The nuclearity of de-phrases with two nominal elements

• Grant number: 15/25674-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: March 01, 2016
• End date: December 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Linguistic Theory and Analysis
• Principal Investigator: Roberto Gomes Camacho
• Grantee: Monielly Cristina Saverio Serafim
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências, Letras e Ciências Exatas (IBILCE). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de São José do Rio Preto. São José do Rio Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

In grammar tradition, the consequence of using the term "nucleus" to capture the intuitions of the linguist about what represents the most important part of the NP implies doing a semantic description (Jerspersen, 1924). This concept of the nucleus as the most important idea or the primary element is still featured in many characterizations of the term (Dik, 1997a; Quirk et al., 1985). The operational tests set to prove the reliability of the semantic concept postulate on the one hand that the nucleus be distributionaly equivalent to a complete construction and on the other hand that the nucleus be the mandatory constituent of the NP (Quirk et al, 1985; Zwick, 1985; Huddleston; Pullum, 2002). However, when the NP has two nominal elements linked by the preposition "de", the task of pointing the element that operates as the nucleus according to the criteria of equivalence and requirement can become more complex. The goal of this project is to look for syntactic and semantic criteria that applies to NP containing two nominal elements linked by "de", exactly those that are more especially problematic in terms of the determination of which element figures as the syntactic and semantic nucleus and in terms of the function that they exercise in the clause and the relation between the component elements. We intent to apply a methodology that gathers an extensive group of criteria, on the condition that, the more criteria apply to a case, the more prototypical the nucleus is. In the case that more than one criterion competes for nuclearity, the one that wins is exactly the one that manifests the majority of them. This means that no criterion is itself crucial or that the non-compliance of all of them implies absence of the nucleus of the NP.