Talk:Noun phrase/Archive 1

italics/quotes

what's going on with that!? my wiki-fu isn't strong enough to go through and figure out what happened to the formatting here. also, possibly include a link to DP hypothesis?

merger

The article Nominal group (language) treats the subject from a functional or interpersonal view. The article Noun phrase has a more syntactic orientation. I think both approaches should be covered in wikipedia, and I think that there is enough to be said about both approaches to fill at least two pages.

It is possible to merge the two pages for now, but it might be necessary to de-merge them later. I will add some content to Noun phrase and see whether there is a nice logical place for the nominal group to fit in. Generally, care must be taken to not confound the lexical category noun, the syntactic category noun phrase and the discourse pragmatics act of reference. I think that Nominal group (language) is applicable on the discourse pragmatic level, whereas noun phrase is syntactic. A noun phrase can be headed by a pronoun for instance (at least in some theories), whereas this would not be possible for a nominal group as far as I can see. Jasy jatere (talk) 18:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I suspect that the two articles cover such different (in some ways contradictory) views of nominalised units that they should be treated separately. I have no problem cross-linking them, if these two articles were merged, would that mean all system functional grammar articles should be merged with whatever the closest equivalent in traditional grammar? I think there'd be chaos. WP really does have the scope to give a thorough treatment of both, without buying into a tangled mess. Trad. and SF grammar are really at odds with each other in so many fundamental ways. Tony (talk) 11:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I abstain on whether the two articles should be merged; but if they are, I would beg that the main title be "Noun phrase". I have been a linguist for 40 years and never heard of the term "nominal group". Could that be because I'm trapped in American English and have missed hearing a British term? A Google search for "noun phrase" today netted 722,000 pages with the expression, while "nominal group" came up only 117,000 times -- and 9 of the first 10 of these were not linguistic! ("Nominal group technique" is a decision-making method.) Kotabatubara (talk) 00:26, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

The entire article should be deleted. Even if you did a search, and found 117,000 instances, that doesn't mean there is any currency whatsoever. A robot could have employed it 117,000 times. And it could have teamed up with other robots to do the same thing. Neither "noun phrase" nor "nominal group" necessarily mean anything. They should both be deleted from Wikipedia. Nouns are either in apposition to each other, or they aren't. Return to Classical Latin, at least that makes sense. Dexter Nextnumber (talk) 05:54, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

category problems

Numerals and quantifiers perform exactly the same grammatical role. Why are they categorised differently? Same for articles and possessives, which both orient the subset (the head of the group) in terms of the speaker–now modality. Tony (talk) 15:13, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Numerals and quantifiers are different categories in many languages, including English. For instance, quantifiers can float, whereas numerals can't e.g. The boys all read the bible vs. *The boys three read the bible. Of course, both fulfill the function of indicating an amount, but that does not mean that they are grammatically the same Jasy jatere (talk) 11:48, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

articles and possessives are also different from one another, although in English they are quite similar. Italian and Portuguese for instance combine them to The my house, the your house. etc. Furthermore, some languages lack articles, like Russian, whereas none lack possessives. Last but not least, articles are used to indicate whether a referent is old or new, specific, categorial or generic, whereas possessives indicate, well possession, no matter the discourse pragmatic status of the referent. I agree with you that they perform some kind of function related to the speaker and the speech situation, but that does not mean that they are all alike Jasy jatere (talk) 11:48, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Nevertheless, I query the utility and logic of the current boundaries.

current boundaries are based on differences in morphology, syntax and semantics. The lack of difference in pragmatics does not invalidate these differences. Furthermore, these terms are well established in the discipline, and it would probably be original research to argue with that. At least the difference between article and possessives goes back to Dionysios Trax (100 BC).

Your posting raises another important issue: is this truly an article about the noun phrase in all languages? I hadn't thought about it, but your angle appears to accept that the scope should indeed be that wide.

that is indeed what I think.

It would be an interesting article, for sure, but how on earth to find the expertise and knowledge required for a reasonable expose in world languages?

there is a book by Jan Rijkhoff called "The Noun Phrase", which would make for a good start. There are loads of generative literature as well, for those who like it. The question is rather where to find the manpower to add this information to wikipedia

At the moment, the foreign language component seems to be just a token (one example and one stubby little section).

That can surely be improved. I wrote most of that page from memory in very short time, before that, it was even stubbier.

