Complex Noun Phrases and Linkers

Abstract

Abstract. Complex noun phrases crosslinguistically contain meaningless elements whose sole function is to serve as linkers of predicates to their subjects—thus, Mandarin Chinese de links inverted AP predicates to their subjects as well as possessors, PPs, relative clauses, and noun‐complement clauses (e.g., the claim that John was asleep). Taking a comparative analysis of French de and Thai thîi as its point of departure, this paper argues for a maximally generalized account of the noun phrases in which linkers occur, in terms of DP‐internal Predicate Inversion. This approach prompts an analysis of relative‐clause constructions that recognizes relative clauses as predicates of DP‐internal small clauses, combining the attractions of the traditional approach and the Vergnaud/Kayne raising approach by assigning relative clauses an internal structure similar to the traditional one while giving it the external distribution of a predicate by treating it as the predicate of a noun‐phrase‐internal small clause. For noun‐complement clauses, the approach leads to a revitalization of Stowell's (1981) predication approach to the relationship between the head noun and the clause, the latter serving as the former's subject in a DP‐contained small‐clause structure. A uniform linker approach to French de, Thai thîi, Mandarin Chinese de, Japanese no, and so on (a) emphasizes the pervasiveness of Predicate Inversion in the noun phrase, (b) confirms the role of linkers as purely functional aides to the inversion operation, (c) furthers our understanding of the structure and derivation of complex noun phrases, and (d) presents a particularly interesting window on microparametric variation in the syntax of noun phrases.