STRUCTURES- OF MOD-SHEATLON IN CONTEMPQRARY MiERICAN ENGLISH Thesis far the Dogm of Ph‘ D. MICE-{36AM STATE UNIVERSETY Geerge Anthony Hough, 3rd 1965 This is to certify that the thesis entitled STRUCTURES OF MODIFICATION IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN ENGLISH presented by George Anthony Hough, 3rd has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Pb. 13- degree in__ngli§hE 2) Jam)? 7% Major professor Date May 12, 1965 0-169 LIBRARY Michigan State Univemity ABSTRACT STRUCTURES OF MODIFICATION IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN ENGLISH by George Anthony Hough, 3rd This study originated as an attempt to describe the system of modification within contemporary American English as it appears in the columns of the daily newspaper. The study is based on an analysis of 1,200 sentences taken from four newspapers, The New York Times, the New York Herald- Tribune, the Chicago Tribune and the San Francisco Chronicle. The corpus consisted of a four-way sample: (1) initial sentences; (2) selected sentences representing entire news stories; sentences from (3) issues in February of l89u and from (4) issues in February of 1964. The entire sample con- sisted of a slightly more than 31,000 words and was con- sidered to be representative of journalistic writing. The structure of modification is taken to be a se- quence of two or more words one of which is a head word and the remaining word or words modifiers. For example, in the sentence The glithy_tove went awa , the sequence the slithz toves consists of a head word, tgyes, and two modi- fiers, the marker the and the word slithy. Egygs is identi- fied as the head word by its ability to substitute for the George Anthony Rough, 3rd entire sequence of which it is head. The term modifier has only structural meaning. Modifiers are the words other than head words in structures of modification. Head words were found to consist of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and noun markers. Certain sequences also were found to function as head words. These were subject + predicate sequences, noun-headed structures of modification, and prepositional sequences consisting of a preposition + noun or noun substi- tue. All of these words and structures were found also to function as modifiers. Analysis of the frequency with which certain words and structures appeared as modifiers revealed some rather startling figures which have not been suggested in previous studies of syntax. The noun and noun sequence (noun-headed structure of modification) appeared most frequently as a modifier in the materials analyzed, about 36 per cent of the time in both lead sentences and representative sentences. Next most frequently appearing modifier was the prepositional sequence, 30 per cent in representative sentences and 32 per cent in lead sentences. Adjectives represented only about 16 per cent of the total number of modifiers, adverbs 8 to 10 per cent, and other modifiers the balance, 7 to 8 per cent. These figures would indicate that previous studies of syntax and texts on grammar are not placing prOper George Anthony Bough, 3rd emphasis on use of modifiers: adjectives, adverbs, tradi- tionally regarded as thg_modifiers in English, are used far less frequently than nouns, noun sequences, and prepositional sequences, hitherto not considered important modifiers. Analysis also showed that in 70 per cent of all structures of modification the head consisted of a noun or noun-headed structure of modification. Verbs functioned as heads in about 2A per cent of all structures of modification. All other words and structures, adjectives, adverbs, noun markers, subject + predicate structures and prepositional sequences, were heads in only 5 to 6 per cent of all struc- tures of modification. In noun-headed structures of modi- fication, modifiers pre—posed to the heads were nearly twice as frequent as modifiers post-posed to the head word. Although the study did not reveal any great, over-all differences in structures of modification in the two periods, 139A and l96h, it did show that there is a tendency toward increased use of nouns as modifiers with a corresponding tendency toward use of fewer prepositional sequences as modifiers. Prepositional sequences appeared more frequently as modifiers in 189A, nouns more frequently in 1964. The study includes 32 tables summarizing the results of the analysis of seven types of structures of modification. STRUCTURES OF MODIFICATION IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN ENGLISH by George Anthony Hough, 3rd A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English 1965 ACKNOWLE DGIvIEN TS This thesis would not have been possible without the help, encouragement, and inspiration of the faculty members under whom I have had the privilege of studying. Most particular thanks are due to Professor Hans Wolff under whose guiding hand this study was begun and to the members of my guidance committee who saw it through: Pro- fessors William W. Heist, Ruling Ussery, Russel B. Nye, and 'Herbert Weisinger. Nor would this thesis have been completed without the patience and understanding of my wife and daughter who for too long put up with the irritations and frustrations of graduate study. ii CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGI‘IENTSQOQO00000000000000. ii LISTOFTABLES00000000000000.0000 iv INTRODUCTION00000000000000.0000. 1. Chapter I. NOUN-HEADED STRUCTURES OF MODIFICATION o o o 0 3h Pre-nominal Modification Determiners Post-nominal Modification II. VERB-HEADED STRUCTURES OF MODIFICATION . . . . 105 Verb as Head Verb and Complement as Head III. OTHER STRUCTURES OF MODIFICATION . . . . . . . 130 Adjective-Headed Structures Adverb-Headed Structures Prepositional Sequences as Heads Noun Determiners as Heads Sentences and Clauses as Heads IV. COIJCLUSIOI O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0 O O O O 177 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 iii Table I. 2. 3. 9. 10. ll. 12. 13. lb. 15. LIST OF TABLES Distribution of modifiers in pre-nominal posi- tion in noun-headed structures of modifica- tion 0 o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o 0 Various types of nouns appearing in pre-nominal mOdiinng pOSition o o o o o o o o o o o o o e by Modifiers of noun—heads and sequence head type c o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o '0) Distribution of noun-markers with noun-headed StrUCtureS Of mOdification o o o o o o o o o 0 Distribution of noun-markers with otherwise un- mOdified nouns o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o Nouns, pronouns, and function nouns appearing without noun markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . Distribution of marked nouns and other form class words which appear as noun replacements . . . Post—nominal modifiers in noun-headed structures Of modification 0 o o o o o o o o o o o o o 0 Prior modification of noun-heads to which are added post—nominal modifiers . . . . . . . . . Modifiers of verbs, including verb and complement or ObJSCt o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o MOdifierS Of verb“haad5 o o o o o o o o o o o 0 Incidence of single and multiple modification of verb-headS o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o 0 Incidence of single and multiple modification of verb“head3 o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o Modifiers of verb + object or complement . . . . Incidence of single and multiple modification of verb + object or complement . . . . . . . . . iv Page 38 41 69 78 82 83 85 87 88 106 115 121 122 125 127 Table Page 16. Incidence of single and multiple modification of verb + object or complement . . . . . . . . . 129 17. Modification of adjectives . . . . . . . . . . 131 18. Distribution of modifiers of adjectives . . . . 141 19. ‘Modification of adverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 20. Distribution of modifiers of adverbs . . . . . 148 21. Modification of prepositional sequences . . . . 149 22. Distribution of modifiers of prepositional se- quences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 23. Modification of noun markers (determiners) . . 154 24. Distribution of modifiers of noun markers . . . 159 25. Modification of sentences . . . . . . . . . . . 161 26. Distribution of modifiers of sentences . . . . 163 27. Modification of clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 28. Distribution of modifiers of clauses . . . . . 173 29. Modification of sentences and clauses . . . . . 175 30. Distribution of modifiers of sentences and clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 31. A comparison of the frequency of modification of various heads in structures of modification 183 32. A summary of the various modifiers appearing with head-words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 INTRODUCTION This study is an attempt to shed some light on one type of linguistic structure, that structure which is some- times called a structure of modification.1 It is based on a fairly limited but statistically ample corpus of 1,200 sentences from four metropolitan daily newspapers for the two years 1894 and 196A. The study is purely descriptive. From various sources a catalog of the various forms that modification may take was compiled and the sentences in the corpus were examined to see whether these structures did occur, in what ways, and how frequently. Sentences taken from the newspapers were selected as the corpus for several reasons. First, because of the writer's long asso- ciation with newspapers and interest in the problems of writing newspaper copy; second, because it is a contention of the writer that the syntax of newspaper copy is distinc- tive and has its own style and its own idiosyncrasies; third, in the expectation that if some of the facts about newspaper —‘ lCharles Carpenter Fries, The Structure offiEnglish (New York and Burlin ame: Harcourt, Brace & werld, Inc., 1952, reprinted 1961 , hereafter cited as Fries, pp. 202-239, and N. Nelson Francis, The Structure of American English (New York: The Ronald Press, 1958), hereafter cited as Meets. pp. 292 and 297 ff. 2 syntax could be established, further studies might result and comparisons could be made with other writing styles-- fiction, magazine articles, and the spoken language. Linguists have paid very little attention to the style of newspaper writing. Newspapers are often a source of lexical items, and quite often oddities in newspaper head- lines are picked up by a linguist and used as a point of departure for some point he wishes to make about language in general or some particular form.2 However, as far as the writer has been able to determine, no studies have been made of grammar based entirely on materials taken from the news- papers. The Newspaper Sample The sample or corpus on which this study is based is drawn from four major metropolitan daily newspapers: the New York Times, the New York Herald-Tribune, the Chicago Tribune, and the San Francisco Chronicle.3 All four are 2See Barbara M. H. Strang, Modern English Structure (New Yerk: St. Martin's Press, 1962), hereafter cited as Sprang, p. 94, and Stuart Robertson, revised by Frederic G. Cassidy, The Develo ment of Modern En lish (Englewood Cliffs, N. g5: Prentice-HaII, Inc., I954), pp. 211-212, and Fries, Po . 3The New York Times, Feb. 1894, Feb. 1964; the New York Tribune, Feb. 1894; the New York Herald-Tribune, Feb. 1964; the Chicago Qgi%y_lpi%ppg, Feb. 1894, FeE. I964; the San Francisco Chronic e, Fe . 1894, Feb. 1964. Available on microfilm. See George A. Schwegmann, Jr., ed., News a are on Microfilm (Washington, D. C.: Library of Congress, I963), pp. 27 55, 134, and 137. The Herald-Tribune files include t e iles of the New York Tribme rom 4 - 924. 