MODIFICATION OF NOUN PHRASES. A CHALLENGE FOR COMPOSITIONAL SEMANTICS

This article critically compares the N-S-analysis of relatives with the NP-S-analysis. The main stress of the investigation lies on the relativmtion of plural NPs like Napoleon and Snowball\ who were generally recognised as being the cleverest of the pigs, the black dog and the grey horse that hated eachother or most animals who were in the farm. Constructions of this kind speak in favour of the NP-S-analysis both on syntactic and on semantical grounds. The following results are obtained. 1) The rule underlying the NP-S-analysis, i.e. NP—»NPS is semantically interpreted and the adequacy of the semantics is shown. 2) The quantifying phrases (i.e. the NPs) are classified semantically. It is argued that the quantifiers of English reduce to a very small number of semantically interesting different types, presu mably six. 3) The appositive-restrictive distinction for relatives comes out as a consequence of the semantics. There is no corresponding syntactic distinction. 4) A unified semantics for and is introduced, which explains that and behaves in a lot of cases differently form or.