Chapter 3 - From Prototypical N+PP to Pseudo-partitive

Summary

In this chapter, the classification criteria described in Chapter 2 are applied to the first three of-binominals in order to detail the formal and functional properties of each construction. The first construction is the prototypical N+PP (a whale of the north). This category represents an amalgamation of of-binominals all of which share syntactic features that could be regarded as characterizing canonical of-binominals in English, e.g. the first noun is the head, and the second noun is part of an NP embedded in a prepositional phrase functioning as a post-modifier. The second is the little researched head-classifier (a beast of prey). In this construction, the prepositional phrase qualifies the first noun; the second noun does not refer to a discourse referent and instead classifies noun1. This study distinguishes between two types of head-classifiers: taxonomic and intrinsic head-classifiers. The last construction is the pseudo-partitive (a cup of coffee). In this of-binominal, the second noun is head, and the first noun is a relational noun that measures/quantifies or indicates the shape of the second noun.