Proper Nouns in English

Abstract

The syntactically definable category of proper nouns is only a subclass of the orthographically definable class. Many capitalized nouns, e.g. Kodak and Purex, are not members of the syntactically definable class. Further, the syntactic proper nouns are a subclass of the countable nouns of English. Proper nouns permit the selection of essentially the same set of determiners as other countable nouns, differing materially only in that they require a zero allomorph of unstressed the when singular and when not preceded by a restrictive adjective or followed by a restrictive relative clause. Proper nouns, like other countable nouns, are freely pluralizable. Allowing free selection of determiners and numbers with proper nouns obviously simplifies the statement of selectional restrictions with regard to determiners, numbers, and nouns, and at the same time simplifies the statement of the selectional restrictions that hold between a noun phrase and its appositive noun phrase. These syntactic gains are not dissipated in semantic losses. Allowing free selection does not permit the generation of semantic anomalies. Determiner plus proper noun constructions are not semantically peculiar. Grimm means the same thing in Grimm wrote the book as in The famous Grimm wrote the book; thus it seems pointless to conclude that Grimm is being 'used as' a common noun in the latter.