Abstract
A considerable amount of research has been devoted to binominal constructions, including pseudo-partitives, evaluative binominal constructions, and sort/kind constructions. This chapter discusses another, as yet largely ignored binominal construction, the head-classifier construction. Unlike regular N+PP constructions, head-classifiers are characterized by the fact that the second noun does not head a referential NP but indicates a (taxonomic) subcategory (bird of prey), an intrinsic property (a wall of clay), or a qualification (a man of honour). In this chapter, data from the British National Corpus are used (1) to define the head-classifier construction in terms of function and form, and (2) to clearly delineate head-classifier constructions (HCCs) from conventional N+PP constructions (e.g. the wall of my house), pseudo-partitive constructions (e.g. a piece of clay) and N-N compounds (e.g. a clay wall). Finally, the theory of Functional Discourse Grammar is used to propose analyses reflecting the differences and similarities between the head classifier and related constructions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
In this chapter, we will not address the issue or whether the N-N combinations discussed here are compounds or phrases. However, since in FDG these expressions have been analysed as compounds, we will be using the term compound throughout the paper.
- 4.
Gunkel and Zifonun (2009: 206–209) make a similar distinction between general descriptions (e.g. the man with the long beard) and common names (weapons of mass destruction). They include English HCCs in this larger group of what they call common names constructions, which also includes phrases such as woman’s magazines or compounds like apple tree (Gunkel and Zifonun 2009: 205).
- 5.
Relational nouns are nouns that require or imply the presence of an argument, meaning the entity they denote always stands in relation to some other entity, e.g. husband or side.
- 6.
The corpus does provide a few examples of coordination in HCCs, e.g. acquired the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and of theology (BYU-BNC). However, unlike the coordination of the N+PP, which ascribes two properties to a single referent, these are cases of ellipsis; the speaker is clearly talking about two separate degrees. Similarly, in (5b’) reference could be made to two birds; in that case, however, coordination takes place at the level of the NP, not the post-modifier.
- 7.
There are some exceptions, as in a history of the novel or matters of the heart (see Payne and Huddleston 2002: 408), as well as with post-modifiers denoting time and place, such as a creature of the night and a people of the desert (we would like to thank one of the reviewers for bringing this to our attention). These NPs are what have been called weak definites: they no longer refer to objects but to kinds (Aguilar-Guevara and Zwarts 2010). Although such weak definites must be non-specific, it is unclear whether they are also non-referential (classifying). Thus, although an expression like the chill of night would qualify as an HCC, the exact function and status of the chill of the night is less straightforward. We will leave this issue to further research.
- 8.
Over the last 50 years or so, pseudo-partitive constructions have been studied in great detail, in various languages, and in different linguistic frameworks. It will be clear that we cannot discuss of all the specific properties of each of the subtypes of pseudo-partitives distinguished; instead we will present some of the evidence used in the literature to argue that pseudo-partitives form a separate type of construction.
- 9.
The fact that in a construction like a large bowl of cheese, large can only be taken to modify the bowl, does not constitute evidence that N1 functions as the head. As in the case of numerals, modifiers denoting size or quantity will be taken to modify N1 in its quantifying function (i.e. [a [large bowl] of [cheese]]). This is clear from the fact that modifiers like large also modify N1 in uncontroversial right-headed constructions like a large number of students.
- 10.
A discussion of which factors determine the choice between an HCC and an N-N compound where both are available is beyond the scope of the present chapter.
- 11.
Note that the presence of a post-modifier does not play a role here, since it scopes over the expression as a whole, not over the dependent noun.
- 12.
In addition, Noun Phrases tend to correspond to Phonological Phrases at the Phonological Level; in what follows, however, we will only provide representations at the Interpersonal and Representational Levels of analysis.
- 13.
Note that in (19b) the Individual the shed is also represented as an argument of the lexical preposition in (i.e. as a prepositional complement).
- 14.
This phenomenon is not unique to the HCC but can also be found in copular constructions.
- 15.
Note that since the noun use denotes an action, the overall denotation is that of a State-of-Affairs (e).
References
Akmajian, Adrian, and Adrienne Lehrer. 1976. NP-like Quantifiers and the Problem of Determining the Head of an NP. Linguistic Analysis 2 (4): 395–413.
Aguilar-Guevara, Ana, and Joost Zwarts. 2010. Weak Definites and Reference to Kinds. Proceedings of SALT 20: 179–196.