Another issue it that the whole article is inadequate in its breadth and depth, even just for English.

I assume you mean it is too short? I agree

These aspects further delineate the article from that on "Nominal group (language)", which announces its scope in its opening two words. Perhaps the title might have been "Nominal group (English)", but since the distinction between phrase and group, and all of the associated apparatus, have been almost entirely explored in our language, it seemed unnecessary. I inserted the parenthetical item, in any case, only to distinguish the article from "Nominal group", which was already taken by some psychological group love-in theory. Tony (talk) 12:06, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I think there is space in wikipedia for at least 4 articles namely Noun Phrase, Noun Phrase (English), Nominal Group, Nominal Group (English). For the record, it was not me who made the merger proposal, I just created the discussion section (which was lacking) and advanced some arguments. I am perfectly fine with the two articles staying separate. Jasy jatere (talk) 12:53, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll remove the tags. What do you think of the system functional approach, in any case? It's also incomplete, but I think at the moment the article is OK as a stand-alone, until it's expanded. Tony (talk) 10:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the NomGr article is a much better article than the NPhr article as of now, if that is what your question is about. I am not too familiar with SFG, so I do not really know what I think about it ;-). I like the interpersonal approach it takes, but it seems to focus less on syntactic details than other theories Jasy jatere (talk) 13:23, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

• By "syntactic", do you mean "word order"? If so, I'm unsure I understand. Tony (talk) 14:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

"since the distinction between phrase and group ..." IMO, the article cannot stand on its own if it does not explain what this is. None of the linguists here except you seem to understand it. — kwami (talk) 10:26, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Determiner phrases?

I'm no linguist, but I do have a question. Currently, the article contains a sentence beginning "That noun phrases can be headed by elements other than nouns — for instance, pronouns (They came) or determiners ((I'll take these)).....". As far as I know, all pronouns function syntactically exactly as nouns, so I really don't see why this "difference" needs to be highlighted. Also, the second part of this claim interests me, namely that "I'll take these" contains a determiner. It is "I'll" that is currently in bold font - "I'll" stands for "I will", "I" being a personal pronoun and "will" an auxiliary verb, so no determiners there.. I'm also guessing that the author might have actually meant the word "these", but in this sentence this word is actually a pronoun rather than a determiner (compare with "I'll take these books", where "these" is a determiner, specifying "books"). It is similar with the word "his" - in "This car is his", it is a possessive pronoun, in "This is his car", it is a determiner, and it can be argued that these are different words that are homographs. So it seems to me that for this claim to be made (that noun phrases are sometimes seen as determiner phrases), better examples should be brought. Taavi23 (talk) 23:59, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

You were right about the boldface, I changed it to highlight "these", as intended. DP hypothesis is standard in Generative linguistics, but not accepted elsewhere. The argumentation is very theoretical (and not very convincing to me), and probably impossible to explain to laymen (Hey, even linguists struggle with it). So, why not take it out? Well, because it has become the standard in generative theory. How such an unintuitive hypothesis could become so popular, only god knows. Jasy jatere (talk) 11:02, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

noun phrase

after the properation be any adjective then we can say that it is noun phrase for examle he plays the cricket in big garden in it:-in big garden it is:-noun phrase —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.253.154.83 (talk) 13:20, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Noun phrases v nominal groups

Is there any difference between the concept described in this article and the one described in "Nominal group (language)"? I think not; if they are indeed the same, the two articles should be merged. (If there is some difference, it should be explained somewhere, so that there won't be other people asking the same question I am asking now.) ― A._di_M.^{2nd Dramaout} (formerly Army1987) 02:28, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, they're quite different concepts; read the artices to find out. The articles should not be merged. Tony (talk) 02:32, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I really can't see the difference. (I don't deny that there is one, but can't see it.) ¶ I think that Halliday is out of the mainstream. (This is in no way intended to disparage him and those agreeing with or influenced by him; it's merely my impression of the relative quantities of papers and books published in linguistics and descriptive grammar over the last decade or so.) But actually there is no one mainstream. There are instead main streams, plural. Biggest among those, surely, is the one that would treat what are described in Nominal group (language) as noun phrases (NP). (CGEL for one treats them so.) Smaller, but large and vigorous, is another that would treat them -- within English, at least, though not necessarily in Chinese -- as determiner phrases (DP, occasionally DetP). (The difference between the two analyses is one of those theoretical questions for which Wikipedia seems extraordinarily ill-suited.) ¶ Now, Halliday might have good reasons for rejecting "noun" or "phrase" or both, or he might reserve "noun phrase" for some other meaning. If so, then Nominal group (language) should explain. ¶ In summary, the article may indeed be worthwhile, but if so it needs augmentation to show this. -- Hoary (talk) 05:01, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't see the difference either. Certainly the definition given at Nominal group (language) corresponds to the definition of a noun phrase, and all the examples given of nominal groups are also noun phrases. I'm not in a position to comment on the mainstreaminess or otherwise of Michael Halliday, but the article gives the strong impression that "nominal group" is an idiosyncratic synonym of his for what the rest of the linguistic world calls a noun phrase. +Angr 08:50, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

