Proper Nouns in English

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Proper Nouns in EnglishAuthor(s): Clarence SloatSource: Language, Vol. 45, No. 1 (Mar., 1969), pp. 26-30Published by: Linguistic Society of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/411749 .

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PROPER NOUNS IN ENGLISH

CLARENCE SLOAT

University of Oregon The syntactically definable category of proper nouns is only a subclass of the

orthographically definable class. Many capitalized nouns, e.g. Kodak and Purex, are not members of the syntactically definable class. Further, the syntactic proper nouns are a subclass of the countable nouns of English. Proper nouns permit the selection of essentially the same set of determiners as other countable nouns, differing materially only in that they require a zero allomorph of unstressed the when singular and when not preceded by a restrictive adjective or followed by a restrictive relative clause. Proper nouns, like other countable nouns, are freely pluralizable. Allowing free selection of determiners and numbers with proper nouns obviously simplifies the statement of selectional restrictions with regard to determiners, numbers, and nouns, and at the same time simplifies the statement of the selectional restrictions that hold between a noun phrase and its appositive noun phrase. These syntactic gains are not dissipated in semantic losses. Allowing free selection does not permit the generation of semantic anomalies. Determiner plus proper noun constructions are not semantically peculiar. Grimm means the same thing in Grimm wrote the book as in The famous Grimm wrote the book; thus it seems pointless to conclude that Grimm is being 'used as' a common noun in the latter.

Before getting very far into this analysis, we should clarify to a certain extent what we mean by proper noun. The class to which I wish to give the name PROPER comprises such words as John, Smith, Rover, Chicago, England, Chevrolet (name of man), The Dalles, and so forth. Many nouns ordinarily regarded as proper, perhaps because they are capitalized when written, do not belong to this class. Words like Chevrolet (name of car), Kodak etc. have more in common with car and camera than with John or Chicago; they seem to be ordinary countable nouns. Notice that Chevrolet is here is ungrammatical if Chevrolet is the trade name, but grammatical if it is the man's name: contrast The Chevrolet is here, which is ungrammatical or grammatical under just the opposite conditions. The man's name, like other proper nouns, does not take the in such constructions; and the car name, like other countable common nouns, does not take the null determiner in these same constructions.

Trade names like Coca-Cola and Purex, on the other hand, are like beer and bleach; that is, they are common mass nouns in the ordinary sense. Notice that Coca-Cola, like proper nouns, is grammatical in the singular with the null determiner, but unlike proper nouns is also grammatical with low-stressed some, as are other common mass nouns:

He drank Coca-Cola. He drank beer. He drank some Coca-Cola. He drank some beer.

Proper nouns are not compatible with low-stressed some: He hit Bill.

*He hit some Bill.

Further, like other mass nouns, Coca-Cola loses its semantic mass when it is in 26




construction with the indefinite article or is pluralized: Let's have Coca-Cola. Let's have beer. Let's have a Coca-Cola. Let's have a beer. We'll take two Coca-Colas. We'll take two beers.

Proper nouns have often been defined in terms of their incompatibility with determiners, as compared to other nouns. For instance, Chomsky (1965:100) has defined proper nouns as the 'nouns with no determiner', and treats the determiner constituent of the NP as optional just for the putative reason that proper nouns do not enter into constructions with it. His decision to treat proper nouns as incompatible with the determiner system is apparently based on the idea that, when proper nouns appear with the determiner constituent, they are being used as common nouns. The substance of the notion USED AS is not spelled out. But Chomsky cites two examples of proper nouns used as common nouns (i.e. in construction with determiners): this cannot be the England that I know and love, and I once read a novel by a different John Smith. He suggests (217) that the use of

proper nouns in such constructions is restricted, apparently meaning that proper nouns may not select determiners as freely as common nouns do.

Actually, whether proper nouns are restricted in any interesting way as regards determiner selection cannot be assessed by comparing them with the whole set of common nouns indiscriminately. A fruitful comparison can, however, be made between the proper nouns and those common nouns that are countable.

Compare the following: A man stopped by. A Smith stopped by.

