Pseudo-partitives in English: an HPSG analysis

Abstract

Pseudo-partitives are strings of the form [N1– of – N2] in which N1denotes a quantity or amount of whatever it is that N2denotes and in which N2is a bare nominal. Such strings come in two types, depending on whether the combination shares thenumbervalue of N1or N2. The first type can be analyzed along familiar lines, but the second one is a hard nut to crack. The article presents existing treatments, showing that they all involve departures from independently motivated principles. As an alternative we propose an analysis that is cast in the Typed Feature Structure notation of Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar. It handles both types of pseudo-partitives, arguing that N1and the prepositionofare complement-selecting heads if thenumbervalue is shared with N1, while N1and the preposition are head-selecting functors if thenumbervalue is shared with N2. The switch from head to functor status is characteristic of grammaticalization and is shown to affect pseudo-partitives with a quantifier noun or a collection noun as N1, but not pseudo-partitives with a measure noun or collection noun. Examples and quantitative data are extracted from COCA.