But [cough] it's not true that the rest of the linguistic world regards it as a NP. For one thing, a sizable faction calls it a DP, and has done so since Steve Abney's much-cited PhD thesis of 1986 or thereabouts. There are one or two big questions. First, is the head of (say) "my book" "the" or "book"? (The former tends to seem ridiculous at first but if you spend some time thinking it's no longer ridiculous.) If it is "the", then secondly is the head of something like hon (Japanese for "(the/a) book(s)") a null (phonologically unrealized) determiner, or is it hon? Anyway, if "my book" and "my green book" are DPs, then "book" and "green book" respectively are NPs. -- Hoary (talk) 14:49, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Indeed there's no universally accepted standard terminology in modern descriptive English grammar. (For example, the CGEL, which is one of the most important references, calls afterwards a preposition, which I'm not sure anyone else does.) But if the two concepts are so closely related, having distinct articles seems overkill to me: we could have one article, for example titled "noun phrase" because it happens to be the more common name for that, and, after introducing the concept and explaining what everyone agrees with, it'd say that Smith calls it this way and analyses it this way, Jones calls it this other way and analyses it this other way, and so on. Of course, if the differences in analysis are so large than the resulting article would be ginormous, we should continue to have separate articles. ― A._di_M.^{2nd Dramaout} (formerly Army1987) 13:52, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with what I think is the gist of what you're saying, but I'd urge care. It's not just a matter of terminology but instead one of actual classification. I don't have CGEL on me, but I'd guess that its authors say that afterwards is a preposition because (i) they have already argued convincingly that the intransitive versions (She came across as a liar) of what are elsewhere transitive prepositions are themselves prepositions, and (ii) afterwards can modify nouns as PPs can and adverbs don't (I didn't talk do her during lunch but I did at the meeting afterwards), and (iii) it can be a complement of be as PPs can and adverbs can't (Lunch is first, the meeting is afterwards). ¶ I believe that this reanalysis (as opposed to mere terminological shift) is not at all new to CGEL. Rather, it's what Jespersen was writing before the war, and it's common in theoretical linguistics of the sixties or seventies and beyond. The problem is that the reference grammars between Jespersen and CGEL were conservative and/or unthinking, and the school grammars (not to mention prescriptivist piffle) are designed less to get their readers to think than to get them to learn what to recite for success in exams and the like. -- Hoary (talk) 14:49, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Here are the first two chapters and the first page of subsequent chapters of the CGEL: http://www.cambridge.org/uk/linguistics/cgel/sample.htm. Their definition of "preposition" is on page 58, but there's no rationale for it; I suppose it's in chapter 7. Anyway, in the specific case under discussion, I can't see any sequence of words which Halliday would call a nominal group but the CGEL wouldn't call a noun phrase, or vice versa. (I thought I had found one but I was mistaken.) ― A._di_M.^{2nd Dramaout} (formerly Army1987) 19:38, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree that any difference would appear to be so subtle, and theory-dependent, that the two topics should be treated together. 'Nominal group' should be merged to a section in this article, clearly explaining what the difference is (as the current article does not) and noting that usage is specific to a few people. — kwami (talk) 10:39, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay, in David Crystal's dictionary, he says a "group" is "A term used in Hallidayan grammar to refer to a unit on the rank scale intermediate between clause and word. For example, in the sentence The car was parked in the street, the car is a ‘nominal group’, was parked is a ‘verbal group’, and in the street is an ‘adverbial group’. The term PHRASE is equivalent in most other approaches." He also says that "nominal" is "A term used in some grammatical descriptions as a substitute for noun", and even gives the example "nominal group = ‘noun phrase’". Sure, Halliday treats noun phrases differently than other schools do, but that's a difference in the schools, and can be covered as different approaches under a single article. I mean, do we want a separate article for Halliday's operative voice rather than just covering his approach at active voice? — kwami (talk) 14:08, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

