Survey of English Grammar Wiki: Week 4

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Nouns

1. Semantic test:
   • Nouns name persons, things or places
   • Problems:
     • Abstract nouns (often properties): honesty, happiness
     • Nouns denoting events or activities: party, rodeo, development
2. Morphological test:
   • Nouns can combine with a plural morpheme (-(e)s) to mark plurality
   • Problems:
     • not all nouns form plural in -s: children
     • not all nouns have singular/plural distinction: milk (no plural); scissors, cattle (no singular); sheep (identical form in sg. and pl.)
3. Syntactic test:
   • Nouns can occur with the possessive 's, i.e. in the environment: __ 's
   • Problems:
     • The possessive 's is a phrasal affix, i.e. it attaches to the right edge of a noun phrase, independent of the part of speech of the word at the right edge. We can construct examples where this word is NOT a noun: [a colleague of mine]'s car got stolen.
   • Nouns can occur between a determiner and a verb, i.e. in the environment: Det __ V
   • Problems:
     • not all nouns can combine with a determiner, in particular proper names cannot: (*The) Pat walked.

Subclasses of noun

Exercises on Nouns and NPs

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