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LINGUIST List 17.3584

Mon Dec 04 2006

Qs: Syntax of NP Coordination with PP Modifiers

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        1.    Myroslava Dzikovska, Syntax of NP Coordination with PP Modifiers
Message 1: Syntax of NP Coordination with PP Modifiers
Date: 03-Dec-2006
From: Myroslava Dzikovska <mdzikovsinf.ed.ac.uk>
Subject: Syntax of NP Coordination with PP Modifiers


Syntax books usually suggest that PP modifiers attach on the N' level,
assuming the phrase structure
N' -> N' PP
NP -> Det N'

One of the sources of evidence for this is taken to be coordination
(1) The [boys and girls]_N' [in the picture]_PP are smiling

However, the corpus I am looking at contains many phrases such as
(2) the man and the woman in the picture made an agreement

In this case, it appears that ''in the picture'' is attaching to the NP, rather
than N'

Yet allowing for this in a grammar creates many other problems - if the rule
NP -> NP PP is allowed, then names and pronouns can be modified by PPs,
and there is unexpected ambiguity in noun phrases such as ''the man in the
picture''

I looked into books on HPSG syntax and G&B theory, and only found
accounts of N' -> N' NP rule, with coordination used as evidence. I would
appreciate references that describe how to account for both (1) and (2).

Myroslava

Linguistic Field(s): Semantics
                            Syntax
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