LINGUIST List 2.882

Sat 28 Dec 1991

Disc: S -> NP NP

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1. Michael, Re: 2.864 Queries
2. Larry Gillick, 2.864 S -> NP NP

Message 1: Re: 2.864 Queries

Wlodek Zadrozny asks if there is "anything interesting" to be said
about the construction "S > NP NP"; let me help by making things a
bit worse. First: are there "clear and distinct" criteria to make of
this construction a specific subclass of [nouns in] apposition? Second,
and very much related: might we consider the construction to be a form
of what has been discussed on this list of late as reduplication? The
logical sense of "John McNamara the name" is tautologous and thus, at
that level, indistinguishable from "well, well now, what have we here?".
I'm offering two ways to "solve" this problem, neither of them satisfactory
(to me at least): subordinate your construction to the "known" phenomenon
of apposition as definite species, or dissolve it into the general logic of
emphatic repetition. Comments?

I've seen this construction before, but for me it's much more
restrictive than S -> NP NP. It's
 "no" NP Pro
especially "No fool he." I also know a very similar construction with
"more":
 (The) more fool(s) {you / he / she / they / we / *I / ?me}.
I should call the latter an idiom rather than a construction, since I
don't think I've heard it or would accept or use it with any NP except
"fool(s)" (number dependent on subject). I take these as equivalent to
 Pro is no NP., Pro is not an NP.
and
 Pro is a fool for doing (whatever is in the immediate preceding
 context).
Mark A. Mandel, Dragon Systems, Inc.