3 well—edited newspapers with high standards. They rank well in the estimation of editors and professors of Journalism, and writing in these newspapers can be considered a good standard form of informal American English. The Tipgg is frequently called the nation's leading newspaper. In a survey conducted in 1960 by Edward L. Bernays, the public relations counselor, the Tipgg rated first in a list of the top ten daily papers in this country.4 It received 91 per cent of the votes cast by the newspaper publishers who participated in the poll. In the same poll, the Herald-Tribune ranked tenth and the Tribune and Chronicle were in a list of runners-up which missed the first ten places. A poll conducted by the Sgturdgy Review in 1961, this time among teachers of jour- nalism, found thengpgg, Herald-Tribune, and Tribune all in the first ten.5 The Chronicle was in the list of runners— up. limp in its own list of the top ten dailies in 1964 listed the Timpg among its'choices.6 None of the other three papers used in this study were included in Time's liSto AAnon., "The Top 10 Dailies Almost Same as in 1952 Poll," Editor and Publisher, April 9, 1960, 66. 5John R. Tebbe1,HRating the American Newspaper," §a£u£aez_fiexisu. May 13, 1961, 60-64. 6Anon., "The Tap U. S. Dailies," Time, Jan. 10, 1964. 58. The‘Iipgp The New_§9rk Times was founded in 1851 by Henry J. Raymond, George Jones and Edward B. Wesley. It was a penny paper and, Frank Luther Mott considered, unusually well- edited.7 For a generation, the Tippp was vigorous and under expert direction, but by the early 90's the paper was in difficulties. By 1896 when it was sold to Adolph S. Ochs, circulation had fallen to 9,000 and the paper was losing 81,000 a day. Ochs started the Tipgg back on the long road which led eventually to superiority. Today the Tippp is probably the most complete newspaper published anywhere in the world and it is at least as well-edited, if not better edited, than any other newSpaper in the world. Circulation figures for the Times:8 1822 1264 daily 45.000 603.574 Sunday 1,283,785 Source of the historical data on the four newspapers is Frank Luther Mott, American Journalism (New York: The Macmillan Company, 19627, passim. 8Circulation for 1893 came from The S. H. Parvin's Sons Co, Newspaper Directory 18 - (Cincinnati: The S. H. Parvin's Sons 00., 1893), pp. 4, 3, and 108, and for 1964 from the Editor and Publisher International Yearbook 1964 (New York: Editor and Publisher, 1 4 . The 52221921212222 The Herald-Tribune is the descendant of two dis- tinguished New York newspapers, Horace Greeley'slgpgpppg, which was founded in 1841, and the ngglg, founded in 1935 by the elder James Gordon Bennett. The Tribune came into the hands of Whitelaw Reid in 1873, after Greeley's death, and although still somewhat sensational, had, according to William Cullen Bryant, taken over some of the Eveninngpplg reputation as a paper for gentlemen and scholars. It was lively, well-edited, and vigorous. For a time John Hay, the biographer of Lincoln, was an assistant editorial writer for the Tribune. The Tribune acquired the ngglg in 1924 from Frank Munsey for $5,000,000. The combination of two faltering dailies proved successful, and the Herald-Tripppg was a close competitor of the lipgp through the 1920's and 1930's. The Timgp pulled ahead in the post-World War II period, but in the past two or three years, since the sale of the Hggald-Tribune to John Hay Whitney, the paper has blossomed again. It is today very carefully edited and ex- tremely well-written although it is nowhere near as volumi- nous as the Tipes. Circulation figures for the Herald- Tribppg: 1893 1964 daily 80,000 282,000 Sunday 363,384 The Tribune The Tribune was founded in 1847 and struggled for survival until it was purchased in 1855 by Joseph Medill, a few years later one of the principle backers of Abraham Lincoln's candidacy. The Tribune, firmly managed by Medill, grew into one of the four great newspapers published in Chicago just before the turn of the century. In the mid- 90's, Medill surrendered control of the paper to his son-in- law, Robert W. Patterson, and later, under the direction of Medill's grandson, Robert R. McCormick, the Tribune grew in cirmulation, power, and prestige. Calling itself, modestly, the World's Greatest Newspaper, the Tribune achieved a cir- culation of a million copies a day just before World War II. Since McCormick's death in 1955, the paper has been published by the Tribune Company under management of McCormick's edi? torial heirs, Chasser M. Campbell and J. Howard Wood. Cir- culation figures for the Tribune: 1893 1965 daily 78,000 831,904 Sunday 1,138,268 The Chronicle The Chronicle was the great West Coast newspaper of the generation after the Civil War. Founded in 1865 by two teen-age brothers, it soon became a vigorous, newsy and prof- itable newspaper. One of the owners, Charles De Young, was 7 shot and killed in 1880 as a result of the paper’s feud with the Workingmen's Party; his brother, M. H. De Y0ung, supervised the paper's operations until his death in 1925. Today the Chronicle is the only independent daily newspaper in San Francisco and its only competition comes from the Hearst papers, the morning and Sunday Examine; and the even- ing News-Call-Bulletin. Circulation figures for the Chronicle: .1822 19.511». daily 61,156 330,225 Sunday 352,138 The 20 Yeap§_from 1894gto 1964 In the history of a language, 70 years is not an appreciable span of time, but in the recent history of jour- nalism, 70 years is an age. In 1894 the Gilded Age of the Greeleys, the Bennetts, the Danes, the Medills, and the other giants of journalism was over. The Linotype had come into the composing room in 1886; engraving of photographs had begun in the early 1880's; in 1889 Hoe's sextuple press fed by three rolls of newsprint turned out 48,000 copies an hour of a twelve-page paper for the New York prglg. The great Joseph Pulitzer had just established himself in New York and the new prlg building was one of the sights of the city. Telephone and typewriter were new in the city room and the press associations were just beginning to pour 8 world and national news onto the telegraph editor's desk. Newspapers in 1894 were stepping out of their in- fancy and into their young manhood. It was the beginning of the period of mass circulation, cheap newsprint, and yel- low journalism. It was a period of growth and excitement and the daily newspaper was just on the threshold of the modern age. The newspaper was just past the crest of suc- cess won by vigorous, personal editorial direction and they were just poised on the threshold of the period of great mechanical prOgress which lasted from the late 1890's to the end.of World War II. In 1964 newspapers had reached maturity. They had achieved mass circulation and financial success thanks to the mechanical production methods available in the 1890's and since perfected, and thanks, also, to the great growth this nation experienced from the 1890's on. Today the news- paper, like the rest of society, is in the early days of the nuclear and electronic age, facing new problems and great changes. The computor and the communications satellites promise to alter newspapers in the next seventy years even more than the Linotype and the web-perfecting press did in the seventy years after the 1890's. If ever differences existed, they exist between the American newSpaper of the 1890's and of the 1960's. The newspaper of today is produced differently, it is edited by a new kind of journalist, it is read by a new kind of American. 9 Today's newspapers are as different as black is from white from the newspapers of the 1890's. Whether there are any differences in the way news was written in the 1890's and the way it is written today-- grammatical differences, that is--is one of the questions this study has set out to determine. As we shall see later, some differences do exist. There is, for example, a definite trend toward a greater use of nouns as modifiers of other nouns. Examination of the summary tables in the final chap- ter will show in more detail the shifts in usage of the various types of modifiers over the seventy-year period under examination. Whether these shifts are part of a gen- eral shift going on throughout the language or are peculiar. to newspaper writing will have to be determined by further studies. Methodology The corpus, 1,200 sentences, is a four-way sample of the writing of staff members of four American daily news— papers. The newspapers were selected because they were avail- able in the two years 1894 and 1964 and because they repre- sent a good, high-quality form of journalism. All four papers had a reputation in 1894 and all have a reputation today. They are all, by coincidence, morning newspapers, and they represent the geographical differences between East 10 Coast, Middle West, and the Far West.9 I The month of February was selected as the sample month as a recent month in 1964 and a period for which micro— film copies of the 1964 newspapers were already available. The fourth week of the month was selected with the aid of a table of random numbers as the six-day period from which the materials of the corpus were to be drawn. Daily issues, Monday through Saturday, were used in drawing the sample. The issues were those of Thursday, February 22; Friday, Feb- ruary 23; Saturday, February 24; Monday, February 26; Tues- day, February 27; and Thursday, February 28 in 1894. In 1964 the issues were those of Saturday, February 22, Monday February 24; Tuesday, February 25; Wednesday, February 26; Thursday, February 27; and Friday, February 28. Sentences were drawn from locally-written news stories spread as much as possible through the entire issue of the paper. Only locally-written stories were used. No press assocation copy, no syndicated material, no stories written by correspondents and originating outside the city of publication, no editorials, no columns, and no sports or 9The four newspapers were selected on the basis of criteria cited above. In content analysis it is seldom the practice to draw titles on a random basis. For a discussion of the problem of selecting titles for content analysis, see Richard W. Budd and Robert K. Thorp, An Introduction to Con- tent Analysis (Iowa City: School of Journalism, State Uni- versity of Iowa, 1963), pp. 4-9. 11 women's page stories were included. Content or subject matter of news stories was not otherwise considered, and it is proposed that these exclusions left the sample represent- ative of general, not specialized, newswriting. Two sets of sentences were drawn from seventy-five different news stories in each of the four newspapers for each of the two years. The first set of sentences was the initial sentence in each news story and these sentences will be referred to hereafter as lead sentences. From the four newspapers 300 lead sentences were drawn, seventy-five from each paper for 1894 and the same number from each paper in 1964, 600 lead sentences in all. The second set of sentences, another 600, represent as nearly as possible the entire news story. For this sample, sentences were selected in rotation from the first, second, third, and fourth quarters ‘ of the news story, the first full sentence in each quarter being selected in each instance. These sentences will be referred to hereafter as representative sentences. Three comparisons are possible from this sample: (1) between newswriting in general and the lead sentence, (2) be- tween the four newspapers, and (3) between writing in two different years separated by a span of seventy years. Com- parisons between features in the four newspapers are based on too small a sample to have much validity, but comparisons between the BOO-sentence sample in the two years and between lead and representative sentences should have validity. 