noun phrase determiner phrase nominal expression partitive phrase determiner phrase prepositive quantifier determiner postpositive limiter determiner possessive expression demonstrative article identifier possessive expression nominal expression possessive noun phrase nominal expression noun phrase determiner phrase determiner article nominal expression assertion temporality reference attribute reference realis reference indeterminate indefinite person male individual situation state relation determiner possessive expression nominal expression personal pronoun possessive determiner phrase postpositive limiter determiner specifier phrase article specifier assertion temporality reference experiencer experiencer class derivation attachment reference functional realis reference determinate definite reference indeterminate indefinite person female individual person communicant speaker individual person male individual quality functional specific situation event happening determiner phrase prepositive quantifier determiner prepositive quantifier demonstrative determiner phrase determiner postpositive limiter possessive expression specifier nominal expression possessive assertion temporality reference class class reference reference functional derivation possessive realis reference determinate quantitive cumulative number two reference determinate deictive immediate reference determinate definite object concrete discrete movable instrumental dual set person communicant speaker individual object concrete discrete quality functional specific situation state relation noun phrase determiner phrase partitive phrase determiner of noun phrase article nominal expression assertion temporality partitive subset reference class property reference derivation realis reference indeterminate indefinite reference determinate definite object individual set object set object concrete discrete animate faunal set quality property gradable non-measurable situation state relation

Section 6-4 NOUN PHRASES

Rule [P16] describes the analysis of the noun phrase as one of two possible structures. It may be a bare nominal expression, which is often realized as a single word, such as a proper noun or personal name. It is also possible to class the personal pronoun as a bare nominal, since it appears in almost the same syntactic environment. In some cases the pronoun (or noun) may have a prepositional phrase complement called a partitive phrase.
[P16] The noun phrase

The determiner is usually a pre-modifier in the noun phrase. In some cases where a pronoun is followed by an adjectival post-positive limiter (modifier), it is possible to treat the pronoun as a nominalized form of the determiner. This noun may also have a null reflex, so that the determiner then looks like a pronoun. [P20] describes the determiner phrase as having four basic structures (linear combinations). One structure would consist of the determiner by itself. Another would combine the deteminer with a quantifier phrase, another with a limiter, and the fourth with both.
[P20] The determiner phrase
[P21] expands the description of the determiner itself as being equivalent to four mutually exclusive kinds of structures.
[P21] The determiner

[P22] The possessive expression

This rule allows a nominal expression to be part of the determiner, which is in the structure of a noun phrase, while the head of the noun phrase is already a nominal expression.

The nominal expression.  
Here are some examples using the structural elements for the syntactic description for which [P16], [P20], [P21], and [P22] were designed. Fuller treatment of these various elements follows in chapters 14 and 15. The sentence in (19) illustrates two nominal expressions. The first one does not contain a determiner, which is normal for personal names. The second one has an indefinite determiner. Both nouns are represented semantically as objects and refer to individual male persons. The predication attributes the characteristics of the second object to the first, so that the first becomes the subject and the second a predicate noun.
SentenceParts with Structural Description
(19) John is a man. “John” =
“a man” =

[John is a man]

The determiner.  
Sentence (20) was designed to contain two noun phrases where both of them contain determiners. The first one uses the possessive form of a personal pronoun, whereas the second contains a limiter that qualifies the noun. The predication is about a certain situation involving two people. Both people seem to have been involved equally in the event; however, one (my wife) is in focus as the subject of the sentence and the second, not as well identified, is structured as a direct object of the verb. The sentence, “A certain man met my wife” has virtually the same semantic structure, except that the focus is changed. MultiNet has not developed a way to indicate focus. One suggestion has been to circle the focus element with a dashed circle.
SentenceParts with Structural Description
(20)My wife met a certain man. “my” =

“a certain” =

[My wife met a certain man]

The larger determiner phrase.  
The last nominal expression in (20) has a limiter attached. Further examples of the determiner with other elements attached are illustrated in sentence (21). In the subject there are two elements, the first a pre-positive quantifier used when the plural noun refers to two objects, a pair. The second noun phrase seems to have been stripped of its noun, which would have conveyed the general idea of property. This element does not attribute a quality to the subject, but instead simply places its referents in a larger class of objects being in my possession.
(21)Both these gloves are my own. “both these” =

“my own” =


[Both these gloves are my own]

The partitive phrase.  
The last example of the noun phrase, sentence (21), has a partitive phrase attached. In the simple subject of this sentence is the word part, but there is a noun phrase attached to it to refer to the whole. MultiNet has to distinguish between the parts of a whole, which uses the partitive relation, and a set of items which is fully subsumed by a group of items. The members of such a subset have all the characteristics of all the members of the group; however, in this example some of them are assigned a unique property that distinguishes them. The subset relation is drawn with a dashed line because it holds on the pre-extensional level of interpretation. There are five other relations of MultiNet that are similar to this one and would be similarly expressed using the partitive phrase.
(22) A part of the flies were poisonous. “a part of the flies” =


[A part of the flies were poisonous]

The genitive phrase.  
The examples given to this point hardly exhaust the possiblities for a complement to the nominal expression in a noun phrase. For example, kinship terms may be complemented with a genitive phrase to tell the relative to the person referred to by it. Kinship is modeled in MultiNet using the ATTACHMENT relation. Syntactically the complement can be made a modifier by the use of the possessive clitic, which attaches to the immediately preceding noun.

The phrase in figure (23) illustrates the branching of the syntactic structure that results from the repetition of the nominal expression in [P16] and [P22]. This example should be compared to figure (24), a synonymous expression which uses [P23] to generate the genitive phrase complementing the immediately preceding noun.

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