Chapter Five: The X-bar theory Prof: Koumachi

5.1 Small Nominal Phrases

There seems to be plenty of evidence that the sequence [of England] is a PP constituent.
1) The king of England and of the empire (coordination)
2) Speaker A: was he the king of France? (sentence fragment)
Speaker B: No, of England
3) [PP of which country] was the king of England? (preposing/fronting)
4) He dwelled in England, and was the king thereof for many years. (replaced by
thereof)
According to Wells (1957), the ICs of the NP [the King of England] are the, king of England,
and king and of England. So he argued that ICs of this NP is as follows:

But this seems to be wrong for many reasons.

For one, the small NP [King of England] does not have the same distribution as the full NP
[the King of England], as is illustrated here:
 [the King of England] opened the parliament
 *[King of England] opened the parliament
 They crowned [the King of England] yesterday
 *they crowned [King of England]
 Parliament grants little power to [the King of England].
 *Parliament grants little power to [King of England]
Secondly, NP----D NP is going to be recursive

The problem is that the multiple determiner sequences are not grammatical.
 [D the ][D the] king of England.
 [D the ][D this] king of England.
 [D a ][D the] king of England.
Thus, the skeletal structure of the phrase [the King of England] could be represented as
follows: [N'' the [N'[N king] of England]] or as:

We'll say that [king] is an N, [King of England] is an N', and [the King of England] is N" or NP.

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5.2 Evidence for N-bar
The legitimate question to ask is what evidence there is to assume that the NP [the King of
England] contains a small phrase that is an N-bar which is its immediate constituent?
The first argument is a distributional one.
 He became king of England.
The second argument is that the sequence [King of England] can undergo ordinary
coordination with another similar sequence:
 Who have dared defy the [King of England] and [ruler of the empire]?
An additional type of argument in support for the N-bar analysis can be the
pronominalisation (proform) 'one' test.
 The present [King of England] is more popular than the last one.
 *The [King] of England defeated the one of Spain.

5.3 Complements and Ajuncts

We've argued so far that the postmodifier PP [of England] expands the head into an N' [King
of England], while the determiner expands N' [King of England] into an N" [the King of
England]. So, we might generalize and assume that all postnominal PPs expand N into an N'.
To illustrate the difference between complements and adjuncts consider these examples:
 A student [of physics]
 A student [with long hair]
The obvious question to ask again is how do Complements and Adjuncts differ from other
class of nominal modifiers namely Determiners?

a) Determiners expand N-bar into N-double-bar

b) Adjuncts expand N-bar into N-bar
c) Complements expand N into N-bar

To bring closely the relevant distinctions using PS rules to generate determiners,

complements and adjuncts, we can get the following PS rules:
i. N" -----D N' (determiner rule)
ii. N' ----- N' PP (adjunct rule)
iii. N' ----- N PP (complement rule)
These rules do specify the order in which the postmodifier PPs should occur as 'no crossing
of branches' would be allowed.
Let's apply the rule above and see what it gives:

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5.4 Optional Constituents for the NP

However one fairly obvious point which has been overlooked in our rules is that
determiners, adjuncts and complements could be optional.
5.4.1 Determiners
In general, Noncount Nouns and plural count Nouns can be used without an overt
determiner, but sing count Nouns cannot.
Ex: students of physics with long hair

Such a sequence proves to be a constituent as it stands as a sentence fragment as well as be

coordinated with another NP or pronominalised.

So the result is as follows: NP -------(D) N' (new determiner rule)

Thus our revised rule can indeed generate NPs which contain no determiners.
5.4.2 Complement and Adjuncts

a) A student [of physics] [with long hair] (Complement and Adjunct)

b) A student [with long hair] (Adjunct and no Complement)
c) A student [of physics] (Complement, no Adjunct)
d) A student (no Complement and no Adjunct)

1) N" -----(D) N' (determiner rule)

N' ----- N' PP (adjunct rule)
N' ----- N PP (complement rule)

2) N' -----N (PP)

Ex: A student with long hair (no complement)

3) N' ------ N' PP (optional rule) (no adjunct)

Ex: A student of physics

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4) What about NPs that contain neither Complements, nor adjuncts such [a student]

PS rules restated
i. N" -----(D) N' (determiner rule)
ii. N' ----- N' PP (adjunct rule: optional)
iii. N' ----- N (PP) (complement rule)

So, you'll notice that the categorical status of expression [student] changes from one
example to another. In 1 and 3 it has the status of a Noun, but in 2 and 4 it is an N-Bar
immediately dominating an N.

5.5 More differences between Complements and Adjuncts

In this section we'll look at a number of further arguments in favor of structural distinctions
between Complements PPs and Adjuncts PPs.
a) Determiners are sisters of N' and daughters of N"
b) Adjuncts are sisters and daughters of N'
c) Complements are sisters of N and daughters of N'

One such argument is of a semantic nature which can be formulated with regard to
disambiguation.

Ex: a student [of high moral principle]

The NP here is ambiguous as between two interpretations:

The skeletal structures for the disambiguation of the NP are:
 A [N'[N student] of high moral principle]
 A [N'[N'[N student] of high moral principle]

Let's return to our argument that complements PPs expand N into N-bar and adjuncts PPs
expand N-bar into N-bar. The important difference between them is that adjuncts are
recursive whereas complements are not.

The rule: N' -------- N' PP (adjunct rule: optional) predicts that indefinitely many adjuncts
can be stacked on top of each other.

The proof: ex: The students [with long hair] [with short arms]
The [N'[N'[N' student] [with long hair] [with short arms]
The [N'[N'[N' student] [with short arms] [with long hair]
ex: *The student [of physics] [of chemistry]

The key claim to be made now is

 Complements expand N into N'
 Adjuncts recursively expand N' into N'
One more additional complication is with the complex NPs.
 An advocate of the abolition of indirect taxation
 A woman with an umbrella with a red handle
 Her dislike of man with big egos
 A girl with dislike of macho men