12 Sentences were drawn as much as possible from the entire newspaper. Selection was made beginning on page one and with the outside left hand column starting at the top of the page. The first local story was chose from the first column, and if there was no local story in the first column, then the first local story was taken from the second column. The second story selected was the first local story in the left hand column on page two and so on in order. Issues of the four papers in 1894 were usually of ten or twelve pages and the sample pretty well represents something from every page. In a few instances it was nec- essary to start back through the paper a second time, this time taking the second local story from each page. This was a systematic random sample rather than an unrestricted random sample. It is intended to be represent-' ative of the universe from which it was taken and to be large enough to present reasonably accurate data.10 The 300 sen- tences from the two years and representing lead sentences loGustav Herdan maintains that any sample of lan- guage is random unless one just picks out the items one is looking for. See The Calculus of Linguistic Observations ('s-Gravenhage: Mouton & 00.,“1962l, p. 25, where he says that, "My contention is that the linear sequences of lin- guistic forms in written texts or speech are random series with respect to certain quantitative characteristics, and any sampling procedure, be it by disconnected units, or by continuous pieces of text, by pages, chapters, etc., will give a random sample of such quantitative characteristic; that is, provided it does not consist in a direct or indirect selection of categories of just such characteristics we are sampling for." 13 and representative sentences is large enough a sample to avoid undue error, and, according to standard tables, stand- ard error in a sample this size would be approximately 5 percentage points, plus or minus. To reduce the possibility of error by as much as 1 percentage point would require that the size of the sample be increased from 300 to 600 sen- tences.ll The increase in accuracy thus achieved would hardly be worth the amount of effort involved. Altogether, the sample of 1,200 sentences ran to more than 31,000 words. The sample: 1.8.2.1: 1913!: lead sentences 300 300 representative sentences _199_ _399_ total 600 600 1,200 Structures of Modification This study is an analysis of the various structures of modification in a particular sample of present-day Ameri- can English. Structures of modification are linguistic units consisting of at least two words, a pggg and a modifiep. All structures of modification must consist of these two immediate congtituents. Either the head or the modifier may 11See David J. Luck Hugh G. Wales and Donald A. Ta lor Marketing Research (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice- Ha 1, inCo, 9 g P0 7. 14 be a single word or a sequence of related words. The fol— lowing are examples of structures of modification: the slithy toves man of letters deep in the wabe The head, underlined, is that part of the struc- ture of modification which can replace the whole structure in a sentence. For example, We saw the slithy toves could be changed to read We saw toves. The expendable words in the sequence the slithy toves are Egg and slith , and these two words are, by process of elimination, modifiers. What remains, the word ppygg, is the head. Modifiers are that part of a structure of modification which cannot be substi- tuted for the head. In the sentence below, note the identi- fication of the head and modifier on the basis of elimina- tion: We found ourselves deepgin the wabe. We found ourselves in the wabe. In the underlined structure of modification, dgpp can be eliminated and is, hence, the modifier, while ip the wabe can substitute for the entire structure and is, hence, the head. The entire structure of modification con- sists of a head and a modifier. Note, too, that the head here is not a single word, but a sequence of three words. 15 This study follows Trager and Smith in defining a word as a base with or without one or more affixes and with a superfix.12 Trager and Smith cite pgkpp and glgpg as ex- amples of words. In the structures above, pgp, toves, deep, ip, Egg, and letters are all words, to cite only a few ex- amples. A seguence is merely a group of two or more related words organized into a meaningful entity: old man, in the woods, down here, wgy off, pppg afternoon. Without need for analysis, any native speaker would recognize these as mean- ingful. Francis terms such entities grammapigal structures.13 Hockett refers to them as congtrucp§.14 They are sometimes called phrases or rou s, and here, following Wolff, they will be referred to as sequences.ls Single words or sequences may serve as heads in structures of modification. Modifiers may, in the same way, be single words or sequences. Heads, we will find, may be nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, function words, preposi- tional sequences, noun sequences, clauses, verb sequences, k 12George L. Trager and Henry Lee Smith, Jr., 52—922- 1ine of English Structure (Washington, D. C.: American Coun- cil 0T Learned Societies, 1957. fifth printing), PP. 55-57. 13Francis, p. 223. ll'Charles F. Hockett, A Coursg in Modern Linguistics (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1958), p. 164. ._._ . 15Hans Wolff, Structural Highlights of American Eng- lish (typescript, n.d., in the possession of the author, now at Northwestern University, Evanston, 111.), p. 141. 16 verbs and their complements and entire sentences. Modifiers may consist of nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, function words, prepositional sequences, noun sequences, clauses, verbs and their complements, and entire sentences. Analysis of structures of modification must depend, first of all, on identification of a given sequence as a structure of modification, and, second, on classification of the modifier and head. Sequences had, first, to be classified by type: noun-headed structure of modification, adjective-headed, adverb-headed, and so on. Then the vari- ous modifiers of each class of structure had to be identi- fied as to type: noun-modifier, adjective-modifier, and so on. Once a sequence had been identified as a structure of modification consisting of a head and a modifier, it remained only to identify the head and to assign the struc- ture to its proper class: noun-headed structure, adjective- headed structure and so on. Analysis of the modifier in- volved four points: (1) what kind of modifier, noun-modifier, adjective-modifier, prepositional-sequence-modifier, and so on; (2) what position did the modifier occupy in relation to its head; (3) with what frequency did each type of modi- fier appear; and (4) in some instances, did the modifier appear alone with its head or in company with other modi- fiers? 17 Position of the modifier presents little problem. If the head is a single word, the modifier will normally be either pre-posed or post-posed. Very occasionally the modifier will appear in some other position, for example, in a noun-headed structure of modification the prepositional sequence which modifies the noun-head is normally post-poned, but will sometimes appear pre-posed. If the head is a se— quence instead of a single word, modifiers may be included within the sequence as, for example, an adverb-modifier which may appear either pre-posed or post—posed to a single-word verb-head, but which may also appear between a verb-head and its auxiliary. Determining the frequency with which a given modifier appeared with a given type of head and in a given position presented no problem except that of tedium. All heads and modifiers were listed on tally sheets according to the type of head, position and type of modifier, and relation to other modifiers. Each tally sheet was double checked for accuracy of each item and the tally sheets were totalled. Totals from each tally sheet were carried over to summary sheets so that totals for each newspaper and each year could be obtained and the final figures transferred to tables. Identificationwpf Heads and Modifiers Proper identification of heads and modifiers and of the various structures already mentioned, depended in large 18 part on identification of the four form class words: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. In most instances identifi- cation was simple and Obvious. In a few instances, however, ambiguity existed for one or more reasons. Sometimes the various syntactic signals were missing; sometimes the word in question had the same morphemic form as a word normally associated with another form class; sometimes the word was out of normal position; sometimes the word was a replacement for a member of another form class. In the main, however, identification of heads or modifiers as nouns, verbs, adverbs, or adjectives was readily accomplished by simple comparison of the five signals of syntactic structure cited by Francis.16 These are char- acteristic position in a sentence or sequence, inflection, regular appearance with specified function words, derivational contrast, and prosodic contrast. Identification of Nouns Most nouns were readily identified by these syntactic signalling devices, and usually more than one signal of iden- fification was found. Many nouns, for example, will appear in characteristic position and also show noun inflection and be paired with function words associated only with nouns.17 v v__——' l6See Fries, pp. 65-141, and Francis, pp. 229-290. This discussion basically follows Francis who is somewhat more succinct than Fries. 17Francis, pp. 237-252- 19 Francis considers noun markers, those characteristic function words found only in association with nouns, as the most important device for identifying a word as a noun. The noun markers consist of seven groups of function words: the definite article ppp; the indefinite article g/gp; the vari- ous personal pronouns; the specifiers this/that and their plural forms these/those; the cardinal numbers; the negative pp; and a fairly long list of function nouns. A more com- plete discussion of noun markers appears in Chapter I. Noun inflection is the second significant signal identifying nouns. Nouns show two types of inflection: first, the suffix '§ which indicates possession; second, the suffixes -§ or -g§ which indicate more than one. For ex- ample: possessive inflection boy/boy's wife/wife's man/man's plural inflection bOY/bOYS wife/wives house/houses tree/trees Irregular plurals appear fairly frequently, but their identification poses few problems. No one is likely to mis- take man/men, tooth/teeth, medium/media simply because they are irregular plurals. 20 Derivational contrast also serves to signal that a word is a noun. Nouns derived from verbs, adjectives, other nouns, or built up from bound bases show characteristic de- rivational suffixes like ~age, ~22, -py, -ist, ~dom, and -it : breakage employee intricacy violinist facility freedom A few noun suffixes are ambiguous, the -ing of run- pipg, arkin , smokin , for example, but where there is such ambiguity other means of identification are often present. Characteristic position also serves to identify nouns and Francis cites the chief position filled by nouns as the position immediately before a verb, that is the sub- ject position in a sentence with normal word order. A test frame can be constructed to determine whether a given word will fit this position and is, thus, a noun by definition: (the) leaves the depot daily train bus passenger dispatch Finally, some nouns show prosodic contrast with identical words, that is, words with the same morphemic form, which belong to another form class. For example, the words subject, a noun, and sub’ect, a verb, which are morphemically identical, but can be differentiated because they have 21 different stress: they contrast prosodically. For ex- ample: The sdbject is not to be discussed. (noun) I don't want to subject you to that. (verb) A number of examples of this type of prosodic con- trast between nouns and verbs can be found: imprint, gpg— , .pgpp, contract, ob’ect, and others. These various signals of syntactic structure are valid only in context, however, for the syntactic value of a given word depends on number of simultaneous and related factors. Identifying signals valid in isolation may have no validity when actual instances of use are considered. The word toda , for example, may be a noun in one context, but an adverb in another. The fact that ppggy can be in- flected for possession and the plural when it appears in subject position does not alter the fact that it cannot be so inflected when it appears in a position characteristic of adverbs.18 Identification of Verbs Verbs can be readily identified in most instances by the five signals of syntactic structure already cited. 