Timeline for Can noun phrases have only one word?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
20 events
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| Sep 19 at 17:56 | comment | added | Wastrel | @supercat Thank you very much for that. I agree that grammarians should agree. The schism I perceive between those who want to define a word as a phrase and those who do not could be eliminated by formally using some inclusive term like "noun construct". That term would be for grammarians only,and the casual user of language could continue as he always has. (I was just interrupted by my girlfriend, and I explained the issue briefly. and asked, "Are a word and a phrase the same thing?" She said, "No.") I like your comment very much. Words are, after all, only "tokens". | |
| Sep 19 at 15:09 | comment | added | supercat | @Wastrel: A lot of communication could be made clearer if people could agree on separate inclusive and exclusive terms, e.g. in chess having terms for "pieces", "pawns", and "tokens", the last of which would include all pieces and pawns. If grammarians could agree on a term like "noun construct" to refer to any grammatical structure that serves the purpose of a noun or noun phrase, that would eliminate the need for ambiguity. | |
| Sep 18 at 19:15 | comment | added | Kevin | @Wastrel: It's exactly the same reason as FIDE: It makes the rules simpler to follow and understand, because you have one term instead of two. | |
| Sep 18 at 16:54 | comment | added | Wastrel | @Kevin I have no problem, myself, with the additional clarity of "The subject of a sentence is a noun or noun phrase". It uses a few more words, but after all, words are the subject of the discussion. I'm a chess player and I follow chess, and regardless of FIDE's definition, players distinguish between pieces and pawns, and when they mean both, they say both. Again, this results in greater clarity. However, FIDE has a good reason for making this definition within their rules. I don't really see the reason for redefining "word" as "phrase" in some circumstances. | |
| Sep 18 at 14:07 | comment | added | Araucaria - Not here any more. | David MacKee's answer says what I suspect is the case in a vast majority of traditional grammars. They nearly all recognise one-word noun phrases. Do you have any quotes for your claims re traditional grammars? Also, CamGEL is a informal version of a model theoretic phrase structure grammar. I don't see how or why it should be classed as 'traditional' unless you are of the opinion that all non-generative grammars are 'traditional'? | |
| Sep 18 at 13:35 | comment | added | Araucaria - Not here any more. | @Kevin Indeed, that's one bit of it. Another, for example, is that we can only add possessive 'S to the end of a noun phrase, not to the end of a noun inside a noun phrase: the dog you met yesterday's owner not *the dog's you met yesterday owner . | |
| Sep 18 at 12:25 | comment | added | Lambie | @Araucaria - Not here any more I know that. The third comment under the question was written by me on ELU. I do not think this question belongs on ELU. It shows no effort at all. | |
| Sep 18 at 1:52 | comment | added | Kevin | @Wastrel: The idea is that it lets you say things like "The subject of a sentence is a noun phrase" instead of "The subject of a sentence is a noun or noun phrase." The argument the modernists are making is that it is silly to define "noun phrase" to exclude single nouns, only to go around writing "noun or noun phrase" literally everywhere. You might as well just say that a noun is a noun phrase and make things easier for everyone. This is similar to the decision of the FIDE rules of chess to define a "piece" as including pawns (so they don't have to write "pawn or piece" everywhere). | |
| Sep 17 at 22:43 | comment | added | Araucaria - Not here any more. | @Lambie The question was not asked on ELL but on EL&U. | |
| Sep 17 at 21:36 | comment | added | Dan Staley | A type of grammar is really called "modern traditional"? What an oxymoronic term... | |
| Sep 17 at 20:15 | comment | added | Andy Bonner | @Lambie Merriam Webster: "4: a word or group of words..." also 2b "word." BUT Collins "a short group of words"; or below, citing Webster's 4th Collegiate, "a sequence of two or more words." I don't have the wherewithal to muck about with the OED but am curious. Suffice it to say there's at least one dictionary suggesting it could be a single word, but most want more. And classical etymological origins don't help us much because they're more about "manner of speaking." | |
| Sep 17 at 18:32 | history | edited | ishtar | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Sep 17 at 14:27 | comment | added | Wastrel | "[M]any single words are judged to be phrases based on a desire for theory-internal consistency." If the proposed theory striving for consistency causes another, different, inconsistency (i.e. a single word is a phrase) then is this trip really necessary? I must be too simple a person to understand this. | |
| Sep 16 at 20:50 | comment | added | Lambie | Yes, a grammar term from a learner, not an advanced speaker or someone wanting to be a linguist. | |
| Sep 16 at 20:26 | comment | added | ishtar | The question was about a grammar term. My answer was about a grammar term. If you think that the question is an XY problem, feel free to write an answer about your philosophy of language learning. | |
| Sep 16 at 20:16 | comment | added | Lambie | Nope, you tell them it will not help them learn to speak English because when you learn another language, what counts is repeating patterns so you internalize them, not learning grammar rules. You learn by repetition, just like music. | |
| Sep 16 at 20:13 | comment | added | ishtar | And when a student looks at, for example, chapter 1 of "A Student's Introduction to English Grammar" and sees a proper noun marked as "noun phrase"? Do you tell them it's all lies and jests by silly so-called scholars? | |
| Sep 16 at 19:48 | comment | added | Lambie | Yeah, the problem is that these modernists go against the regular definition of the word phrase which has never ever meant one word. The regular defintion of phrase is two or more words. Ergo, a person's name is not a noun phrase. In English language learning, there is consensus that it means two or more words. You did not in fact answer the question. | |
| Sep 16 at 19:02 | history | edited | Ronald Sole | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Sep 16 at 18:13 | history | answered | ishtar | CC BY-SA 4.0 |