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Prepositional Phrases as Adjectivals

Prepositional Phrases as Adjectivals. Ed McCorduck English 402--Grammar SUNY Cortland http://mccorduck.cortland.edu. slide 2: PPs as adjectivals within NPs.

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Prepositional Phrases as Adjectivals

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  1. Prepositional Phrasesas Adjectivals Ed McCorduck English 402--Grammar SUNY Cortland http://mccorduck.cortland.edu

  2. slide 2: PPs as adjectivals within NPs As noted in the “Determiners and Adjectivals” lecture, prepositional phrases can function as adjectivalswithin noun phrases. However, in English—unlike in some languages—adjectival PPs can occur only after the headword of the NP. English 402: Grammar

  3. slide 3: relative order of postmodifying elements As also noted in the “Determiners and Adjectivals” lecture, other types of phrases besides PPs can postmodifyheadwords in NPs, namely participial phrases and relative clauses. If two or more of thes phrase types are present and postmodifying the same NP headword, they must occur in a specific order: PPparticipial phraserelative clause English 402: Grammar

  4. slide 4: example showing the fixed relative order of postmodifiying elements within a PP ex NP: a greasy heckler in the audiencespewing venomwhom the candidate readily upbraided head PP participial phrase relative clause English 402: Grammar

  5. slide 5: examples of PPs functioning as adjectivals within NPs exx NP: various depredations without mercy Det headword PP (headed by the P without) NP: some little pipsqueak on the field Detadj headword PP (headed by the P on) NP: a Roomba® for this pigsty Det headword PP (headed by the P for) NP: plague and pestilence in the landof the pharaoh headword headword PP (headed by the P in) PP (headed by the P of) (i.e., a compound NP) (i.e., the PP of the pharaoh is part of the NPthe land, which is in turn part of the PP that postmodifies the compound headwords plagueand pestilence) English 402: Grammar

  6. As illustrated by the last example on the previous slide, PPs can be embedded within other PPs. As another example, take the sentence They gave him a special kiss-off gift for his forced resignation from the company in which the PP from the company is embedded within the entire NP a special kiss-off gift for his forced resignation from the company, i.e. this PP is part of the NP his forced resignation from the company in which it postmodifies the headword resignation. To illustrate this structure, following is the Reed-Kellogg diagram of the whole sentence (the embedded PP structure is circled in red): slide 6: embedded PPs English 402: Grammar

  7. slide 7: example of a Reed-Kellogg diagram of a sentence with an embedded PP English 402: Grammar

  8. When PPs are embedded, however, there is often structural ambiguity (see the chapter 5 “Prepositional Phrases” lecture). Take for example sentence 2. of Exercise 21 on p. 146 of our Understanding English Grammar textbook: I will meet you in the lobby of the museum near the visitors’ information booth. The crux of the ambiguity here lies with the long post-verbal phrase in the lobby of the museum near the visitors’ information booth; this can be interpreted either as a single PP with two embedded PPs that functions as one adverbial or a sequence of two adverbial PPs only the first of which contains an embedded PP. To illustrate, here is the Reed-Kellogg diagram of the sentence in the first interpretation: slide 8: potential ambiguity of embedded PPs English 402: Grammar

  9. slide 9: Reed-Kellogg diagram of one interpretation of the sentence in slide 8 English 402: Grammar

  10. slide 10: explanation of one interpretation of the sentence in slide 8 Hence in this interpretation, the entire phrase in the lobby of the museum near the visitors’ information booth is a single adverbial PP consisting of the headword in which “governs” the NP the lobby which is itself postmodified by the adjectival PP of the museum near the visitors’ information booth. This adjectival PP in turn has a headword of that governs the NP the museum which itself is postmodified by a PP, namely near the visitors’ information booth. Contrast this structural interpretation with the one illustrated by the following Reed-Kellogg diagram of the same sentence: English 402: Grammar

  11. slide 11: Reed-Kellogg diagram of another interpretation of the sentence in slide 8 English 402: Grammar

  12. slide 12 the difference between the two interpretations of the sentence in slide 8 In this latter interpretation, we actually have two adverbial PPs, namely in the lobby of the museum and near the visitors’ information booth. Note the crucial difference in meaning between this interpretation and the one previously described; in the former interpretation, i.e.,the one in which the PP near the visitors’ information booth postmodifesmuseum, the meaning is clearly that the visitors’ information booth is not part of the museum but, apparently, a nearby structure, whereas in this latter interpretation the speaker definitely implies that the visitors’ information booth is actually in the lobby of the museum (hence the second adverbial PP near the visitors’ information booth servers to give a more precise location for the meeting than just “in the lobby”). English 402: Grammar

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