18There is a difference between a word's morphological . flict class and its syntactic class and where there is a con . ., morphology accedes to syntax. Position 13 the more Signifi- cant factor. See Fries, p. 141. 22 Verbs have characteristic position in the sentence, they have characteristic inflection, they appear with certain readily identifiable function words, they show derivational contrast, and they show prosodic contrast.l9 For verbs, characteristic position in the sentence is, according to Francis, between two nouns, as in the fol- lowing examples from the materials examined in this study: these men deserve the gratitude the effigy had black-painted features Inflection readily serves to identify verbs. Verb inflection is by means of the suffixes —§, -ed, -gp, and -ing differentiates between present tense, past tense, past participles, and present participles: present -§ in the third person singular tests results past -gg in all persons in both singular and plural filed asked aimed explained participle -pg in most verbs and -gp in some was donated were greeted was swollen had been beaten l9Francis, pp. 252-268. 23 present participle -igg in all cases is acting iifiifiéng Function words are useful in identifying irregular verb forms although from a practical standpoint the irregular verbs are familiar enough to most speakers. Function words associated with verbs are the various forms of the verb §g_b§ and the verb to have and the modal auxiliaries. For example, with the function words underlined: was hit have seen were going will give can go Derivational contrast provides another syntactic sig- nal for identification of verbs, but this seldom provides the only means of identification. Derivational suffixes like -§£g, eige, -i§h, and -gn appear on verbs like irrigate, ELELELQQ, extinguish, and broaden. Prosodic contrast also serves to identify verbs, but the number of verbs with forms morphemically identical with words of other form classes is small. There is seldom a serious problem in identifying verbs when they appear in a sentence or clause in character- istic subject + verb relationship. In such instances not 24 only position, but inflection, pairing with function words also identify the verb. However, when a verb appears in other positions identification is another matter. When verbs appear as modifiers they have no accompanying function words to serve as markers and they are frequently unin- flected--as is the case of the infinitive--or they have the ambiguous suffixes -§g or -igg. In such cases other means of identification are necessary: probable relationship to a head-word, relationship to a direct object, relationship to a modifier or to some other structure. Identification of Adjectives Position, according to Francis, is the most useful means of identification of the adjective.20 If a word can fit both blanks in the test frame below, it is an adjective. If the word can fit the first blank, but not the second it is not an adjective. The test frame: the --ii~ thing seems very strong strong relaxed relaxed interesting interesting Nouns, verbs, and adverbs can fill the first blank, but not the second. For example: ZOFI‘anCiS, pp. 268-291. 25 the leader is very school nouns labor swimming murdered verbs injured ' retiring aged adjectives charming wise then adverb In this study, this test, the ability of an adjec- tive to pair with yery and sometimes with ggite, proved a useful means of differentiating between adjectives and verbs with the suffixes -eg and -igg In addition to the test of position, it is possible to identify adjectives by the other syntactic signals: in- flection, pairing with certain function words, derivational contrast and prosodic contrast. Adjectives are inflected for comparison with the suffixes -§3 and -est: fine finer finest sharp sharper sharpest nice nicer nicest Certain adjectives are compared periphrastically by means of a pre-posed more or most: desirable more desirable most desirable recent more recent most recent 26 A few other adjectives are compared irregularly, like gggd with its comparative better and superlative best. Adjectives are frequently derived from nouns, verbs, and bound bases by means of derivational suffixes, many of which are exclusive to adjectives and hence provide an easy means of identifying a word as an adjective. A few deriva- tional suffixes are -y, -§l, -gbl§, and -fgl found on adjec- tives like leafy, fatal, adaptable, and hopeful. Some ad- jective suffixes are ambiguous, particularly the -§g and -ing of adjectives like respected and interesting. Prosodic contrast sometimes serves to differentiate between verbs, nouns, and adjectives. For example, con- trast: He entered the running race. noun He entered the running stream. verb He was interesting as usual. adjective He was interesting his students. verb Finally, adjectives are sometimes paired with a group of function words which Fries and Francis refer to as Qualifier .21 Qualifiers are primarily adverbs, but a few are marked nouns. Their use is somewhat limited in the written language, as reference to later tables will show, 21 ° ' 0 found on p. Francis' list of qualifiers W111 be 273; Fries lists qualifiers, his Group D function words, on pp . 92-9h o 27 but Fries and Francis report that qualifiers are in exten- sive use in the spoken language. Qualifiers include such words as ve , quite, a little, a lot, more, most, and less. Identification of Adverbs Francis suggests that the most useful test for an adverb is that of position.22 Any word, according to Francis, that can appear in sentence final position after a noun or nouns, as in the test frame below, is an adverb: the man told (us) his story hopefully aloud somehow over again today This may well be, as Francis says, the primary struc- tural criterion for adverbs, but it is not particularly helpful in analysis of structures of modification in actual sentences. As we shall see in Chapter II, the position Francis posits is far more likely to be filled by one or more prepositional sequences than by an adverb, and adverbs, it turns out, are far more likely to appear post-posed to the verb they modify and before rather than after the noun or nouns which are objects of the verb. M 22Francis, pp. 281-288. 28 Adverbs are easily recognized in most instances by their derivational suffixes, the most common of which is —ly which forms adverbs from adjectives: visibl , ggmggk- gbly, woodenly, traditionally, segigusly, critically. A few other affixes form adverbs from nouns, verbs, adjectives and bound stems: a- aloud -wise lengthwise aboard sidewise -s nights -wards backwards evenings homewards A small group of adverbs is identical with certain prepositions: i5, gp, out, pp, down, and others. Another group is composed of nouns and function words combined with the noun markers some, any, every and 99: somewhere anywhere someplace nowhere everywhere anyplace Adverbs are also inflected like adjectives for com- parison and employ the same inflectional suffixes, -§§ and -g§§. Only a few adverbs, the so-called base adverbs, are inflected in this manner. Derived adverbs are inflected periphrastically, like adjectives, with a pre-posed more or most. hard harder hardest long longer longest loudly more loudly most loudly Openly more openly most openly 29 A few adverbs are irregular, for example, Egg; with its comparative bgtggg and its superlative bggg. Adverbs are also identified by their association with certain function words, qualifiers, many of which are identifical with the qualifiers already identified as adjec- tive markers: very well quite easily a lot better ri ht past still more easily % Another useful test of adverb identity is the sub- stitute group. Adverbs may be divided into three substitute groups depending on whether they may be replaced by then, there, or by thus or g9: then today daily seldom yesterday now later there outside ahead indoors down back downstairs thus/so easily slowly sideways critically aloud queerly A cataloging of the various syntactic signals by which nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs may be identi- fied is deceptive. In actual practice they serve well probably 90 per cent of the time, but in the other 10 per cent difficulties arise. Morphological signals are sometimes ambiguous, as in the case of the suffixes -igg and -§d. The 30 syntactic signal of position is sometimes ambiguous. In the case of adjectives and adverbs, the function words that serve as markers seldom appear when they would be most helpful. The language is so flexible that almost any word or struc- ture may show up in any position in a sentence, however un— likely the possibility might be. For example, the position between the noun marker Egg and the noun is generally de- scribed as an adjective position, but it is commonly filled by nouns, not infrequently by a verb, and on rare occasions by an adverb. In most doubtful cases identification was possible with the aid of lists of function words, derivational suf- fixes, and substitute groups compiled from the sources al- ready cited. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are defined, then, as words which can be identified by the various syn- tactic signals just described. Function words are words which are not nouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs, and which have a syntactic function in sequences, clauses, and sentences. Fries lists fifteen separate groups of these words.23 For the purposes of this study the most important function words were Fries Group A, noun markers; Group B, verb markers; Group F, prepositions: and Group J, called 23Fries, pp. 87-109. 31 variously adverbs, conjunctions and includers.24 In conclusion, identification of form class words was dependent on test frames for position; derivational con- trasts with members of other form classes; various lists of identifying function words; and, to a lesser extent, inflec- tion. Prosodic contrast seldom was of any assistance. Occa- sionally substitute groups provided some assistance. Where no other criteria would do, it was found useful to compare the word or structure in question with the catalog of possible structures of modification in Hide and Francis.25 Form class words, as this study will show, are not the only heads, nor the only modifiers, in structures of modification. Sentences, clauses, absolute constructions, prepositional sequences, and noun-headed structures of modi- fication appear both as heads and as modifiers. The nature of these various structures and the criteria for identifying them will be discussed in later chapters where these struc— tures first appear. 2“For an exhaustive list of prepositions and conjunc- tions, see Harold Whitehall, Structural Essentials of En lish (New York and Burlin hame: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1956, reprinted 1961 , pp. 62-63, and pp. 72-73. 2SFrancis, pp. 229-290, cited above, and Eugene A. Nida, A S o sis of Modern En lish, edited by Benjamin Elson (Norman, Okla.: Summer School of Linguistics, 2d. ed., 1962), hereafter cited as Nida, passim. 