From the perspective of a user of the grammar, i.e. a language teacher, it is better to have the meaning (as on the noun group page) before the form (as on the noun phrase page) so I would prefer to keep these pages separate. OlwynA (talk) 08:30, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

We should then perhaps rename them "semantics of the noun phrase" and "syntax of the noun phrase" or similar, since both terms cover both form and meaning. Probably better IMO to have them as two sections in one article. — kwami (talk) 10:29, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Okay, from my talk page, I think I understand what the problem is. Tony is apparently only familiar with Hallidayan theory, at least among the functionalist lit, and therefore thinks that a noun cannot modify another noun. (Is this perhaps a remnant of Latin grammar, where nouns do not have that function, like admonitions against split infinitives and 'stranded' prepositions?) Halliday apparently proposes that in dog house, "dog" is an adjective, a usage I thought was obsolete. (You see it in 19th-century grammars.) So there is no difference between "noun phrase" and "nominal group"; the difference is between schools of linguistics which classify words in word classes (parts of speech) based on shared patterns of behaviour, and schools which only label the ephemeral roles that words play in any particular context. That is, it's a difference between "dog" being a noun because it behaves like thousands of other words which tend to name things, verses "dog" being a noun, adjective, or maybe a verb or adverb ("he went dog sledding"?) depending on how it's being used at the time. This is a different understanding of what a "noun" is, or an "adjective", and has basically nothing to do with "noun phrase" vs "nominal group", which are simply synonyms. — kwami (talk) 12:38, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I have moved someone's references higher up in the text, and fear I might have deleted something? Sorry, I am new...User: Annabelle Lukin —Preceding undated comment added 10:39, 26 May 2011 (UTC).

This article looks dodgy

It is seriously under-referenced, for a start. Then there's opaque text such as this:

"The head of a noun phrase can be implied, as in "The Bold and the Beautiful" or Robin Hood's "rob from the rich and give to the poor"; an implied noun phrase is most commonly used as a generic plural referring to human beings. Another example of noun phrase with implied head is I choose the cheaper of the two.

That noun phrases can be headed by elements other than nouns—for instance, pronouns (They came) or determiners (I'll take these)—has given rise to the postulation of a determiner phrase instead of a noun phrase. The English language is not as permissive as some other languages, with regard to possible heads of noun phrases. German, for instance, allows adjectives as heads of noun phrases, as in Gib mir die Alten for Give me the olds (i.e. old ones)."

I've removed the refs and tags. Why "implied"? Why is "head" used in two different senses in the article? The bold face for emphasis appears to be a breach of the MoS. Why is the actual noun phrase covered up by the italics in I choose the cheaper of the two? It's not the most intuitive example I've ever seen, either. Tony (talk) 08:26, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Implied because it's not stated explicitly. How is "head" being used in two different senses? Bold face seems to be a good way to emphasize text within italicized text; what would you prefer? Underlining? What do you mean by "the actual noun phrase is covered up by the italics"? What's counterintuitive about the example? —Angr (talk) 19:11, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Copy-edit tag; and why not merged with English noun phrase?

MoS breaches, grammatical glitches, and unexplained terms (a link should not be an excuse to avoid glossing a term in an anchor article). It looks like a stub, I'm afraid: superficial. Tony (talk) 03:12, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Furthermore, why is this article separate from English noun phrase? I have added a note to the talk page there asking the same question: Talk:English_noun_phrase#Multiple_issues. That article is totally unsatisfactory in a number of ways. At the very least, it needs to be integrated into this article. Then the whole thing needs to be fixed. Tony (talk) 03:28, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Copyedit

Enjoy.