*Some man stopped by. *Some Smith stopped by. S6me man stopped by. S6me Smith stopped by. Some men stopped by. Some Smiths stopped by. S6me men stopped by. S6me Smiths stopped by. Men must breathe. Smiths must breathe. The clever man stopped by. The clever Smith stopped by. The man who is clever stopped by. The Smith who is clever stopped by. A clever man stopped by. A clever Smith stopped by. The men stopped by. The Smiths stopped by.' The man stopped by. *The Smith stopped by.

*Man stopped by. Smith stopped by. As can be seen, the only significant difference between combinations of determiner plus proper noun and determiner plus countable common noun is that the does not appear before the singular proper noun, and the null determiner does not appear before the singular countable common noun. The paradigms above could obviously be extended, but attempts to do so simply confirm the fact that proper nouns are not restricted in relation to the determiner system in such a way that it

1 The combination of the followed by surname plus -s is often given the interpretation 'the family named Smith'. But this is obviously not its only possible interpretation. In- terestingly, Jespersen (1936:82) suggests that the -s ending on the Smiths (= the family named Smith) may be the genitive rather than the plural. But his evidence is historical and comparative, not internal to present-day English. Cf. also Curme 1931:510-4.

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LANGUAGE, VOLUME 45, NUMBER 1 (1969)

would be fruitful to treat them as the nouns with no determiner. Such elaborate determiner structures as Not a single one of the first fifteen ... who are from Cali- fornia may be used with proper nouns as freely as with countable common nouns.

In fact, closer analysis reveals that proper nouns in general are only apparently restricted with regard to the in the singular. The simplest way to account for the null determiner in such structures is to recognize a zero allomorph of the definite article. The following rule accounts for the types of sentences under considera- tion here: THE DEFINITE ARTICLE WILL APPEAR AS ZERO BEFORE SINGULAR PROPER NOUNS, EXCEPT WHEN IT IS HEAVILY STRESSED OR THEY ARE PRECEDED BY RESTRICTIVE ADJECTIVES OR ARE FOLLOWED BY RESTRICTIVE RELATIVE CLAUSES.2

Note the following examples: That's not Fabian. That's not THE Fabian. That's not the famous Fabian. That's not the Fabian who sings.

If the proper noun is followed by the restrictive clause, the definite article has one of its overt allomorphs, as in the fourth example above. But the definite article has its zero form if the clause is non-restrictive:

That's the Jones who lives next door. That's Jones, who lives next door.

*That's the Jones, who lives next door. *That's Jones who lives next door.

What is true of the restrictive relative clauses, as opposed to the non-restrictive ones, is true also of restrictive as opposed to non-restrictive adjectives. Chomsky (217) has pointed out the structural ambiguity of the first NP in 'the industrious Chinese dominate the economy of Southeast Asia', where industriouk may be the remnant of either a restrictive or non-restrictive embedding. He has also noted that prenominal adjectives in general are ambiguous in this way. But phrases composed of definite article, prenominal adjective, plus proper noun, in contrast to those like the industrious Chinese,3 are not ambiguous in surface form. Compare the following examples:

I talked to young Martin about it. I talked to the young Martin about it.4

The first example has the non-restrictive adjective; the second, the restrictive. The definite article is realized as 0 in the first and overtly in the second, according to the rule given above.

The case is somewhat different with appositive noun phrases. Appositive NP's, like prenominal adjectives, are derivable from relative embeddings and come in

2 This rule shows Smith's unique determiner category (1964:38) to be an unnecessary complication of the traditional determiner analysis.

8 Chinese is not a proper noun (note the grammaticality of srme Chinese); it is apparently an adjective like lame in The lame are to leave first. Such adjectives usually require plural agreement and are themselves unpluralizable: *The lame is ..., *The Chinese is ..., *The lames ..., *The Chineses ...

4 Note that comparative and superlative adjectives do not occur as non-restrictive modifiers: *I talked to younger (-est) Smith; *I talked to a man, who was younger (-est); but I talked to the younger (-est) Smith (man); I talked to the Smith (man) who was younger (-est).

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two types, restrictive and non-restrictive: John the butcher lives on our street. John, the butcher, lives on our street.