32 Limitations of the Study This study is not intended as a net to dredge up every possible occurrence of a particular type of head or modifier, nor as an inventory of all the heads and modifiers in the language. Nida has what may well be an all-inclusive inventory of the possible types of modifiers in his Synopsis and he includes a substantial number of examples.26 The question this study seeks to answer is not what is possible, but what actually occurs is a given sample of the language. Use of the various structures of modification is, basically, a matter of stylistics, of choice.27 Given a wide range of possible structures to choose from, which will a speaker or writer use, how often will he use certain struc- tures, and in what environments? The writer has no hypothesis to prove. This study is based on the notion that language is analyzable and that any sample of language may have its own characteristics as well as the broader characteristics, or grammar, of the 26Previously cited. 27Hill defines stylistics as "all those relations among linguistic entities which are statable, or may be statable, in terms of wider spans than those which fall within the limits of the sentence." And he further defines style as "all the choices of equivalent items which the language offers the user in each linguistic situation." See A. A. Hill, Introduction to Lin istic Structures (New York: Har- court, Brace and Company, 5 . P- h . 33 language of which it is a part. The characteristics of news— paper syntax, at least as far as modification is concerned, will be set forth in the pages that follow. Whether this particular sample of newspaper writing has idiosyncrasies of its own, and whether it differs from other types of writ- ing must depend on further comparisons. CHAPTER I NOUN-HEADED STRUCTURES OF MODIFICATION Pre-Nominal Modifiers In a structure of modification in which the head is a noun, modifiers may appear before the noun-head or after the noun-head. Nouns appearing before the noun-head may be said to be pre-posed or in pre-nominal position, and those appearing after the noun-head may be said to be post- .posed or in post-nominal position. The Pre-Nominal Position The pre-nominal position is the position described by Fries as the characteristic position of his Class 3 words, in this study to be referred to as adjectives, which appear between the noun determiner Egg and the Form Class 1 word, a noun, indicated in the test frame below:l D 3 l 2 3 (The) good is/was good. lFries, p. 82. BA 35 Nida says that attributives to the subject-head, that is, modifiers of the noun-head, precede the subject- head.2 He presents examples like the following (modifiers underlined): the good man the poor woman This is the position also identified by Francis as one of the characteristic adjective positions in his test frame.3 The pre-nominal modifier appears in the position occupied by the blank in the test frame between the deter— miner phg and the noun, here the word pgp. The second blank represents another adjective position of no moment here. the man seems very Francis and Fries both refer to this pre-nominal position as an adjective position and Nida refers to it as an attributive position. In this study this position, be- tween the determiner and a noun, will be considered an unre- stricted modifying position and it will be seen that in ad- dition to adjectives various form class words and sequences can appear in this position. The test frame is: 2 Nida, p. 58. 3Francis, p. 268. 36 D modifier head (the) + NOUN This test frame represents a structure of modifica— tion whose constituents are a noun-head and a modifier or modifiers. The modifiers identified in this study as being usual modifiers of nouns include adjectives, nouns, verbs, adverbs, various determiners, and other structures including noun-headed structures of modification and structures of coordination. No attempt will be made in this study to examine the meaning of the various modifiers or the manner in which they modify the meaning of their heads. The task here is only to identify the various modifiers and to note their distri— bution and frequency. As a first step in this analysis, every noun in the corpus of 1,200 sentences was identified as a noun on the basis of one or more of the syntactic signals described pre- viously. Noun-headed structures of modification were listed separately from nouns appearing with no modification other than the various noun markers. In the noun-headed structures of modification the noun-heads were identified on the basis of the substitution test. Nouns fell into several distinct groups: (I) nouns unmodified except for the various noun markers; (2) nouns with a zero marker; (3) nouns with modifiers as heads of structures of modification; (4) nouns with post-nominal 37 modifiers; and (5) nouns with both pre-nominal and post- nominal modifiers. The types of modifiers found in pre-nominal position with noun-headed structures of modification are shown in Tab 18 1 o Adjectives as Modifiers Adjectives represent from 35 to to per cent of the modifiers appearing in the pre-nominal modifying position in noun-headed structures of modification, as we can see from Table 1. Examples of adjective modifiers as given in Francis, Fries, and in Nida, includezh Francis strong interesting relaxed Nida good rich holy Fries empty large foreign In the newspapers examined in this study, typical examples of adjectives as modifiers included: 4 Francis, p. 268; Fries, p. 82; Nida, p. 60. 38 0.00H 5H©H o.OOH HHdH o.OOH ©5NH 0.00H mso HmpOp 5.5 JNH 0.5 mm 0.5 HOH H.m 0N moosmzvmm m.mm mmsH o.mm NHmH H.mo m5HH m.©m 0N0 HmQOp m.H Om H.H mH ©.H mH o.H mH mnnm> H. N H. N H. N H. N mnum>p¢ s.mm new n.0m 5mm s.sm ans s.os mmm mmsapomnee m.sm mmw m.~m emu 0.0m ma5 m.sm own mesoz R .02 R .02! R um? R .02 manMHvoE domH smmH sooH smmH tho mnmoq mmHLOpm mpoHaeoo .somH paw dme :H mummmmmxm: HHm GH moosopcmm m>HpmpcomogmoA paw mmocmpsmm vmmH :H GOHpmonHuos mo mops» noshpm vmvmonncsoc cH GOHpHmom Hmcaeocumum :H muoHMHvoe Ho soapanHpmHauu.H mHnt 39 Times current new criminal broad Herald-Tribune sexual old explosive general Tribune main last substantial northern‘ Chronicle initial usual own These modifiers (underlined in the examples below) appeared in such noun-headed structures of modification as: criminal charges its current showing general counsel no pgy experience broad fields a special meeting last. year Nouns as Modifiers As Table 1 shows, nouns make up somewhat more than 50 per cent of the modifiers appearing in pre-nominal posi- tion in noun-headed structures of modification. These nouns fall into three distinct groups: (1) noun adjuncts; (2) nouns with the possessive suffix 'g; and (3) appositives.5 ——‘ 5Francis, p. 299. 40 Table 2 shows the distribution of these three types of modi- fiers in the materials examined in this study. Noun Adjuncts Noun adjuncts are base nouns and nouns with the plural suffix -§/g§. They represent transforms of post- nominal structures of modification like the following: a doctor who is a woman a woman doctor plans for war war plans laws regulating_elections election laws a meeting set for Tuesday a Tuesday meeting As Table 2 shows, this is a common pattern in news- paper stories and in the newspapers examined in this study the use of noun adjuncts as modifiers of noun-heads increased substantially between 1894 and 196A. Examples of this type of modification from Francis, Nida, and Fries, include:6 Francis a father image the ggy shift the pgmgp doctors Nida a steel weld the silk hat a customg official Fries a pgpgp knife an gyp shade a student adviser 6Nida, p. 62; Francis, p. 299; Fries, p. 210. 41 .mcso: GOHpocsmw o.ooa mew osooa wma o.ooa mam o.ooa omm Hmpop m.mm omm m.om mom H.mm How m.os Hem asses m. N e.a NH m. e e. m pmepo 0.0H 00H o.HN mmH w.©H ONH 5.NN mHH mmsmc m.e mm e.ma Hoe w.om 5e H.mm own mmapmp mo>HpHmomad m.sa one e.mo one o.ae saw a.mm mew Hmpop H.o em m.m mm m.« 5m m.m MH mm>nmmmmmoa H.mo moo N.oo see 5.00 554 H.Hm mom aspen m.H em a. p m.H ma 5.H o mpoesmee pmepoe p.00 Hon m.mm wms m.so see 4.04 5mm mpocsnee esoz R .02 R .02 R .02 R .02 mpmHMHUoE 1r. seam some some seem hHso mvmoq mmHAOpm mpoHaeoo assoc :H GOHpHmom )1 ti" .domH vnm emmH :H mummmmmSoc HHm CH GOHomoHHHer Ho monnposhum common :HAMHUOE Hmcflsocnmpa :H wsHhmmem mason Ho mmmhp mSOHum>un.N mHnt 42 In the newspapers examined in this study the follow- ing examples are representative of noun adjuncts: Tribune ‘pipy hall ppmp threats gpppp speakers Times the EQEEE shortage faculty members the election trials Herald-Tribune color television two grain elevators the city banks ’ Chronicle the state council the insolvency act Nouns with Possessive Suffix -'§ Distinct from noun adjuncts are the nouns in pre- nominal position in structures of modification which have the possessive suffix.-{§. These nouns represent transforms 0f post-nominal structures of modification. For example: a doctor who treats women a women's doctor a candidate of phe_pegple a people's candidate a book that belongs to John John's book Hill cites structures of modification like John's book and the people's candidate as characteristic of the system of modification in English.7 ‘- 7Hill, p. 142. l 43 Examples of this type of pre-nominal modification taken from Francis, Nida and Fries, include:8 Francis Nida Fries child's play a gpggp life a ggylg work a mgplp affair a people's man a children's language a lady's handkerchief his mother's support my father's house In the newspapers examined for this study, the fol- lowing examples are representative of nouns with the pos- sessive suffix -'§ as modifiers: Tribune Times Herald Tribune a masterjs degree the doctor's bookkeeper the world's production the society's rooms ippeiis market the earth's atmosphere men's fertility four week's illness the Lord's prayer the city's department the Yankeefls loss 8Francis, p. 299; Fries, p. 210; Nida, p. 63. 4h Chronicle Boy's Brigade the Lord's task Gray's harbor Names as Modifiers Neither Francis nor Nida makes any special mention of names, geOgraphical, personal, or names of things, al- though Nida lists several as examples of noun adjuncts:9 the Shaw plays the Roosevelt backer a Boston tea—party In this study, names of persons, geographical names, names of animate and inanimate things traditionally con- sidered proper nouns and usually capitalized will not be differentiated from other nouns. It should be noted that proper nouns make up a very large number of all nouns appear- ing as modifiers in pre-nominal position in noun-headed structures of modification. Some examples: Tribune ChiCago stadium May street Riverdgle section Time Brooklyn project Steinway hall w street 9Nida, p. 62. 45 Herald-Tribune Monmouth Park Syracuse University Chickering Hall Chronicle Market Street Missouri River Several examples of names as noun-modifiers are in- cluded in the list of possessive modifiers on pages #3 and AA. Appositives So far we have identified two noun-headed structures of modification: one in which the modifier is an adjective, and one in which the modifier is a noun. Where the modifier is a noun, the noun may be either a noun adjunct or a noun with the possessive suffix -'§. With either adjective modifiers or noun modifiers, the modifier is readily distinguished from its noun head on the basis of substitution. The noun-head can, in a test sentence, be substituted for the entire structure of modi- fication which it heads. The modifier cannot substitute for the entire structure of which it is a part. For example, in the following noun-headed structure of modification, the war parpy, the noun—modifier and the noun-head are readily distinguished by substitution: The war party elected all its candidates. The party elected all its candidates. 46 The modifier pg; is not an acceptable substitute for the noun-headed structure of modification the war parpy. A sentence, the war elected the candidates, would not be readily accepted as meaningful. A somewhat different situation presents itself, how- ever, when one of the nouns is head and the other is an appositive, for in this type of structure of modification both the noun-head and the other noun, the appositive, may freely substitute for the entire structure of modification. Francis and Nida cite the following examples of this type of structure:10 Francis the poet Chaucer the disease poliomyelitis the product cellophane Nida the steamer America the word aesthetic In this type of structure either noun may substitute for the entire structure because, as Fries points out, they have the same referent.ll In the first example, the poet Qhéuggg, both the poet and Chaucer are the same person. Either the poep or Chaucer may be substituted for the entire structure of modification: -w..