Taking examples and photographs out of the nominal group article

Kwami, it's not going to work. Having been plain rude to me on your talk page, please don't now proceed to bowdlerise the nominal group article and then claim that this is now so similar that they should be merged. If nominal group has such valuable features and examples, best we work on the assumption that this article is rather poor, and bits of it might be merged into "Nominal group. At best, this is WP:POINTY behaviour. Tony (talk) 08:03, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Furthermore, the photograph has been falsified by your own personal "take" on the topic: "This is a noun phrase based on the noun apples, as can be seen by replacing the entire phrase with the pronoun "they", where "they" refers to the apples: "Those five beautiful shiny Jonathan apples sitting on the chair are delicious", or just "they are delicious". The other words in the phrase, those, five, beautiful, Jonathan, and embedded phrase sitting on the chair are all modifiers of the central noun apples, which is called the head of the noun phrase." Um ... no, "they" would not stand for "apples"; it would stand for "Those five beautiful shiny Jonathan apples sitting on the chair". This needs to be fixed. Better still, do not deliberately play politics under your own, unilateral initiative. Tony (talk) 08:07, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

There's nothing unilateral (and certainly nothing "political" - what an absurd charge!) about Kwami's attempts to merge the "nominal group" article here. As you can see from the discussion both here and at the nominal group talk page, you are the only editor who is opposed to a merger. You've been asked many times on both talk pages to give an example of a string of words that would qualify as a nominal group under SFG but not as a noun phrase in conventional linguistic theory, and you have never given an answer. All you've done is badmouth other editors, make pedantic and irrelevant nitpicks, and point out what a sorry shape this article is in – which no one is disputing, but the fact that this article is in need of improvement doesn't change the fact that Noun phrase and Nominal group (language) are two articles on the same subject and that the common name of that subject is "noun phrase". —Angr (talk) 08:35, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Right, so as one of the two partisan editors, thank you for coming in and bad-mouthing me. I won't be calling you absurd, BTW. It's very political, the whole POINTY thing. Now, the plain fact is that this is a poorly written article, and NG is a well-written article. Behind everyone's backs and without anyone's agreement, Kwami thinks he can steal pictures from the NG article and then turn around and use this is as justification for essentially removing the NG article. Kwami has also been putting his own POV spin in the NG article, which I have just removed. As I said above, the caption to the picture now contains a basic misunderstanding about noun phrases / nominal groups. Is this what we is in store?

I have no in-principle disagreement with some kind of merger, but it would need to be done in a planned fashion, not by incompetent tampering. Please desist. I have already suggested that a sandbox be set up to prepare a new "composite" article, but that suggestion was totally ignored by Kwami. The articles are not going to be merged into something that carries through Kwami's agenda to stamp out SFG, and that is that. Tony (talk) 08:56, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Tony, since yours is the better article, I have no problem with merging this one into it, and then moving it to this name. That would preserve the page history of your contributions. From your apparent belief that everyone is motivated by politics, I assume that you're in the rather unfortunate position of having to justify functional linguistics to formalist types. Fortunately I don't have that problem, and for the most part I simply ignore them as irrelevant to an understanding of language. But really, politics are irrelevant to the article, which should reflect the lit.

SFG will be given its due per WP:WEIGHT. That is, if we're going to have a section on different theoretical takes of a NP, then it should be included alongside other schools. If we don't do that, then it shouldn't be. Just because you follow a particular school (and not even all of SFG, if your previous comments are any indication) doesn't mean that WP needs to follow.

Also, please stop deleting the comment that NG is the SFG term for NP. Even SFG admits that, even if many of them prefer Halliday's term, and obscuring that identity does a disservice to our readers.

I'm not sure I was aware of the sandbox. Where is it? I don't see a link. — kwami (talk) 09:24, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) [Response to Tony without having read Kwami above:] I didn't call you absurd, I called the your accusation that Kwami is being "political" absurd. You did, however, call me "partisan", which suggest you're still thinking in some sort of metaphor of politics which I don't understand. (Is there a PSG party and an SFG party? Is there going to be an election?) The picture is of course irrelevant to both articles. No one needs to see a photo of some apples on a chair to understand what "Those five beautiful shiny Jonathan apples sitting on the chair" means, and I think it should be removed from both articles lest readers think the articles are somehow about fruit. And since Kwami suggested having a section in this article devoted to SFG's view of the nominal group, it's pretty clear he has no intention of "stamping out SFG". —Angr (talk) 09:25, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I like the photo. It adds a nice touch. Linguistic articles tend to be awfully drab. — kwami (talk) 09:32, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I like the photo itself too, which is why I just added it to Arkansas Black, the one article where it's relevant and where it wasn't being used until a few minutes ago. But it has nothing to do with noun phrases. —Angr (talk) 10:05, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

• I agree. But why not choose a different photo and a different example instead of being WP:POINTY?

