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From: michaelm@bcsaic.UUCP (michael b maxwell)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Singular/ Plural determiners in coordinate NPs
Message-ID: <177@bcsaic.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Jul-85 21:52:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: bcsaic.177
Posted: Wed Jul 10 21:52:24 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 14-Jul-85 08:49:40 EDT
Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center
Lines: 63
Keywords: linguistics syntax noun phrases determiners

OK, you linguists--here's your chance!
Consider the NP "the king and queen." This NP must be plural, as we see from
agreement with the verb:
(1) The king and queen are/ *is...
Nevertheless, the determiner must be singular:
(2) This/ *These king and queen...
Similar coordinated nouns with obligatorily singular determiners are the
following:
(3) A/ *0 husband and wife should love each other.
    This/ *These boy and girl are in love.
    This/ *desk and chair need to go over there.
    This/ *these day and night have already lasted too long for me.
The fact that the plural determiner with the coordinated singular nouns is
definitely out would seem to imply that the structure cannot be:
(4) [  Det [ Noun "and" Noun]]
     NP     N
since the N formed from the coordinated Nouns would presumably be plural (as
is the resulting NP), and the examples of (2-3) with plural determiners would
therefore be acceptable (and those with singular determiners would be
unacceptable).

First question: what rules out this structure? i.e. why can't Ns be coordinated?
It would seem that verbs can be coordinated, provided their subcategorization
restrictions are the same (e.g. "I saw and heard a flying saucer"). (Or is
this some sort of gapping construction?)  Likewise with adjectives ("the
yellow and green gorph"), prepositions ("I looked both under and behind the
gorph") and complementizers ("John whispered that Bill had left and Mary had
stayed"). And if you believe that nouns can have subcategorized complements, 
we have "the destruction and rebuilding of the city," where the nouns both
seem to be in the scope of the subcatagorized(?) PP.

At the same time, there seem to be examples of coordinated nouns that cannot 
take either a singular determiner or a plural determiner (although they 
happily take a determiner which is indeterminate as to plurality). Examples:
(5) ?*This/ *These/ The book and magazine are quite old.
    *This/ *These/ The idea and presentation are both quite boring.
    *This/ *These/ The apple and orange are good to eat.
    ?*This/ *These/ The computer and screwdriver are for sale.
    *This/ *These/ The story and movie are quite different. 
(I would say something "semanticky" is going on here--e.g. "This apple and
orange are good to eat together" sounds much better to me.) 

Second question: why the difference between the two sets--those that take
singular determiners when coordinated (3), and those that don't (5)? Is it 
something to do with whether the thing represented by the coordinate nouns 
somehow forms a unit (in some gestalt(?) sense)? (If so, we should expect
quite a bit of difference in acceptability judgements about the examples in
(3) and (5).) Further examples of NPs like those in (3) and (5) are welcome.

Third question: if we have indeed ruled out the structure in (4), then it
would seem the only alternative structure is the following:
(6) [  [  Det N] "and" [  N]]
     NP N?              N?
(I put the question marks after the N labels on the inner brackets so as to 
not pin myself down on the question of the number of bar-levels in NP.) If 
this is the correct structure (and I welcome alternatives), then how does 
the determiner get associated with the second noun? (I take it as clear that 
the second noun in the examples of (2-3) is within the scope of the determiner.)Some kind of scoping/ movement rule, like with quantifiers?
 
Finally, anyone know any references where this kind of NPs is (are??)
discussed?
-- 
Mike Maxwell