- « loFrancis, p. 301; Nida, p. 101. llFries, p. 195. A7 The pget Chaucer wrote "The Canterbury Tales." The_poet wrote "The Canterbury Tales." Chaucer wrote "The Canterbury Tales." Another way of showing that the appositive and the noun-head have the same referent is to show that the same pronoun may be used as a substitute for both nouns: the poet/he Chaucer/he The two pronouns fall together when we substitute the pronouns for the appositive and its noun-head. There is no loss of meaning and no necessity for making any other changes in the test sentence: 9 fig wrote "The Canterbury Tales." There is a clear difference between the-relationship of noun—appositive and its head and noun-adjunct and its head. For example, in the noun-headed structure of modifi- cation the aircraft carrier, the noun aircraft is an adjunct, not an appositive. The adjunct aircraft and the noun-head carrier are obviously not the same thing. An aircraft is a plane and a carrier is a ship. This structure, an air- craft carrier, fails the substitution test, too, for only M. 2&22122. the noun-head, will fit the blank in the test frame: (the) is a big ship carrier 48 Aircraft, a noun—adjunct and modifier, fails to make sense in the test frame. Another appositive, php steamer America, however demonstrates the equality of ap- positive and head. Either steamer or America will fit a test frame: (the) is a ship steamer America The appositive thus provides us with a third type of noun to fill the pre-nominal modifying position between determiner and noun-head in a structure of modification: (the) + NOUN adjunct the election fraud our war plans color television possessive my fatherlp house a day's journal week's end appositive the steamer America the Egpg ism my gigpgp Eileen Table 2 shows the breakdown of these three types Of noun-modifiers of noun-headwords. In 1964 in both repre- sentative sentences and lead sentences adjuncts made up more than 70 per cent of the noun-modifiers. Possessive nouns account for some 5 to 6 per cent, and appdsitives of 49 various types somewhere between 25 and 30 per cent. Examples of appositives from the newspaper materials examined for this study include: Tribune the Battleship Illinois the planets Venus and Jupiter Times the Prince Stigliani the Hotel deLagerot Herald-Tribune the Hotel Savoy a hero policeman Chronicle the tug Relief the ppggppp Panama the tug Fearless This is not a common pattern in newspaper stories, as Table 2 indicates. More common are the structures in which the appositive is a name or a title:12 Henry Smith Walter Main Governor Rockefeller Mayor Wagner These structures meet our test for the appositive. The first noun, the appositive, and the second, the noun-head, have the same referent and either appositive or noun-head 12 Nida, p. 100. 50 may replace the entire structure of modification in a test sentence: Mayer Wagner is a public official. Wagner is a public official. The mayor is a public official. Nida and Francis cite these examples of title + name appositives:13 Nida Professor Johnson Saints Peter and Paul Francis Professor Jones Vice-President Johnson Neither Nida nor Francis mentions name + name struc- tures in their discussion of appositives, but Miss Strang and Curme each cite one example:14 Strang Jane King Curme John Smith Names make up a class of nouns which does not have PPe-posed markers except in such sentences as He is the Pro- fessor Jones where particular stress is laid on specificity of the marker. This incompatability of names and markers 13Francis, p. 302; Nida, p. 101. laSee Strang, p. 82, and George 0. Curme, A Grammar Of the En lish Lan ua e: Vol. III Syntax (New York: D. Co Heatfi. EH3 , pp. 9 33‘92. 51 extends to sequences consisting of a title + name. However, when the title--an appositive-~replaces the name--the head-- it requires a marker in most instances: Governor Rockefeller the Governor Mayor Wagner the Mayor Judge Smith the Judge In direct address, of course, the title does not require a marker: Doctor, may I ask a question? Names in appositive structures are probably more common in newspaper stories than in any other type of written English, although as far as the writer knows there are no figures available to confirm this. Table 2 shows that names and their appositives make up somewhere around 40 per cent of all noun + noun structures of modification. Examples of titles as appositive-modifiers in the materials examined in this study: Tribune Alderman Noble Lieut. Commander Schaffner President Wilson Times Governor Rockefeller Mayor Wagner Saint Paul 52 Herald-Tribune Judge Burnett Princess Ann-Marie Captain Sinclair Chronicle Saint David President Kennedy Dr. Long Judge Henshaw Examples of names as appositive-modifiers in the materials examined in this study: Tribune William Rummel D. F. Garrett Charles H. Percy Times Keith Waterhouse Saul Levy Emil Clemens Herald-Tribune Meade Johnson George W. Carr John Reisenweber Chronicle Edward Mulvey C. C. Morris Newspapers insist on complete identification and prefer that wherever possible first name and middle initial be used. However, there are a number of instances of dif- ferent usage:15 15For an authoritative statement on this journalistic usage, see Robert E. Garst, ed., Style Book of the New York Times (NeinOrk: The New York Times Company, 1956), pp. 2-3. 53 first name and middle initial (standard) George W. Carr John F. Kennedy first initial and middle name T. John Lesinski two initials Co 00 Morris D. F. Garrett For the sake of simplicity, all these forms consist- ing of first names and initials will be considered as be- longing to a single class: first names. One difficulty arises, however, in assigning apposi- tives as we have defined them, to a class of structures whose other members consist of a modifier + head. Although we have carefully avoided any discussion of the meaning of the relationship between head-word and modifier, it is per- fectly clear that by the very nature of the structure of modification the modifier plays a secondary role. In apposi- tives this is not so, for in appositives both nouns are equal. Both have the same referent, both can replace the entire structure of which they are a part. If the two nouns are equal which is head (superior) and which modifier (sub- ordinate)? Decision to refer to the second noun as head and the first as the appositive-modifier may seem somewhat arbitrary, but actually it is not. First of all, in newspaper IV‘ 5h usage, the second noun is more likely to be used as a re- placement for the entire structure, a fact which gives it some color of superiority, and, in the second place, there is a contrast between the appositives we have already ex- amined and another type of appositive which will be examined when we take up post-nominal modifiers. First reference in newspaper stories requires com- plete identification, structures of modification consisting of appositive + noun: name + name, title + name, title + name + name: John C. Smith President Johnson Governor George Romney In second and later references, the second noun is more likely to be employed as a replacement for the struc— ture of modification than is the first: John C. Smith Smith President Johnson Johnson Governor George Romney Romney Even where the second reference is itself a struc- ture of modification, the head is most likely to be the head of the first structure: President Johnson Mr. Johnson 55 In a typical newspaper story of approximately 800 words, for example, first references included:16 Eugene F. (Stormy) McDonald III Miss Joyce E. Shank Dr. Joseph Beeman Mrs. Susan Tanner John B. Haeberline Subsequent references were McDonald, 17; Miss Shank, 4; Mrs. Tanner 2; Dr. Beeman, l; and Haeberline, l. Apposi- tives which are first names are never used as replacements for the noun-head in structures of modification consisting of a first name + last name except in references to young children or to persons well-known and popular where famil- iarity is desired: Christopher Robin Christopher Soapy Williams Soapy Where the appositive is a title, it is frequently used in a second and later references to replace the noun- head: President Johnson the President Governor Romeny the Governor Mayor Wayner the Mayor --- 16Chicago Tribune, Friday, Feb. 12, 1965, p. 1, col. 5- --'c' 56 Another reason for considering the second noun in these appositive structures to be the head is the contrast between structures like these: (a) Mayor Wagner Judge Thompson Senator McNamara (b) Wagner, the mayor, who said . . . Thompson, the judge, said he would . . . McNamara, a senator, was arrested . . . There is contrast, too, between appositives like the poet Chaucer and Chaucer the poet: (a) the writer Conrad the boy Lincoln the rat Grip (b) Conrad the writer Lincoln the boy Grip the Rat There is also contrast between the following struc- tures in which the first set consists of adjective-modifier + noun-head and the second of noun-head + noun—appositive modifier: (a) the eighth Henry the great Alfred the younger Dumas 57 (b) Henry the Eighth Alfred the Great Dumas the younger A number of linguists consider that stress in struc- tures like election fraud, an adjunct + head-noun, and the ppeamer America, an appositive + head-noun, is the same, and that both show secondary + primary stress:17 elebtion fraud \ I . the steamer America We have, then, two types of appositives: pre-posed to the noun-head and post-posed to the noun-head: Group I (pre-nominal) (appositive + head) (the) NOUN + NOUN the steamer America President Johnson bk.3mth the writer Conrad Group 2 (post-nominal) (head + appositive) (the) NOUN + (the) NOUN the attorney, Smith, the baker, Johnson, w l73ee Einar Haugen, "On Reading the Close Appositive," American Speech, XXVIII (1953). pp. 165-170; Hill. p. 179: and Curme, pp. 91—92. 58 Smith, the Democratic candidate, Conrad the writer Grip the Rat Verbs as Mbdifiers Verbs are relatively infrequent as pre-nominal modi- fiers, and since the verbs employed as modifiers are indis- tinguishable from adjectives on the basis of derivational suffixes, they are frequently mistaken for adjectives. How- ever, on the basis of the test frame suggested by Francis, we can readily differentiate adjectives and verbs with the suffixes -;pg and -gg:18 (the) NOUN is very Adjectives like ipperesting, copyincing, loving, or worried, determined, confused fit both blanks in the test frame. Verbs like pursuipg, visitin , closing and written, alleged, and strayed will fit only the first blank in the test frame. Francis and Nida cite the following examples Of verbs as pre-nominal modifiers in noun-headed structures of modi fication:19 Francis racing yacht treaties horse 319213.125 table 18Francis, pp. 303-304. 19Francis, pp. 303-304; Nida, pp. 65-68. 