Tony, it was simply an example that I liked. I like the overall feel of the NG article, and thought it would be an improvement here. Not everyone who disagrees with you is out to get you. — kwami (talk) 12:57, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

This, Angry, is what I meant by "political" ... and pretty snide politics at that. There is a clear agenda going on here. Now, Kwami, you ignored my suggestion of a sandbox, at your talk page; I took it as a continuation of the aggressive, belligerent attitude you have taken. If you would like to make a sandbox, that would be fine, and I will treat it as an experiment. But let me tell you that substituting/privileging your own horribly complex terminology that no reader will ever understand (clitic, copula ... they sound sexual ... and ascription, etc) for SFG terminology—making it essentially the theme and sequestering SGF terminology and the foundations on which it is built into a subsection at the bottom—will not do. That will look exactly what it is: part of a stamping-out agenda. At the moment, the NG article is just fine, and has been for some years until you came along complaining about terminology. If you want to conflate the articles into one, they will have to make due mention of SFG and avoid illogical statements such as the one I just fixed in the caption here. I would be pleased also if terms that hardly any reader will be familiar with, such as the clitoris and copulate above, were treated as not "common" terms, but specialist, and given equal weight.

The alternative, which I think would be much less trouble and easier for readers, is to go with the status quo, perhaps changing "Nominal group (language)" to "Nominal group (functional grammar)". I don't care about my presence on the page history (there should be no sense of "ownership", as you know), and I'm surprised you think it's the better article and at the same time brand me as rather ignorant on your talk page (go away and read this and that before you return ...).

As for your suggestion that NG be put into the general article on SFG, why not put "Noun phrase" into the "Grammar" article (which I believe should be renamed "Traditional grammar". Tony (talk) 09:45, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Again with the misplaced anger. You don't like the terminology of traditional grammar because you think it sounds sexual and no one can understand it? Seriously? SFG's terminology is no more obvious for the uninitiated reader than anyone else's, and for readers who have learned some grammar in school or some linguistics at university, SFG's terminology is thoroughly baffling. Clitic and copula are common terms, they've been part of linguistics terminology for centuries, and they're not going away. SFG's terminology, on the other hand, was invented by one person not very long ago, and is completely unused outside of that one person's framework. —Angr (talk) 10:05, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

No, it's a strong global tradition, and has had major influence on the grammar component of school curricula in several jurisdictions, including several US states. It is taught at many universities and is treated by many scholarly books, journal articles, and conference proceedings. It is the subject of a considerable body of textbooks. I have renamed the article "Nominal group (functional grammar)", since the article is so different in its content and theoretical basis from this one. It will be part of an expanding category of SFG articles that, as the writer of the first post at the top of the page points out, deserves coverage on WP. Thank you. If you want assistance in improving this article (and indeed the misconceived English noun phrase article), I'll be only too pleased. Tony (talk) 10:13, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I have no intention of attempting to improve this article, as I'm not an expert in syntax. —Angr (talk) 14:50, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

If you want to explore how noun phrases are treated in SFG, that's fine by me apart from the two objections I've raised. Since you haven't tried linking NG as the default article for quite a while, and just moved it to a more explicit dab, my first concern may no longer be an issue, and since you've now added NG as a synonym for NP on this page, perhaps obscuring the fact that NG and NP are effectively synonyms is no longer an issue either. And if you want to improve this article, you're more than welcome, and in fact I'd appreciate it. However, I'll pass on working with you on it, as you've demonstrated (to me at least) that we don't have the temperament to work together. — kwami (talk) 12:57, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

You are a rude bully, so if you think I'd want to work with you, well, no thanks. You have also demonstrated that you have no idea of WP:INVOLVED, and next time your fitness for adminship is up for scrutiny (it won't be long, I'm sure), I'll be there pointing out your failure to comprehend the fundamentals of conflict of interest. Tony (talk) 14:37, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

What conflict of interest? People who disagree with you should not edit articles you're interested in?

And people are not going to be terribly patient with you when you repeatedly refuse to cooperate, such as insisting that NG and NP are not the same thing, but then refusing to give an example on a NG that is not a NP. — kwami (talk) 11:31, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

N-bars

Victor,

The short section you just added on N-bars is problematic for two reasons:

1. The tradition that analyzed noun phrases in terms of the X-bar schema has largely moved to DPs, which means the section delivers a somewhat inaccurate impression about how Chomskyan syntax currently analyzes noun/determiner phrases.

