Chapter 2 - Projection of Noun Phrases I: Complementatio

Summary

Introduction

This chapter discusses complementation of the noun. Section 2.1 will start with a number of general observations, which will be summarized in (52) below by means of a set of generalizations. These generalizations will play a crucial role in the more extensive discussion of complementation in the remainder of this chapter. Section 2.2 will continue by discussing in more detail non-clausal complements, that is, PPand NP-complements, including NP-complements that appear in determiner position as a genitive noun phrase or possessive pronoun. Section 2.3 concludes with a discussion of clausal complements. Obviously, any discussion based on a distinction between °complements and °modifiers will have to provide the means to distinguish between the two groups. Section 2.2.1 therefore describes a number of syntactic tests to distinguish between PP-complements and PP-modifiers within the noun phrase. Section 2.3.3 will discuss the difference between clausal complements and modifiers within the NP.

General observations

This section starts with the formulation of a number of observational generalizations with respect to complementation of nouns concerning optional or obligatory presence of the complement, word order, etc. These generalizations can be found scattered throughout the following sections, but for ease of reference the complete set of generalizations is also given as (52) in Section 2.1.7.

Complementation of nouns: complements and modifiers

Section 1.1.2 has shown that the noun phrase can be divided into two subdomains, the NP- and the DP-domain: the NP-domain is headed by the noun and determines the denotation of the noun phrase, whereas the DP-domain is headed by a determiner or a quantifier/numeral and determines the referential and/or quantificational properties of the noun phrase. Thus, the internal structure of the noun phrase as a whole can be represented as in (1), where Determiner (D) and Noun (N) are the heads of the °projections DP and NP, respectively, and where the dots indicate the possible positions of other elements. In this section, as well as in Chapter 3, we will concentrate on the projection of the noun, that is, the NPdomain.

[_DP … D … [_NP … N …]]

Each NP contains an obligatory head N and, optionally, one or more other elements, which can be further categorized according to their function, i.e., according to whether they function as complements or as restrictive modifiers.