59 Nida floatipg stick following example investigating committee paid bill written apology reserved section Examples of verbs as pre-nominal modifiers in the materials examined for this study include: Tribune Times Herald-Tribune Chronicle assessed valuation pprsuing detectives alleged members (preceding week consulting pediatrician corresponding week written instrument marked men strayed sheep alleged hit and run Harmonized Melodies Receiving Hospital As Table 1 shows, verbs form less than 2 per cent of the modifiers of noun-heads in noun-headed structures of modification. This is a somewhat lower figure than Francis found in a count of noun—modifiers in two magazine pieces. —~ 20 20Francis was apparently counting both pre-nomigal and Post-nominal modifiers. He says, "In a count of 81 60 Adverbs as Mbdifiers There is some disagreement as to whether adverbs do appear in the pro-nominal modifying position. Nida cites examples, Fries does not mention such a possibility, and Francis states flatly that adverbs always come immediately after the noun-head.21 Nida cites as examples: the above statement the outside job the down stroke The present study indicates that while adverbs are relatively rare as pre-nominal modifiers, they do appear occasionally. For example: an upstairs hideaway More common than this kind of modification, however, is the obligatory use of an adverb as modifier of a function noun: noun-modifiers in two pieces in the February, 1955, issue of Harper's Magazine, one an article and the other a short story involving considerable dialogue, adjectives made up about 71 per cent of the total. The other figures were: Nouns, 20 per cent; Verbs 7% per cent; Adverbs, 1% per cent. There were about twice as many noun-determiners (1551) as there were noun modifiers." Francis, p. 298. 21Nida, pp. 64-65; Francis, pp. 304-5. 61 eeéelsislx'nothing nearly 90 Function nouns are a special and limited list of words which frequently take characteristic noun positions in sequences or sentences, but which have other functions, and in many cases lack some or all of the morphological characteristics of nouns. Many are also noun markers: all, gpy, both, his, my, this/these, that/those, few, either, each, another, the cardinal numbers, and a few others.22 Egghers as Modifiers Numbers seldom get extensive treatment in studies of syntax, usually being listed as noun markers and then abandoned. However, in a discussion of the syntax of writ- ten English as it is used in newspaper stories, numbers are of some importance. They have several functions and while not as numerous as, say, adjectives, they are interesting because of their flexibility. Numbers appear, first of all, as noun markers in sentences like: One day is all he asked for. His report listed l9 discrepancies. 22Francis, pp. 2A6-249. 62 Numbers also appear as modifiers in pre-nominal modifying position in noun-headed structures of modification where they appear between a determiner and the noun-head: That's the ppg thing I wanted for Christmas. The ll days preceding the election were busy. Nida cites examples of numbers in this modifying position, but he lumps them with what he calls limitation adjectives: many, most, sugh, lapt, formep.23 He includes in this category both cardinal numbers like one, two, three, four, and the ordinal numbers, first, second, third, fourth, and so on. This classification ignores some of the functions of numbers and the different distribution of cardinal and ordinal numbers. In the present study cardinal numbers will be treated separately from the ordinal numbers on the basis of distribution and the derivational contrast between the suffixes 13h, egg, -pg, and ~§p of the ordinal numbers which contrast with the un—suffixed cardinal numbers. Ordinal numbers appear much less frequently than the cardinal numbers, and since their distribution is that of adjectives they will be regarded as adjectives in this study. Examples of ordinal numbers as noun-modifiers: on third base the tenth month ~‘—— ~— 23Nida, p. 61-62. 63 Ordinal numbers, of course, may appear in noun posi- tions as nouns, but they do so on the same basis as other adjectives: He is the begp. He is the thigg. Ordinal numbers regularly appear in three positions: in noun marker position ahead of all other modifiers of the noun—head, in modifier position between a noun marker and the noun-head, and in noun positions with or without markers and other modifiers. As a noun marker: 19 days 10,000 dollars (written, however, 1125 Grand River as $10,000) As noun-modifier: the six presidents his five indictments As a function noun in characteristic noun positions: They came here in 1264. (in prepositional sequence) He asked for one. (in prepositional sequence) Two will be enough. (in subject position) He gave me two. (in object position) Examples of the use of numbers in the materials examined in this study include: 6A Tribune the 126g-65 agenda any one country Times the lggS—QQ season the five contenders the ten employee Tribune over 299 tons the two men Numbers are counted as noun markers and their fre- quency and distribution is shown in Tables A and 5. When numbers appear in noun position or in modifying position between a noun marker and noun-head they are considered func- tion nouns and included in totals of function nouns in the various tables where function nouns are shown separately. Seguences_as Modifiers Noun—headed structures of modification may also consist of a noun-head and a modifier which is itself a I noun-headed structure of modification.2“ For example: m -~—-M--P-.—-—u 2Z'Francis treats only simpler structures of modifi- cation, but says, p. 297, that "Both the head and the modi- fier which are the immediate constituents of a structure of modification may themselves be structures of more or less complexity." Nida gives various examples of more complex modifiers, pp. 69—8 , but his examples are mostly of modifiers with their own modifiers. He cites only one example of a complex head, structures of coordination like the man and hi Wife, p. 420 65 (the) _, + NOUN machine shop army engineers school board election laws guided missile These noun-headed structures of modification which function as modifiers differ in no way from the noun-headed structures of modification already described. They consist of the same types of modifiers already described and of a noun-head. In the position shown in the test frame above, these structures are merely replacements or substitutes for single word modifiers. These larger structures are, like the two-word noun- headed structures of modification, transforms of a structure consisting of a noun-head followed by a prepositional phrase: camp for army engineers army engineers camp election for the school board school board election silo for a guided missile guided missile silo site for a machine sh0p machine shop site Examples of this type of noun—headed structure of mOdification taken from the materials under examination in- clude: Tribune (collective bargaining) memorandum (political science) department (school board) pgminations 66 (welfare department) traineg (Dr. Clark)'s music (George Williams) College Times (manual training) school (last week)'s market (machine shop) skills (woman suffrngp) convention (Brooks Atkinson) theater Herald-Tribune (thirty-first floor) suite (supreme court) decision (Justice gpll§§)'s opinion (Sheriff Clancy)'s dpgph Chronicle (electric fountain) display (Main §£§§§£) EQ§££ (several hundred dollars) pgpph (Beale §p£§2£) pppkgpg (H. K. §Y2£)'S QEELQ In the structures above, the noun-heads are under- lined and the modifying noun—headed structure of modification is enclosed in parentheses. Table 3 shows the distribution of this type of modifier. Miscellaneous Modifiers —~-.-—. Noun-headed structures of modification may also con— Sist of a noun-head with more than one modifier in the pre- nOminal position between the determiner and the head. The modifier may be more than one single word, more than one 67 sequence, or a combination of single words and sequences. This is a relatively small class, but nevertheless an inter- esting one. In it we find such mixed and miscellaneous mod- ification as: More than one single-word modifier h-story, high stoop, brown-stone dwelling great, big fat plgpk second annual, 25-mile hgpggpgp the city's 5,000 owner—driver cabbies Structures of coordination May and December phggp gay and social glgpgnp TV and radio stations news and book dealers active and specific interest New York Geneological and Biographical Society Community and Social Agency employee Modifiers which are themselves modified April (14) balloting attorney (genera1)'s pfgpgg last night's Friends (of Live Music) pppgpgm less (than happy) outcome Single word modifiers and sequences as modifiers Long Island university students acting Queen's County jpggg emergency stomach ulcer operation railroad work rules ppntroversy «\N- 68 American Newspaper Publishers Association estimated 1,000 Southwestern Cook County Republicans Illinois Fair Employment Practices Commisgign Chicago blood donor servigg Table 3 shows that most modifiers of single-word noun-heads are single words, sequences make up a small per- centage of modifiers, and that all other variations or com- binations represent only a fraction of modifiers of noun— heads. While extreme variation is possible, actual usage is quite conservative. Sequences as Heag_ Noun-headed structures of modification consisting of a modifier and a noun—head may themselves be modified. In such cases the head is a noun—headed structure of modifi- cation and the modifiers include the same modifiers that appear in noun-headed structures of modification. Modifiers fill the position between the determiner and the head in the following test frame: head (the) __ NOUN + 110m: N...“ In the following examples, taken from the materials under examination, the head is underlined: Tribune oldest pgstypotentapg rare public appearancg 69 0.00H 0HHH o.ooH omoa 5.55 500 0.00H m05 Hence 0.NN NmN 0.0H H5H m.mm 55H 0.0H mmH Hence m.s Om e.H 0H H.m mm 5.H NH ndOmcoHHmomaz a.m Hm m.a ma e.m em e.H OH ooeoeeem m.mn and e.ma ema n.0a sea a.ma 00H eno: mameam pmmm momosvom 0.55 00m N.sw moo 0.55 050 N.mw mm0 Homo» m.m mm 0.0 on 0.0 mm 0.m 5N nsoocmHHoonH: 0.m no N.@ mm 5.4 Na 0.: 0m oommmvom e.m0 mos m.oe H05 N.00 50m 0.05 05m epoz seesaw emom :502 s .02 s oz e .02 m .02 somH smmH .utsnu .l .lrsmmH 5Hmo momma moHLOpm oponeoo )l .eoma use some on nnoaoa ‘ lose: HHm :H 0&59 5p mvmomloomosvom mam memosnzsoc mo mLoHHHUOE mo GOHpannpmHin.m oHnt 70 city election board west 59th Street Miss Eva Clark Dr. Aver Friedman the three area leaders Times municipal nursing school different political faith nationally-known classics scholar Chinatown apartment house Philadelphia luggage salesman Gov. John B. Connally Judge J. Wolfe Chassop Herald—Tribune first half century various election districts automotive production facilities East 29th Street Col. Edmund Glenn Undersheriff John B. Sexton Chronicle official opening_dgys old Pythian Hall state Horticultural Society Modifiers of noun—headed structures of modification may also consist of noun-headed structures of modification. For example: Tribune citizen band radio Operation north side burglary detail police superintendent O. W. Wilspp 71 Times North Avenue elevated train district attorney Frank D. O'Connor Y0ung Men's Christian Association Herald-Tribune Grace Metallious' last piegg former President Herbert Hoover Number 26a Columbus Avenpg Modifiers of noun-headed structures of modification may consist of any of the modifiers that we have already found as modifiers of single word heads in noun-headed struc- tures of modification. And, like the single-word heads, 3 the noun-headed structure of modification may be head of a number of modifiers. For example, more than one single word modifier: Tribune a syndicate bookie counting house Chicago's second school budget Times a short, silver—haired Pentagon menu the Bayaniban Philippine dance EQEEEEI the second annual gypnastic W2 Herald-Tribune rococco old Bppoklyn Paramount a audy and glittering Chronicle g ifitgrnational pageant Structures of coordination as modifiers of noun-headed Structures of modification: 72 Times sordid and dismembered open_space Modifiers may also consist of modifiers which are themselves modified: Times Attorney (General) Louis J. Lefkowitz an average (of two) bomb threats assistant chief (of police) John S. King Various combinations of single word modifiers and structures of modification and coordination may also modify noun-headed structures of modification: Times Bing Crosy—Bob Hope "Roadfl_movies Central Young Men's Christian Appn. Table 3 shows the distribution of the two types of heads: single word noun-heads and noun-headed structures of modification