2. To be understandable, the section needs a tree. It needs an X-bar tree of a noun phrase that shows the various constituents inside the noun phrase. Otherwise, the section is extra weight that is likely to confuse most readers.

I am going to now remove the section for these two reasons. However, I can see ways to overcome these problems: proper wording stating that the the N-bar analysis is now rejected by many in the tradition because DPs are preferred and a picture of a tree illustrating the X-bar analysis.

What I think would actually be more useful, however, would be a picture of a modern DP analysis with the various functional projections included. But since I think the DP analysis of noun phrases is weak, I am not inclined to produce such a picture myself. But if someone else wants to do it, I would support the effort. --Tjo3ya (talk) 16:32, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

OK, I thought some reference to the X-bar concept was needed in this article, so as to give a completer picture, but I see it's linked in one of the other sections, so maybe that's enough. Victor Yus (talk) 17:09, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

In its current state, this part of the article is very strange, illustrated as it is with trees that are unlike any I've seen in minimalist analyses.

For the forseeable future, the article will probably have to remain complex (if not plain bad). But it should strive to avoid misunderstandings.

I'm sure that this edit was well intended, but I don't find it an improvement. It took the wordy and clunky

A prominent analysis in some modern theories of syntax of what this article terms noun phrases argues that they are not really noun phrases, but rather determiner phrases (DPs). In other words, the noun of what this article terms a noun phrase is not the head of the phrase, which instead is the determiner.

and turned it into the shorter and smoother

A prominent analysis in some modern theories of syntax of noun phrases argues that they are not really noun phrases, but rather they aredeterminer phrases (DPs). In other words, the noun of the phrase is not the head of the phrase, but rather the determiner is.

A reduction of clunk is fine. But if you look in the books that are being referred to, they don't say that NPs are DPs. They talk of NPs and DPs as different things, so "Obama" and "the latest president" are DPs but "latest president" is an NP, headed by N "president". Of course the shorter, declunkified account permits such a reading, but it also permits a misreading.

Incidentally, I'm very wary of doing any work on grammar-relevant matters, and for various reasons. One is the support for "common sense" and lexicographic inertia (however routinely this folk wisdom is dismissed by thinking linguists of various allegiances) insisted on by some editors. For a gruesome example, see the talk page of "Possessive determiner", only recently renamed from "Possessive adjective" (!) after five years of sporadic argument, and despite a "strong oppose" on the grounds of "pædantry" (sic). The second is the degree of disagreement among (informed, thinking) linguists: to continue with that minor example, though it would be hard to find a (real, non-senile) linguist who regards English your as an adjective, there's plenty of disagreement (hard to summarize for the newcomer in a digestible sentence or two) over what it is. -- Hoary (talk) 00:46, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Increasing exposure

Hoary,

You can increase your exposure to the trees used in the section and to the tradition from which they come here and here and here. No where does it state that the trees employed are those of Minimalism (in the sense of the Minimalist Program). In fact it states that the trees are dependency grammar trees and that they are employed in the interest of keeping things simple. Ironically in this regard, the dependency grammar trees are significantly more minimal than most trees employed in Minimalism because they contain on average many fewer nodes and edges. In this respect, I think they are well suited to illustrating concepts of syntax in Wikipedia.

The complexity of the article is due in part to the current state of the field of theoretical syntax. The section on pronouns/nouns and noun phrases provides a good illustration of this point. Traditional grammar draws a clear distinction between words, phrases, and clauses, yet this distinction has been obscured due to the influence of modern theories of syntax, which base their understanding of phrases entirely on the configuration (= the prefigured syntactic structure). The confusion concerning NPs or DPs provides a second good illustration of this point. Many syntax textbooks assume the traditional NP analysis, whereas those in the GB/MP tradition now prefer the DP analysis.

Concerning your specific edits, I think some of them improved the style and content, so I left them. I disagreed, however, with the two additions of "what this article terms noun phrases" precisely for the reason you state: those formulations are unnecessarily exact and thus "clunky".

I do not think your statement is accurate concerning what the textbooks do and do not say about NPs and DPs. Although I am not in a library at present, I think I recall many of the basic textbooks introducing noun phrases as NPs and then later reanalysing them as DPs. I think there is a lot of inconsistency in the area. I do have one example here:

Bresnan, Joan 200. Lexical-Functional Syntax. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.

This book assumes NPs in the early pages(for names like Mary and phrases like the forest) and then later, it assumes DPs (for names like Mary). If you have it available, take a look. Look at the trees.

