- Oxford Handbooks in Linguistics
- Copyright Page
- Acknowledgements
- List of figures and tables
- List of contributors
- Introduction
- Conceptualizations of Grammar in the History of English Grammaticology
- Syntactic Argumentation
- Grammar and the Use of Data
- Grammar and Corpus Methodology
- Cognitive Linguistic Approaches
- Constructional Approaches
- Dependency and Valency Approaches
- Generative Approaches
- Functional Approaches
- Modern and Traditional Descriptive Approaches
- Theoretical Approaches to Morphology
- Inflection and Derivation
- Compounds
- Word Classes
- Phrase Structure
- Noun Phrases
- Clause Structure, Complements, and Adjuncts
- Clause Types and Speech Act Functions
- Tense and Aspect
- Mood and Modality
- Subordination and Coordination
- Information Structure
- Grammar and Lexis
- Grammar and Phonology
- Grammar and Meaning
- Grammar and Discourse
- Change in Grammar
- Regional Varieties of English: Non-standard grammatical features
- Global Variation in the Anglophone World
- Genre Variation
- Literary Variation
- References
- Name Index
- Subject Index
- Oxford Handbooks in Linguistics
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter provides a brief overview of some widely debated issues in discussions of the English noun phrase, and illustrates how these issues have been dealt with in different theoretical approaches. After a general characterization of the noun phrase from a pre-theoretical point of view, the chapter proceeds to discuss the internal structure of the noun phrase from a generative, functional, and cognitive perspective. Subsequently, the differences between these approaches are illustrated by addressing two basic notions in the analysis of English noun phrases: headedness (in regular noun phrases, as well as in headless and pseudo-partitive noun phrases) and the distinction between relational and non-relational nouns (and, consequently, between complements and modifiers). In both cases the various types of criteria for analysis are discussed, as well as some problems in applying these criteria.
Keywords: noun phrase, generative, functional, cognitive, headedness, pseudo-partitives, relational nouns, complements, modifiers
Evelien Keizer is Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Vienna. She obtained her PhD in English Linguistics from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 1992; since then she has held positions at the University of Tilburg, University College London, and the University of Amsterdam. She has published widely on the noun phrase in English (e.g. The English Noun Phrase: The Nature of Linguistic Categorization, 2007, CUP) and Dutch (Syntax of Dutch: The Noun Phrase, Vol. 1, 2012, Amsterdam University Press). She is also the author of A Functional Discourse Grammar for English (2015, OUP) and co-editor of several edited volumes and special issues.
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- Oxford Handbooks in Linguistics
- Copyright Page
- Acknowledgements
- List of figures and tables
- List of contributors
- Introduction
- Conceptualizations of Grammar in the History of English Grammaticology
- Syntactic Argumentation
- Grammar and the Use of Data
- Grammar and Corpus Methodology
- Cognitive Linguistic Approaches
- Constructional Approaches
- Dependency and Valency Approaches
- Generative Approaches
- Functional Approaches
- Modern and Traditional Descriptive Approaches
- Theoretical Approaches to Morphology
- Inflection and Derivation
- Compounds
- Word Classes
- Phrase Structure
- Noun Phrases
- Clause Structure, Complements, and Adjuncts
- Clause Types and Speech Act Functions
- Tense and Aspect
- Mood and Modality
- Subordination and Coordination
- Information Structure
- Grammar and Lexis
- Grammar and Phonology
- Grammar and Meaning
- Grammar and Discourse
- Change in Grammar
- Regional Varieties of English: Non-standard grammatical features
- Global Variation in the Anglophone World
- Genre Variation
- Literary Variation
- References
- Name Index
- Subject Index
- Oxford Handbooks in Linguistics
