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Nouns as Lexical Heads

In this section we provide an alternative analysis of Welsh noun phrases which is surface oriented, avoids the multiplication of abstract categorial entities and is, we believe, empirically well-founded. This analysis, which is equally consistent with the X' schemata as the head movement analysis, builds on the claim that basic word order in noun phrases follows not from head movement but from the fact that nouns in Welsh systematically lack complements. That is, the apparent intervention of specifier between head and complements, and adjectives between head and specifier, is caused not by the displacement of the head N from its canonical (underlying) position within N', to a dominating Num projection but by the fact that the `complements' are not complements at all, but adjuncts. If they are not sisters of the lexical head, then the fact that possessives and adjectives may intervene between head noun and `complement' is not in any way puzzling.

This view is also consistent with basic X' theoretic assumptions and is shown schematically for (7) in (12). As above, I take the possessive to map to a POSS function.

This analysis poses no particular structural difficulties. It embodies three main claims: (i) postnominal APs are adjoined to intermediate projections; (ii) the specifier of NP maps to POSS, a SUBJective function; and, most fundamentally, (iii) the possessor - PPs order does not reflect head movement from a specifier initial NP but the fact that nominal heads have specifiers (POSS) but no complements (CFs): that is, the PP dependents of N are adjoined to NP and map to non-argument (ADJUNCT) functions.⁷ In the rest of this section, we motivate this claim.

The PPs show the relative freedom of position characteristic of adjunct rather than complement status. Although the possessor DP/NP (when it occurs) must precede any PP dependents, the ordering among PP dependents themselves is free.

This follows straightforwardly from the recursivity of adjunction.

In addition, PP dependents appear to be generally optional. When several arguments to a noun may be expressed (e.g. a picture noun or a deverbal nominal), either the theme-like or the more agent-like argument can be expressed as a possessive, though there is at the least a marked preference for the more agent-like argument as possessive if both are expressed, with the result that theme possessors occur felicitiously only when the agent-like argument is unexpressed. ⁸

Similarly, for Irish [Duffield 1996] reports that when several arguments to a picture noun are expressed, the PP is obligatorily the thematic object. Again according to Duffield, in VN based action nominalizations in Irish the possessive can only be the thematic object.

Neither is it the case that binding properties within NP implicate the notion of structural complement. As the examples below show, semantic role rather than linear precedence or c-command seems to determine rank for binding:

The only two grammatical possibilities are those in which the agentive PP binds the non-agentive PP. This is straightforward if semantic role is relevant to binding, but if it is assumed that configurational properties are relevant, it is problematic.⁹

In summary, although further work needs to be done to establish the correctness of this analysis, there are a number of aspects of noun phrase structure which lend plausibility to the hypothesis that nouns systematically lack complement.

Note that this analysis extends gracefully to coordination data which is certainly challenging on the head movement account. It is possible to coordinate head nouns (and noun- adjectival phrase combinations) with a possessor taking scope over the co-ordination. These must be coordinate NumPs (or Num'), with each conjunct involving N to Num raising. Two structural possibilities, neither of them orthodox, present themselves as possibilities. On the other hand, the structure induced by the present analysis, shown in (26) is straightforward.