefer to call functional categories.The analysis in which D heads the noun phrase I call the \DP-analysis".Importing the DP-analysis into English yields an immediate solution forthe problem of the Poss-ing gerund: Poss-ing gerunds (and by extension,noun phrases generally) have a more sentence-like structure than hithertothought, namely, [ DP DP's D VP ing ]. (In non-gerundive noun phrases,\VP" is replaced by a projection of N. This projection of N, despite beinga maximal X-bar projection, corresponds to N-bar in the standard analysis.)Current trends in the treatment of minor categories|so-called \nonlexical"categories|lead us to a similar conclusion. Until recently, minorcategories like complementizers and modals had been treated as syncategorematic.Under current assumptions, however, they participate fully inthe X-bar schema. Inthisway, two simplications are achieved simultaneously:we eliminate syncategorematic elements, and we acquire an endo-