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THE STRUCTURE OF THE NOUN PHRASE IN ENGLISH AND FRENCH
ABSTRACT
This study examines the structure of noun phrase in English and French.
The main purpose of the study is guided by describing the differences in the structure of a noun phrase in English and French, creating analyses that will facilitate or enhance the research of the independent structures of these languages, exposing researchers to different problems that may arise in the structures of these languages. The study adopts a phrase structure/ structuralism framework.
It finds out that the French Noun Phrase (Groupe de Nom) is head final. It was also discovered that certain part nominal constituent like the prepositional phrase and the subordinate clause can co-occur with the Noun phrase (Groupe de Nom) to the NP (GN. We discovered that the NP(GN)can occur as subject (subjet), object (objet) of the verb and complement of the preposition (complėment de prėposition). All the several thousands of words in human language belong to a highly restricted finite set of word level categories, such as noun (noms), verbs (verbes), objectives (objectifs),adverbs (adverbes), pronouns (pronoms) etc. In practice, it is also possible for the major words level categories to expand onto their corresponding phrase-level categories by the addition of other words. The resultant construction due to the addition of other words to expand a major word-level category is knonw as a phrase.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page i
Approval Page ii
Certification iii
Dedication iv
Acknowledgements v
Table of Contents vi
Abstract vii
CHAPTER ONE – INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study 1
1.2 Statement of the Problem 9
1.3 Purpose of the Study 11
1.4 Research Questions 11
1.5 Significance of the Study 11
1.6 Scope and Delimitation of the Study 12
1.7 Research Methodology 14
CHAPTER TWO – LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 Introduction 14
2.1 Theoretical Review 14
2.1.1 Concept of Noun Phrase 14
2.1.1.1 Modern Methods of NP 24
2.1.1.2 Noun Phrases with Without Determiners 26
2.1.1.3. Hypothesis of a Determiner Phrase 27
2.1.1.4 The Theory of X-Bar Phrase Structure 32
2.1.1.5 The Problem with Phrase Structure Categories 33
2.1.1.6 X-Bar Nodes (X-Bar Noyaux) 35
2.1.1.7 X-Bar Syntax (X-Bar Syntaxe) 38
2.1.1.8 Licensing Conditions for English and French 40
2.1.2 Specifiers, Complements and Adjuncts in French/ English 42
2.1.3 A Noun Phrase or Nominal Phrase (NP) 43
2.1.4 Status of Single Words as Phrase 44
2.1.5 Components of Noun Phrases 45
2.1.6 Empirical Studies 47
2.1.7 Summary of Literature Review 64
CHAPTER THREE: ANALYSIS OF STRUCTURE OF THE NOUN PHRASE IN ENGLISH AND FRENCH
3.0 Introduction 66
3.1 The Noun Phrase (Le Groupe De Nom) 66
3.2 Noun Phrase As A Single Noun 66
Groupe De Nom Comme Un Nom Commun
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3.3 Noun Pronoun as Pronoun – (Nom Pronom comme Pronom) 67
3.4 Noun Phrase as Determiner + Noun –
Nom Phrase Comme Determinant + Nom 67
3.5 Noun Phrase as Determiner + Adjective + Noun
Groupe De Nom Comme Determinant + Adjectif + Nom 69
3.6 Noun Pronoun as Determiner + Noun + Preposition
Groupe de Pronom comme Determine + Nom + Preposition 70
3.7 Noun Phrase as Noun Phrase + S1
Groupe de Nom comme Groupe de Nom + S1 74
3.8 Clause to Function as an NP –
Clause Vers Fonction Comme un GN 76
CHAPTER FOUR: SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
4.0 Summary of the Findings 78
4.1 Conclusion 80
4.2 Recommendations 80
References 85
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
The origin of the study of grammar in Europe dates back to classical antiquity (Jespersen, 1950:20). The term grammar is used to mean the body of descriptive statements about the morphological and syntactic structures of a language. When one says, for instance, that someone is learning the grammar of French, one has at the back of one’s mind meaning of this grammar as a body of descriptive statements about the systemic interrelationships of structures within the language.
The term grammar can also be used for the quality of the knowledge of a language possessed by a speaker, as inferred from the nature of his utterances. It is this meaning of grammar that one has when one refers to the utterance of a particular speaker as an example of poor grammar. In this ease, one is inferring from the nature of the utterance that the quality of the knowledge of the language possessed by the speaker is a poor one.
