That's an interesting observation, Bruce.  I wonder if it might be a
function of animacy constraints, that it's more difficult to make
possessors of inanimates.  Clearly we can use "its" as a genitive
determiner but not without a head.  I suspect Craig or Johanna, with
their deeper knowledge of cognitive grammar, could address this better.

Herb

Notice that in the list that Craig made the word "its" is missing.  This

"determiner" cannot be used by itself.

*I drank from Craig's cup and the baby from its.

Maybe this is all right for some people, but it seems strange to me.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "STAHLKE, HERBERT F" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 5:52 PM
Subject: Re: Possessive Noun Determiners


There's a problem with universal quantifiers.  If you replace
"everything" with a specific noun phrase like "pile of clothes," then
you get

The pile of clothes that was Craig's pile of clothes was piled in the
middle of the floor.

and, of course,

The pile of clothes that was Craig's was piled in the middle of the
floor.

A little redundant and inelegant, but perfectly grammatical.  But you
also get other determiners as NPs, like "This is what I was talking
about."  So yes it is possible to delete the N' that the determiner
serves as specifier for.

Ellipsis must apply to whole constituents, and the N', which is what you
get from an NP (N'') when you take off the determiner, is a constituent.
This, by the way, is one of the facts of noun phrases that traditional
grammar and RK diagramming have trouble expressing.

Herb

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Peter Adams
Sent: 2008-04-25 16:02
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Possessive Noun Determiners

Hmmm.  Mulling it over.  How about this:

Everything that was Craig's was piled in the middle of the floor.

This time, I don't think there is an ellipsis, for these two are
surely not grammatical:

*Everything that was Craig's everything was piled in the middle of the
floor.
*Everything that was Craig's that was piled in the middle of the floor.

So if "Craig's" is a determiner, that mean it is possible to have a
determiner that does not have a head noun following?

Peter



On Apr 25, 2008, at 1:48 PM, STAHLKE, HERBERT F wrote:

> Herb's response:
>
> Let me start with a little morphology.  The genitive marker spelled
> <'s>
> is not a suffix but a clitic.  That means that it's a form that cannot
> stand on its own but attaches to a phrasal constituent rather than
> to a
> stem.  It's like a suffix in that it must attach to something but
> unlike
> a suffix in that it doesn't attach to a stem.  Contrast this with the
> plural or third singular suffixes that are identical in pronunciation
> but attach to word stems.  These are inflectional affixes.  The fact
> that we can say, "the chairman of the board's opinion" and we're not
> talking about the board's opinion demonstrates that the genitive is a
> clitic, not a suffix.
>
> That said, what the genitive does syntactically is turn a noun phrase
> into a determiner phrase headed by 's, the genitive clitic.  Because
> it's a determiner phrase, it can have quite a complex internal
> structure
> while at the same time functioning as a determiner.  As a determiner
> it's distinct from adjectives.  Adjectives cannot come before
> determiners and number words.  Adjectives in a string before a noun
> have
> some freedom of order.  Determiners don't.  Adjectives can be
> inflected
> for comparison be compared syntactically using more/most, less/least,
> etc.  Determiners can't be compared at all.
>
> So it has to be a determiner, not an adjective.
>
> Herb
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Peter Adams
> Sent: 2008-04-25 07:01
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Possessive Noun Determiners
>
> I'm wondering about the word class of possessive nouns when they
> appear in the subject complement position:
>
> The car parked in front of my house is Herb's.
>
> Is "Herb's" still a determiner with, perhaps, an understood head noun
> "car"?  Or is it an adjective?
>
> Peter Adams
>
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