The first of these is clearly associated with The John who is the butcher lives on our street. The other is just as clearly associated with John, who is the butcher, lives on our street. Notice that the deletion of the relative pronoun and be removes the conditions necessary for the overt realization of the definite article, even in the restrictive construction.5

Appositive noun phrases are rather interesting structures in English. Though many non-restrictive relative clauses do not have a parallel appositive NP, even fewer restrictive ones do. Apparently NP2 can be in restrictive apposition with NP1 only if NP1 contains a proper noun with null determiner, or a common noun in construction with a possessive:

John the barber6 my son the barber

*The John the barber *the son the barber *a son the barber

And there are restrictions in the other direction, too. NP2 must be a proper noun or contain the definite article:

my son John my son the butcher

*my son a butcher

Of course, the two kinds of acceptable NP2's both contain the definite article according to the analysis put forth here. Hence the acceptable NP2's can be described simply and generally as those with the definite article, a desirable con- sequence and a part of the motivation for this analysis.

It should be taken into account that the treatment of proper nouns presented here permits very natural semantic interpretations. Semantically, the combination of definite article plus proper noun is definite. Smith is here does not mean that just any Smith is here, but rather the Smith who is, for some reason, the focus of attention. Analogously, the structure the man means the adult human male who is the focus of attention. A structure like a Smith is paraphrasable as a person that we call [smiG]; a man, as an adult human male. The Smiths is interpreted as the persons that we call [smi6]; the men, as the adult human males. In all these sentences Smith has the constant interpretation 'person that we call [smi0]', just as man has the constant interpretation 'adult human male'. The point of this is that allowing free selection of determiners with proper nouns does not permit the formation of a number of structures requiring special interpretations. In fact, it

6 One of the reasons for asserting that appositive noun phrases are derived from relative embeddings is, of course, that the appositives can be derived by a generalization of the rule that derives adjectives from relative embeddings, namely the rule that deletes the relative pronoun and be.

6 Restrictive appositives following proper nouns tend to get treated like surnames, e.g. John the Baptist, Jack the Ripper. In fact, surnames might be profitably analysed as restrictive appositives in such constructions as John Smith (<- Definite-article John who is definite- article Smith).

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LANGUAGE, VOLUME 45, NUMBER 1 (1969)

seems to have just the opposite effect of permitting us to generalize rules needed for constructions of determiner plus common noun.

I have suggested above that it is unfruitful to contrast proper nouns with the entire class of common nouns as regards selection of determiners. A comparison with countable common nouns shows proper nouns to be only trivially distinct from them as regards determiner selection. However, comparison of proper nouns with mass common nouns reveals an interesting distinction in determiner selection.

It has been mentioned above that mass nouns lose their semantic connotation of mass when they are in construction with the indefinite article or are pluralized. In other words, such constructions need a special interpretation. It is also true that countable nouns take on semantic mass in construction with some determiners: That's a lot of girl, You put in too much carrot, etc. Rather bizarre mean- ings are sometimes produced when low-stressed some is used with singular count nouns. Contrast the following:

I put s6me boy in the freezer. I put some boy in the freezer.

Singular proper nouns, like countable common nouns, need special interpretation when used with determiners like lots of, too much, some, etc.: I put some Smith in the freezer.

Perhaps, in cases where special interpretation is needed, we are dealing with cases of semi-grammaticality. In such cases it makes some sense to say that a member of one syntactic class is being used as a member of another class. For instance, in It takes a hardy rice to grow here, we might say that rice is used as a countable noun. In this way we could at least give some substance to the expres- sion 'used as'. On the other hand, it makes little sense to say that Smith is used as a common noun in a phrase such as a different Smith, when considerations of simplicity and generality, both syntactic and semantic, argue for free selection of determiners with proper nouns.

It is clear from a number of the examples given above that proper nouns are freely pluralizable. In other words, they are special in the countable noun class only inasmuch as they require the zero allomorph of the definite article in the singular when it is not stressed, and when they are not preceded by a restrictive adjective or followed by a restrictive relative clause.

REFERENCES

CHOMSKY, NOAM. 1965. Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. CURME, GEORGE 0. 1931. Syntax. Boston: D. C. Heath. JESPERSON, OTTo. 1936. A Modern English grammar on historical principles, part 2. 4th

ed. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. SMITH, CARLOTA S. 1964. Determiners and relative clauses in a generative grammar of

English. Lg. 40.37-52.

[Received 11 June 1968]

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Proper Nouns in English