The term grammar is also used to mean the prescriptive statements about usages that are considered unacceptable on a particular language. This meaning of the term borders on the study of stylistic. A classical example of a body established for express purpose of making prescriptive statements is the French Academy founded in 1637. Its main purpose is to see that the vocabulary and grammar of French do not deviate from agreed norms. Grammar is therefore defined as the art of speaking and writing correctly. If we take examples from English, any statement that says “I ain’t gone” is ungrammatical, while “I haven’t gone” is grammatical, is a prescriptive statement.
The term grammar is also used to mean a book embodying the morphological and syntactic rules of a particular language. The term is used in this sense when one refers to a book as the grammar of a particular language .For instance; this is a grammar of French.
Every language has a dynamic grammar which is a constantly changing set of habits that allows members of a speech community to communicate with one another. Even with this knowledge, many academics and language teachers still treat grammar as if it were an object outside of human beings in society, comprising a set of rules rather a key to the amazing world of human communication. Language, as observed by Nwala (2004), transverses time, space and culture.
Recently, there has come to be an understanding of the importance of language in relation to general human cognition, communication and culture.
Language is an integral part of human communication. It is species-specific and species-uniform, a special gift of God to mankind. Human civilization would have been impossible without language. Any human being participating in a speech community with other humans with common mental, emotional, and physical needs develops patterned communicative behavior which manifests in the form of language. Vashney (nd) marks a distinction between ‘language’ and ‘a language’. According to him, language in the abstract is man’s facility to talk to each other, the faculty of speech which human beings hold in common. ‘A language’ on the other hand, is a particular code, a particular set of conventions which human beings operate with the aid of the faculty of speech, it is not held in common by all means but by those who belong to a specific speech community.
That is why we say that language is ‘species-specific’. It is only those that belong to a particular sect that can use it effectively. Language is primarily a tool for communication. Lewis Thomas quoted in O’ Grady, Dobrovosky, and Katamba (1996) notes that the gift of language is the single human trait that marks us all genetically, setting us apart from the rest of life.
A distinction is made between human communication and animal communication. Animal communication is without complexity, novelty, multiplicity and creativity which characterize human communication. One major advantage of human communication system is flexibility.
Meanings can be changed and new symbols created. The study of human communication is the hallmark of linguistics. Since language is central and a sine qua non to our human nature, linguistics is a scientific discipline that studies all aspects of human language. Though languages of the world vary, linguists not only describe the diverse characteristics of individual languages but also seek to discover deeper properties which all languages share. This brings us to the need for structural studies.
A contrastive grammar of, say English and French, could be written for the express purpose of providing teaching materials for learners of either language. A record of statements on the historical development of a language through a particular period of time is stated to be a diachronic grammar. For instance, the grammar of French and English can be written from the diachronic point of view to cover, say the period of old French/English through middle French/English to present day French and English.
Pedagogic grammar is usually written for the express purpose of teaching language skills and usages that are considered elegant in that language. This type of grammar is usually characterized by the making of prescriptive statements about what should be used and what should not be. In effect, the grammar of French or any other language at that can be studied and statements made on it from the synchronic point of view. Synchronic statements are those descriptive statement made about the morphological and syntactic structures of the language at a particular point in history. The term synchronic is also sometimes used to mean descriptive statements about the present day state of a language.
The principal design of a grammar of any language is to teach propriety in a language and judge every phrase and form of construction right or not. The plain way of doing this, is to lay down rules and to illustrate them by examples. This seems to suggest that the grammarian should be primarily preoccupied with laying down rules and the constructing examples to illustrate them.
It also appears in the following words of Gardner J. (2014) that there is a tacit assumption that rules should be known before the language one has to learn. But to be able to choose the words which ought to be employed and place them where they ought to be placed, we must become acquainted with certain principles and rules; these principles and rules constitute what is Grammar.
