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7 - The noun phrase

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2010

Katalin É. Kiss
Affiliation:
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest
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Summary

The inner structures of the various types of verb complements resemble the inner structure of the extended verb phrase in their outlines: they consist of a lexical phrase embedded in morphosyntactic projections and operator projections. The noun phrase, too, will be analyzed as a complex containing a lexical kernel (the NP proper) subsumed by operator projections extending it into an indefinite numeral phrase (NumP) and/or a definite determiner phrase (DP). The full range of morphosyntactic projections that play a role in the noun phrase will become evident in the analysis of the possessive construction.

The basic syntactic layers of the noun phrase

The minimal noun projection appearing in the Hungarian sentence is a bare singular case-marked noun; for example:

  1. (1) a. János könyvet olvas.

  2. John book-ACC reads

  3. ‘John is book-reading.’

  4. b. János moziba ment.

  5. John cinema-to went

  6. ‘John went to (the) cinema.’

In the unmarked case such nouns function as verb modifiers. In Section 3.6 verb modifiers were shown to display both phrase-like and head-like properties: they move into Spec, AspP like a phrase, and merge with the V in Asp like a head, which suggests that they are both minimal and maximal, i.e., they are phrases containing merely a head.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2002

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  • The noun phrase
  • Katalin É. Kiss, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest
  • Book: The Syntax of Hungarian
  • Online publication: 06 July 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511755088.007
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  • The noun phrase
  • Katalin É. Kiss, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest
  • Book: The Syntax of Hungarian
  • Online publication: 06 July 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511755088.007
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The noun phrase
  • Katalin É. Kiss, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest
  • Book: The Syntax of Hungarian
  • Online publication: 06 July 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511755088.007
Available formats
×