Some Notes on the Constituent Structure of Noun Phrases

Abstract

Robert B. Lees's article on Constituent Structure of Noun Phrases' invites a number of comments. Since the definite article is introduced as dependent on a (subsequently deletable) relative clause symbol, CN (p. 164, rules iv and ix), there will be kernel sentences enumerated by Lees's grammar which are not sentences of English, for instance, C, man is on the C, corner (and nonkernel, derived sentences such as man is on the comrner). This result follows from the definition of a kernel sentence as one which has undergone only obligatory transformations and from the fact that the deletion of CN is optional. The rule must be optional, of course, if we are to have derivable sentences with relative clauses, attributive adjectives, and so on. Or, if the rule is obligatory and follows the development of the clause symbols by generalized (i.e., two-sentence) transformations, then there must be an ad hoc specification that the result of substituting a second source sentence (with a relative pronoun formant) for the clause symbols Cp or Cm (which develop from CN in the constituent structure rules) is no longer a CN. Alternatively, the generalized transformations which perform the substitution might be obligatory rules, but then all sorts of complex sentences would be