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Persian Learner Posted 9 years ago
Grammar

Implied head

Hi.

This is the book he was looking at.

Here is the description of my book about the underlined part:


The underlined clause, a dependent in NP structure, is marked as subordinate by having a missing NP, the understood object of the preposition at.

What does it exactly mean by ' a dependent in NP structure'? Does it mean that underlined clause is enclosed in a noun phrase? If that's the case, the underlined part in the following sentence would be an NP, yes?

This is the book that he was looking at.

And the head would be the relative pronoun 'that' functioning as the object of the preposition 'at'.

Then I ask what would be the function of the underlined NP?






  

Top answer

This is the book that he was looking at ____. Dependents in phrase structure are any elements other than the head. Complements, modifiers and determiners are all dependents.

— BillJ

  • This is the book that he was looking at ____.
  • Dependents in phrase structure are any elements other than the head.
  • Complements, modifiers and determiners are all dependents.
  • I have explained several times before that the word “that” is a clause subordinator, NOT a relative pronoun and therefore it cannot be a head.
  • The underlined expression is a relative clause modifying "book", and hence is a dependent.
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1 Answers
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This is the book that he was looking at ____.


Dependents in phrase structure are any elements other than the head. Complements, modifiers and determiners are all dependents.

I have explained several times before that the word “that” is a clause subordinator, NOT a relative pronoun and therefore it cannot be a head.

The underlined expres

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