The procedure followed in learning a first language is clearly not that enunciated in Gardner J. (2014). Every child learning the language of his immediate environment definitely chooses words and places them where they ought to be placed before he is acquainted with rules and principles. The earliest talk of a child may be mere echoing of what he has heard, but he definitely chooses utterances, as when the French child asks for “bread” at one time, and “milk” at another in the frame, the above words quoted from Gardner seem to subscribe to the tenet of learning a second language by understanding the meaning of a word, phrase etc. method, unless, of course be acquainted with – rules. Gardner means implicit as opposed to explicit knowledge of such rules”. A very important aspect of the prescriptive role of Classical Grammar or Traditional Grammar is the condemnation of usages not found in the writings of renowned authors of a past era; the underlying argument here is that the golden age of any language is a past age. This is the core of purism:
Gardner, for example, condemns the use of me (moi) in it was me (C’ était moi) Gardner J. (2014) , he says. Who broke the glass? It ought to be I: that is to say, it is I who broke it. Qui a cassé le verre? Ça doit être je Cela veut dire, c’est je qui le cassé.
This is one of the examples of logic applied to language, and not an observation of what native speakers of the language, say:
The fact is that the word me (moi) was, and not in the frame into which it was forced by Gardner. It was not unusual to find one Classical Grammar book condemning another, Gardner ’s book (Gardner J. 2014), for instance, disagrees with Lowth (1762) who had condemned the use of it in the following environment. It is the dews and showers that make the grass grow (ce sont les rosées et les aversées qui font l’herbe grandir). Lowth had condemned the usage; it seems, on the premise of illogicality, on the grounds that it does not agree grammatically with either dews or showers. Gardner’s condemnation of Lowth is, in turn, based on the type of logic that can not normally be applied to language. The trend of his argument was deductive and was not supported by the facts of observed usage. This is another use of logic in the practices of Classical Grammar (Traditional Grammar). One of the characteristics of language is uniqueness. Certain salient and particular properties mark out a grammar of a language from the others.
Chomsky (1986) defines Universal Grammar (UG) as the theory of human I-languages (internalized linguistic system) that identifies the I-languages that are humanly accessible under normal conditions. By being accessible, he means that language “Can be acquired by human beings”. Chomsky (1986) discusses what he calls “Principles” and parameters”. According to him, principles are general universal features that cut across languages, features that all languages posses while parameters are those peculiar to individual languages that distinguish one language from the other. In everyday speech a phrase may refer to any group of words. In linguistics, a phrase is a group of words (or sometimes a single word) that form a constituent and so function as a simple unit in the syntax of a sentence. A phrase is lower on the grammatical hierarchy than a clause.
In the following sentence: “the house is good” (la maison est belle) is a phrase; together they act like a noun (making them a noun phrase). Most phrases in English/French have an important word defining the type and linguistic features of the phrase. This word is the head of the phrase and gives its name to the phrase category; Noun Phrase (NP), Verb Phrase (VP), Adjective Phrase (AP), Adverb Phrase (Advp) etc. The head can be distinguished from its dependents (the rest of the phrase other than the head) because the head of the phrase determines many of the grammatical features of the phrase as a whole. Further phrase types can be assumed, although doing so is not common. For instance one might acknowledge subordinator phrases: before that happened-subordinator phrase (SP). This “Phrase” is more commonly classified as a full subordinate clause and therefore many grammars would not label it as a phrase. If one follows the reasoning of heads and dependents, however, then subordinate clauses should indeed qualify as phrases. Most theories of syntax see phrases, if not all phrases as having a head. Sometimes, non-headed phrases are acknowledged. If a phrase lacks a head, it is known as exocentric, whereas phrases with heads are endocentric.
Many theories of syntax and grammar represent sentence structure using trees. The trees provide schematic illustrations of how the words of sentences are grouped. These representations show the words, phrases, and at times clauses that make up sentences. Any word combination that corresponds to a complete sub-tree can be seen as a phrase. There are two competing principles for producing trees, constituency and dependency.
In this study, we try to examine the structure of a noun phrase as it relates to the English/French language. The study adopts the theoretical framework of structuralism which sees the working of language in terms of the functions of its components and their relationship to each other without reference to meaning.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
This study is motivated by the advantages that may accrue from the contrastive study of languages. Such advantages may cut across morphology and syntax. Learners who are exposed to the problems that different languages may pose, may be better equipped to tackle such problems. It is against this background that we have attempted to do a comparative or contrastive analysis of the structure of a noun phrase in English and French, if a noun or noun phrase occurs with statement of responsibility, treat the noun or noun phrase as part of the statement of responsibility. There have been considerable efforts within research in phrase to study nouns within the last decades, especially the more structural aspects of noun phrase. Phrase have heads, all nouns in French have gender, most nouns be learned case by case, and it is not always easy. The reasons are etymological (historic) but that is of little help. A noun in French cannot be preceded by another noun in the possessive form as there is no inflected possessive form nouns in French.