Bosworth, Joseph. 2014. earfoþ-hwÃl. In An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Online, ed. Thomas Northcote Toller, Christ Sean, and OndÅ™ej Tichy. Prague: Faculty of Arts, Charles University. https://bosworthtoller.com/8619.
Brems, Lieselotte. 2011. Layering of Size and Type Noun Constructions in English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
———. 2012. The Establishment of Quantifier Constructions for Size Nouns: A Diachronic Case Study of Heap(s) and Lot(s). Journal of Historical Pragmatics 13 (2): 202–231.
Davies, Mark. 2004. BYU-BNC: The British National Corpus (1980s–1993). Available Online at http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc.
Faiß, Klaus. 1992. English Historical Morphology and Word-Formation: Loss versus Enrichment. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.
Gunkel, Lutz, and Gisela Zifonun. 2009. Classifying Modifiers in Common Names. Word Structure 2 (2): 205–218.
Hengeveld, Kees, and J. Lachlan Mackenzie. 2008. Functional Discourse Grammar: A Typologically-Based Theory of Language Structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2016. Reflections on the Lexicon in Functional Discourse Grammar. Linguistics 54 (5): 1135–1161.
Jackendoff, Ray J. 1977. X-syntax: A Study of Phrase Structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Keizer, Evelien. 2007. The English Noun Phrase: The Nature of Linguistic Categorization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Keizer, Evelien, and Lotte Sommerer. 2022. Major Trends in Research on the English NP. In English Noun Phrases from a Functional-Cognitive Perspective, ed. Lotte Sommerer and Evelien Keizer, 2–23. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria. 2003. A Woman of Sin, a Man of Duty, and a Hell of a Mess: Non-determiner Genitives in Swedish. In Noun Phrase Structure in the Languages of Europe, ed. Frans Plank, 515–558. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter.
Langacker, Ronald W. 2009. Investigations in Cognitive Grammar. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Lyons, John. 1997. Semantics. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mustanoja, Tauno F. 2016. A Middle English Syntax: Parts of Speech. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Partee, Barbara H., and Vladimir Borschev. 2012. Sortal, Relational, and Functional Interpretations of Nouns and Russian Container Constructions. Journal of Semantics 29 (4): 445–486.
Payne, John, and Rodney Huddleston. 2002. Nouns and Noun Phrases. In The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, ed. Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum, 323–523. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rijkhoff, Jan. 2009. On the Co-variation between Form and Function of Adnominal Possessive Modifiers in Dutch. In The Expression of Possession, ed. William B. McGregor, 51–106. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter.
Rutkowski, Pawel. 2007. The Syntactic Structure of Grammaticalized Partitives (Pseudo-Partitives). In University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 13(1), art. 26. https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol13/iss1/26.
Selkirk, Elizabeth O. 1977. Some Remarks on Noun Phrase Structure. In Formal Syntax, ed. Peter W. Culicover, Thomas Wasow, and Adrian Akmajian, 285–316. New York, NY: Academic Press.
Stickney, Helen, Chelsea Mafrica, and Jordan Lippman. 2013. Variation in the Syntax of the Partitive Structure. In Proceedings of the 37th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, ed. Chundra Cathcart, I-Hsuan Chen, Greg Finley, Shinae Kang, Clare S. Sandy, and Elise Stickles, 330–343. https://journals.linguisticsociety.org/proceedings/index.php/BLS/article/download/852/635.
Taylor, John R. 2002. Cognitive Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ten Wolde, Elnora. 2018. Premodification Patterns in the Binominal Noun Phrase: An FDG Account. In Recent Developments in Functional Discourse Grammar, ed. Evelien Keizer and Hella Olbertz, 167–206. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
———. 2019. Linear vs Hierarchical: Two Accounts of Premodification in the Of-binominal Noun Phrase. Linguistics: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the Language Science 57 (2): 283–326.
Vos, Riet. 1999. A Grammar of Partitive Constructions. PhD dissertation. Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands.
Zifonun, Gisela. 2010. Possessive Attribute im Deutschen. Deutsche Sprache 38 (2): 124–153.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Keizer, E., ten Wolde, E. (2024). Of Birds of Prey and Men of Honour: Head-Classifier Constructions in English. In: Gardelle, L., Mignot, E., Neveux, J. (eds) Nouns and the Morphosyntax / Semantics Interface. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44561-3_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44561-3_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-44560-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-44561-3
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)