Concerning possessive determiners, I think the discussion on the talk page has resulted in the best choice. I prefer the terms possessive determiner (my, your, her, etc.) and possessive pronoun (mine, yours, hers, etc.). Like you, I reject the term possessive adjective, but I also reject the term possessive pronoun for my, your, her, etc. These words have the distribution of determiners, not of pronouns. Calling these words genitive pronouns is, I believe, also inaccurate. A case system really does not exist in English in any sort of productive sense. --Tjo3ya (talk) 06:23, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Can you explain how a phrase without a determiner (like Mary, or presumably big cats) is explained as being a DP in these approaches? Also, would it be accurate to say that what these authors call DP and NP respectively are essentially what X-bar theorists would call NP and N-bar respectively? Victor Yus (talk) 07:55, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

"Mary" would have a null nominal, and "big cats" a null determiner. -- Hoary (talk) 08:02, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, we disagree in various ways. Those described in the last paragraph, though not strictly relevant to this article, are easiest to describe. "Arguing is a waste of time" -- is "arguing" within that sentence a noun or a verb? It can't be replaced by "write", but it can be replaced by "golf", and it therefore seems to have the distribution of a noun; yet most linguists call it a verb. So the form of the lexeme can determine its distribution, and thus the impossibility of *"Your must come over for dinner" doesn't mean that "your" can't be a pronoun. Assuming that you don't have in mind the production of new cases, I'm not quite sure what it means for English not to have a _productive_ case system, given that English can use the "'s" clitic for new words ("the app's best point"); but let's suppose that it indeed lacks one. How does this rule out case distinctions among "I, me, my, mine"? If "my" is "possessive", does this "possession" have lexical meaning, what with "my" birth, debt, regret, shame, gratitude, death (or indeed top, mind, fingers, toes, leg or grave), none of which I meaningfully "possess"? Etc etc. -- Hoary (talk) 08:02, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Syntax trees

Victor,

I think your recent edits have indeed improved the organization and presentation a bit. Do you know how to produce syntax trees? Do you have a drawing program that could allow you to produce pictures? I use Paint. I think the use of the illustrations (e.g. trees) makes the content accessible to a wider audience. When I started contributing to Wikipedia, I noticed that there were very few illustrations in the syntax and grammar articles. When illustrations are present, however, they solidify the concepts in a manner that pure text simply cannot. In this regard, this article can be improved further by the addition of a couple more syntax trees. I think a couple of phrase structure grammar trees illustrating, for instance, an X-bar theoretic analysis and/or a modern DP analysis of noun phrases would be good. --Tjo3ya (talk) 18:00, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I could try producing trees, I suppose, though it's not something I've done, nor do I necessarily have the detailed knowledge of the various theories. Without wishing to sound like I'm passing the buck, could you maybe produce the couple you propose?

Meanwhile I'm going to try writing something more explicit about the distinction between and various approaches to noun phrases with and without determiners; any corrections or improvements will be welcome. Victor Yus (talk) 07:00, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Aesthetics count

Victor,

The trees you've added are helpful, I think. They provide an overview of the nature of the varying and competing analyses of noun/determiner phrases. But aesthetics count! The trees you have added are not pleasing to look at. I'm not sure how those are made, but when they are put into Wikipedia articles, they don't look good. The article on X-bar theory has the same problem. The result is that the article ends up looking as though it was pieced together haphazardly, which decreases the legitimacy of the content. You might consider using a drawing program of some sort, such as Paint or Flash. As I stated above, I now use Paint. It takes some time fiddling and experimenting before one can produce the tree diagrams, but it's all easily possible.

I may redraw the trees you have provided (if I get around to it). --Tjo3ya (talk) 18:29, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I certainly agree that properly drawn trees would be better. But first we should probably make sure that we agree that they are correct (preferably according to some specific theory that we can refer to). I believe you and others here are more knowledgeable in this area than I, so perhaps first we could see if there are any corrections anyone thinks ought to be made to the trees? Victor Yus (talk) 07:32, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I think your diagrams are broadly accurate, but there are likely to be variations in the details. The X-bar analysis is accurate for the analysis of NPs in the 1980s. I am not sure about your DP trees for phrase structure grammar, though. I will check with a couple of modern syntax textbooks the next time I am in the library. --Tjo3ya (talk) 19:19, 9 August 2012 (UTC)