Therefore, the need is there to study the subject more, perhaps with a view to establishing a uniform approach to the structure and study of noun phrase in English especially as it relates to French language
1.3 Purpose of the Study
This aim at providing the learner or achieving the following objectives.
- Describe the differences in the structure of a noun phrase in English and French.
- To Create analyses that will facilitate or enhance the research of the independent structures of these languages.
- Exposing researchers to different problems that may arise in the structures of these languages
1.4 Research Questions
The following questions were used as a guide to the study:
- What are the functions of nouns and phrases in English and French language?
- What are the possible interdependence between the different types of determination and modification in the NPs of English and French.
- What is the projection principle of nouns in English and French?
1.5 Significance of the Study
The researcher assumes that many people from linguistic or French and English language teachers who may be opportune to go through this paper will benefit from it. People will be challenged to know what to do so as to create impact on structure of the noun phrase in French generally.
The study of the structure of a noun phrase in French is significant in the sense that it concentrates on:
- Describing the differences in the structure of a noun phrase in English and French.
- Creating analyses that will facilitate or enhance the research of the independent structures of these languages.
- Exposing researchers to different problems that may arise in the structures of these languages.
1.6 Scope and Delimitation of the Study
Since rules are tacit it is difficult to determine the principles of noun phrase formation in the language. Besides, we do not just come across grammatical sentences. Everyday use of language contains slips of the tongue, hesitations, incomplete sentences, etc. The experience, i.e the stimulus, is finite, and we end up being able to produce and process an infinite number of sentences. We run – on acquired knowledge about our language for which we have no overt or positive evidence in the experience. For instance, noun like “Mary”, “John”,“Table”, “Chair” in English; “Marie”, “Jean”, “Table”, “Chaise” in French; verb phrase as in “Watch TV” in English; regarder TV” in French; Adverb phrase as in “too slowly” in English; très lent” in French; Adjective phrase as in “Very happy” in English; “très content” in French, etc.
This is to say that a noun phrase or nominal phrase (abbreviated NP) is a phrase which has a noun (or indefinite pronoun) as its head word or which performs the same grammatical function as such a phrase. Noun phrases are very common cross- linguistically, and they may be the most frequently occurring phrase type. Members of the grammatical class include nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, pronouns in English; noms, verbes, adjectifs, adverbes, prepositions, pronoms in French. All these are viable areas that could be studied under the syntactical operation of phrases.
A research of this nature cannot possibly investigate all these aspects of phrases. Therefore, attention is focused specifically on the following with special interest to the purpose of study and significance of the study already outlined above:
- The differences in the structure of a noun phrase in English and French
- The analyses of the independent (ID) structures as they relate to these languages.
- To different problems that may arise in the structures of these languages.
1.7 Research Methodology
Grammar is one of the crucial parts in English/French. In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics and pragmatics. Linguists do not normally use the term to refer to orthographical rules, although usage book and style guides that call themselves grammars may also refer to spelling and punctuation. Based on its definition, grammars have been developed in theoretical linguistics since 20th of century. Universal grammar is still influential.
The descriptive framework adopted in this study is structural in nature. Structuralism as a term refers to various theories across the humanities, social sciences and economics many of which share the assumption that structural relationships between concepts vary between different cultures/languages and that these relationships can be usefully exposed and explored. More accurately, it could be described as an approach in academic discipline that explores the relationship between fundamental principal elements in language, literature and other fields upon which some higher mental linguistic, social, or cultural “structures” and “structural networks” are built. Through these networks, meaning is produced within a particular person, system, or culture. This meaning then frames and motivates the actions of individuals and groups. In its most recent manifestation, structuralism as a field of academic interest began around 1958 and peaked in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
It describes the grammar of a language based on the analysis of the description of the “structure” of the sentences.
THE STRUCTURE OF THE NOUN PHRASE IN ENGLISH AND FRENCH
