Lecture IV Nouns and Nominals

1. NounsNoun: Designates a kind or type of thingNominal(Noun Phrase): Designates an instance of the type. (1) a. house: a type of entity, countless instances of the type,present and past, real and imaginary actual and potential b. the house: the conveys that out of the countless number of instances,just one has been selected for attention, and that the desig- nated instance is one that both speaker and hearer are able to uniquely identify.

Noun phrases (nominals) can exhibit onsiderable intern-al complexity.Four components of the conceptual organzation:Specification: the type may be specified in greater

detail.Instantiation: the relation between the type and its instancesQuantification: the number or quantity of the designated instanceGrounding: the process the speaker ‘locates’ the desig- nated instance from the perspective of the speech event.(definite and indefinite, specific and nonspecific)

The logical relationship:

(Grounding (Quantification (Instantiation (specification (Type)))) (2) (the (three ( big (houses))))

(Grounding (Quantification (Specification (Type))))

Some basic concepts

Grounding

The context of the speech event, a process that

‘locates’ an entity with respect to the ground, it

enables the speech-act participants to ‘establish

mental contact with’ the designated entity.

(Langacker FCG2: 98)

E.g

The grounding relation, as exemplified in a definite noun phrase

Fig 1

S

H

I

Instantiation

It says something about the type to which the

instance belongs.

E.g. schema-instance relation

The concepts[DOG], [CAT], [HORSE],

[ANIMAL] occupy the abstract domain of types.

A type, however, is instantiated in its special

domain of instantiation. The domain of instantia-

tion of [HOUSE] is, normally, three-dimensional.

The relation between a type(T) and its instance(I) Fig.2

T

domain of instantiation

I I

I

II

The semantic structure of a grounded nominalFig 1 represents a grounded instance but says nothing about the type to which the instance belongs. Fig 2 de-picts the type-instance relation with no indication of the grounding relation. Because of their conceptual overlap,the two representations can be brought together in a va-lence relation; the instance profiled in Fig 1 can be unifi-ed with one of the instances depicted in Fig 2. In this waywe achieve a complete representation of a grounded no-minal.

The semantic structure of a grounded nominal. Fig 3

T

I

domain of instantiation

S

H

Specification

Specification: Modifiers that characterize the con-

cept in greater detail. While specification serves to

narrow down the set of possible instances, ground-

Ing only occurs through the addition of a determi-

ner or quantifier.

(3)a. house over there

b.house that I live in

(4) the house over there

Many syntactic theories recognize a category in-

termediate between the lexical category ‘noun’,

symbolized by N, and the phrasal category, sym-

bolized by NP. In X-bar theories, this intermedi-

ate category is called N-bar, or N’. N-bar consists

of a noun together with its optional complements

and modifiers, but lacks a determiner. This cato-

gery is recursive, in that an N’ can be part of a

Larger N’, as in Fig 4

NP

N’

N’

Det Adj N PP

the big dog over there

Specification serve to narrow down the set of po-

ssible instances , grounding occurs through the

addition of a determiner or quantifier. Without

such elements, the N-bar continues to designate a

type. This is true even if the type is specified in

such detail that there is only one conceivable in-

stance.

The N-bar corresponds to a type specification.

Determiners and quantifiers

Determiners profile an instance of a type. Fig. 5

Detrminers

Definite Indefinite

Specific Nonspecific

.

Quantifiers include items such as many, most, a

few, several, one, and the numerals. They give

some idea of the number, or quantity, of the pro-

filed instance. In virtue of this function, quanti-

fiers subsume instantiation. The very fact that a

Particular quantity is involved entails that the

type has been instantiated.

Quantifiers can also subsume a grounding func-

tion. The very fact that the speaker singles out an

Instance of a certain magnitude entails that the

Instance has become the focus of the speaker’s

conscious awareness. By default, quantifiers are

indefinite.

Quantifiers comprise a heterogenous set of items:

absolute quantifiers and relative quantifiers.

Absolute quantifiers give an indication of the size

or number of the designated instance.They are

pure quantifiers: one, three etc, a few, a little,

much, many, several, numerous, and unstressed

some.

Relative quantifiers give a notion of quantity, but

at the same time make implicit reference to a pre-

supposed ‘reference mass’: all, most and stressed

some.

Universal quantifiers: all, but every is similar:

(5) a. All cats are carnivores.

b. Every cat is a carnivore.

Generics appear to function as universal quanti-

Fiers:

(6) a. Cats are carnivores

b. Dogs make good companies.

c. Water boils at 100 Centigrade.

But they only refer to all possible instances in the

unreal world.

(7) a. Cats are carnivores.

b. All cats are carnivores.

(8) a. Unicorns have one horn.

b. All unicorns have one horn.

Ungrounded nouns• Compounds• Predicate nouns (9). a. John is the teacher. b. John is a teacher. (10) a. He is (the) chairman of the committee. b. He became president of America. c. She was elected vice-president. d. They made him headmaster. e. As managing director, he proposes….

(11) a. What! John, a teacher! I don’t believe it.

b. What! John, managing dirctor! You’ve

got to be joking.

Count nouns and mass nouns

• The conceptual basis

individuatedness

The distinction between count and mass can be

Appropriately captured in terms of internal

homogeneity, with three properties:

divisability, replicability, inherent boundedness