01:615:305 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Complementary Distribution, Genitive Case, Complementizer

• School: Rutgers University
• Department: Linguistics
• Course: 01:615:305
• Professor: S E L V A N A T H A N

Document Summary

We hypothesize that the structure is as follows to keep consistent with other phrase structures: The evidence for this structure exists in examples of possessive phrases. This is where the strongest evidence can be found. We might think that this s is a suffix but if it is, we wouldn"t need to provide it a node of its own and wouldn"t need to worry about it. However, it is not just a suffix. There is evidence that it is more of a word/symbol that indicates possessiveness. This evidence is in the properties of suffixes; possessives don"t need to attach directly to what they modify like suffixes do. This meaning indicates that unlike with suffixes, s (the genitive s) can be far from the np. The determiner and s are in complementary distribution. We conclude that the possessive -s is d and the genitive s is d". Where both the possessor and possessed are crucial and obligatory to the phrase.