as heads. In 189A single-word heads repre- sented about 83 to 84 per cent of the total and the noun- headed structure of modification as head represented about 16 per cent of the total. In 1964, however, there is an increase in the more complex structure in which the head is itself a noun-headed structure of modification from about 16 per cent of the total to about 22 per cent. Single-word modification of single-word noun-heads, while somewhat lower than the 70 to 75 per cent in 189A is still roughly two-thirds 73 of all modification where the head is a noun or a noun sequence. It is interesting to note also that while in repre- sentative sentences there was a slight increase in the amount of modification of both types of heads, that in lead sentences there has been a slight drop in the amount of modification of single—word heads and of the total number of single word heads from 1894 to 1964. Conclusions Analysis of Tables 1, 2, and 3 will show some inter- esting things about noun—headed structures of modification. First of all, the distribution of the various modi- fiers as shown in Table 1 shows that nouns make up more than 50 per cent of all modifiers of noun—heads, adjectives make up about 40 per cent, and adverbs and verbs together repre- sent only a little more than 2 per cent of all modifiers. Noun sequences, that is noun-headed structures of modifica- tion, make up about 7 per cent of the total of all modifiers of single-word noun-heads in 1964 in both representative sentences and lead sentences. In 1894 there were more than twice as many sequences as modifiers in lead sentences as there were in representative sentences, but in 1964 there was practically no difference between representative sen- tences and lead sentences. Table 2 gives a breakdown of the various types of nouns that make up the 50 per cent of all modifiers of 7A noun-heads in noun-headed structures of modification. In 196A noun adjuncts accounted for about two-thirds of the noun modifiers, and function nouns as adjuncts accounted for roughly another 1 per cent. Possessives represent only 5 to 6 per cent of the total in 1964, a fact which suggests that the possessive suffix -'§ is not a very useful means of identifying nouns. Appositives represent about one—quarter of all noun— modifiers in lead sentences and about one-third of all noun- modifiers in representative sentences in 196A, totals which are slightly lower than those of 189A. If we look at the breakdown of appositives by type, Table 2, we see an across-the-board drop in the use of titles from 1894 to 1964. This is probably at least in part accounted for by a less frequent use of My. with names today. Use of first names in both categories and in both years is fairly consistent, although there is something of a drop in representative sentences in 1964. What is most interesting is the increase in the total number of noun-headed structures of modification from 1394 to 196A, shown in the totals in Table l, and the in- crease in the total number of noun—adjuncts from 1894 to 1965, reflected in Table 2. The increase is seen, too, in both representative sentences and lead sentences. In repre- sentative sentences the increase in use of adjuncts was about 15 per cent and in lead sentences it is about 8 per cent. 75 In number, however, adjuncts in representative sentences increased by 211, and in lead sentences adjuncts increased by 161. Total increase in all nouns in modifying position in noun-headed structures of modification was 195 in repre- sentative sentences and 150 in lead sentences. Since the number of sentences in each category of the sample was the same in 189A and in 196A, and the total number of words in each year was very much the same, the increase in noun~ adjuncts from 1894 to 196A seems significant.25 As Table 1 shows, other modifiers did not increase significantly, although there was a slight increase in ad- jective modifiers in representative sentences in 1964, and although in percentages adjective modifiers decreased slightly. Table 3 shows the simplicity of the noun-headed structure of modification. The greatest number of modifiers of both single-word noun-heads and noun-headed structures of modification are single words. Sequences of two words are the next largest group and make up a very small part of the total number of modifiers. More involved modification represents a very small part of all modification. __ 2 5Totals for the two years were: Representative Leads 189A 8563 7593 1962. £85 _1_."02.l I (‘0‘ 608 I \n ‘3 N K.) 76 Noun Markers While noun markers, or determiners, are associated with nouns, Fries' Form Class 1 words, and with sequences and other words which replace nouns in characteristic noun positions, they are an optional feature, not an obligatory one. Their distribution is determined by lexical meaning, not by structure. Table A shows the distribution of the various markers with noun-headed structures of modification, and Table 5 shows the distribution of noun markers with all other nouns, that is, with nouns not otherwise modified. Noun markers fall into eight main groups: t e; g/gn, the various personal pronouns; the specifiers this/that and their plural forms these/those; cardinal numbers; the negative n9; a fairly extensive list of what Francis terms function nouns; and the zero marker. Francis divides the noun markers into only two groups, six words that serve only as noun markers and nineteen that have other functions.26 A more exhaustive examination is possible, however, if the markers are divided into the eight groups suggested here. All the noun markers except the articles the and a/an and the pronouns ex. 1921'. 2111.2. 26Francis, p. 237. 77 and their have other functions as well.27 A more detailed description of the noun markers follows. Group 1 consists of the definite article the: the road the depression Group 2 consists of the indefinite article g and its sandhi form pp: p depot pp office Group 3 consists of pronouns. Four of these appear only as noun markers: my, your, our, their. Three others, his, hgp, its, appear also as function nouns: his work ts solution her lecture Group 4 consists of the specifiers, ppip and thap, and their plural forms, these and those. phig meeting that day phgpp securities 27Francis, pp. 2A3-2523 Nida, PP- 49‘54° 78 0.00H OHHH 0.00H omOH 0.00H 5mm o.OOH m©5 Hmpop. 0.50 mNm m.5¢ HHm s.ms Oms H.m¢ 50m open o.mm Ham a.mm 50m 0.Hm one o.Hm 05m Hence 0. 5 o.H Ha m. s m.a oa nonpo H. H a. m 5. 5 o.H 5 o>Hpmwmm 5.0 00 H.N mN N.0 00 4.H HH oneness a. s a. 4 N. N 4. m anmHooom N.m 0m o.N NN 0.m mm H.m am naoeopa m.ea mam a.m mm a.sa mma e.5 an eo\o H.mN omN 5.mm mHs m.5N mnN o.mm 50N one s .oz K .oz e .02 m .oz urnpoepn: :05H d5mH 005H s5mH 5Hmo momma moHpOpm opoHoEoo .005H use ¢5mH :H mnmommmzmm HHm CH COHumoHMHooe mo monsooshum commonlcso: anz mnoxpme moo: Ho GOHpannpmHan.¢ oHnme 79 Group 5 consists of all cardinal numbers. These may be expressed as Arabic figures or as words, depending upon the arbitrary rules of usage, but any number from one up into the millions or billions is a marker. Fractions are also considered markers: 29 dollars (usually writtern $50) ppg item 60,000 dollars leOO0,000 dollars nine schools $18 cent Group 6 consists of the negative particle p_: pp basis no way Group 7 consists of a number of function nouns. Francis, Nida, Strang, and Fries all list a number of these, and there are some differences in their lists.28 For pur— Poses of the present study, a check list was compiled of all the marker-function nouns listed by Francis, Nida, Strang, and Fries. Not all, of course, showed up in the materials under examination. Typical function nouns appearing as markers include: —__._ 28Francis pp. 237-238 and 2A6-2A9; Nida, pp. A9-54; Strang, pp. 109-115; Fries, pp. 88-89- 8O ggny bosses several conferences sash day gny prOposal ‘mpgh discussion ‘gll nations few people Group 8 consists of only one marker, ggpg. Zero, of course, is not a marker, but the absence of a marker. To say that a noun has a zero marker is merely a handy way of stating the structural fact that certain nouns never have a marker and other nouns, depending on lexical and structural circumstances, may not have a marker:29 Names of people and certain geographical names do not have markers, for example, nor do some function nouns like ggpn or gpy or gll. In the materials examined in this study the following nouns Of various types appeared without markers, that is, with a zero marker: prOper nouns Illinois Pennsylvania Henry Henneberry's April Faust 29Leonard Bloomfield gives a brief and clear picture or English noun classes based on whether they appear with markers or without. Language (New York: HOlt, Rinehart and Winston, 1933, reprinted April 1962), p. 205- 81 common 11011113 Step3 police Pupils labor steamers capital strikes wheat saloons death thought property society nature function nouns these few that some one each other noun substitutes (pronouns) we he it themselves us Table 5, which shows the distribution of markers with otherwise unmodified nouns, reveals that in 196A in both representative and lead sentences more than 50 per cent of the unmodified nouns had a zero marker. These nouns, then, must be identified by some other signal than markers: Position, possessive or plural inflection, derivational suffixes, or prosodic contrast. Table 6 presents a break- down of these unmarked nouns and shows the number that are full nouns, function nouns, and noun substitutes, that is Pronouns. Table A shows the same general distribution of markers With noun-headed structures of modification. Here slightly less than 50 per cent of the structures have a zero marker. Tables 4 and 5 also show the relative frequency of 82 0.00H 0mm 0.00H HNNH 0.00H OJHH o.ooa HmNH Hopou H.mm can m.me Hmm H.mm moo m.me Ham 0.3N n.0e we: m.sm ooe m.oe mmm 5.0m can Hence s.a he m.~ om w.a Hm s.m em smgpo H. H N. m m. o 0. NH m>fipmwmn N.n mo m.q mm 5.0 55 0.4 No mampggc o.H OH o.H om n.a ma m.m 04 howmfiomdm ¢.¢ me m.¢ mm m.¢ we H.m do csocoua o.o no H.m oaa m.@ sea «.0 as am\m H.Nm HAN m.¢m mad m.mm 5mm h.mm Ame map a .e a .2 a .a e .a ewes a doma soda smma haze momma mowpoum mpmadeoo .eoma new #ama cw mummmm ImSmc Ham :H mason Umfimavoeud omwzuozpo no“: mpoxpms ado: Ho nofipsnwhpmfinlu.m manna 83 o.ooa OHm 0.00 amm o.ooH moo 0.00 Hem HmpOp 0.0 am H.0 0m m.m Om 0.0 4m mcsoz cowpoczm m.aa ow n.0a on n.5H ooa m.mm oma mssonLa moam 0H4 H.Nm wwe N.d0 044 N.©© mmm msdoz e .02 e .02 w .02 e .02 kww0a ¢0ma ¢o0a 40ma mmeOpm mpmadeoo maze momma I. II In I I’l’l. 1"! "1 In“- ‘I'-l. .400H new ¢0ma cw uncondmzm: Ham 2H mhmxpms ado: psonpws mcfiumommm mason coauocsm cum .mcso:0ha .mnsoc no cowoznwhpmfianu.o manna (—) 0-4‘ 81+ the various markers. Zero outnumbers all other markers, the definite article the marks about one-quarter of all noun- headed structures of modification and unmodified nouns. All other markers appear relatively infrequently. Table 7 shows the distribution of form class words other than nouns which appear in noun positions and are marked by nouns with markers other than zero. These are words like best and latest which are members of another form class, but substitute for a noun in certain circum- stances. This is a relatively rare occurrence. Post-Nominal Modifiers Noun—headed structures of modification frequently consist of a noun-head, with or without pre-nominal modifiers, and with one or more modifiers appearing in a position after the noun-head. In the examples below, typical post-nominal modifiers, underlined, are shown with single-word noun-heads. The whole is a structure of modification. man of the hour a boy who likes candy a book the same color the attorney general In the post-nominal modifying position we find some 0f the modifiers already identified as pre-nominal modifiers: nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. We also find some 85 0.00H see o.ooa oos o.ooa mmm o.ooa can Hmpos m.a e e. s e. m m.a 0 Hence I a m. N u n o. a mnao> - - - - N. a m. m mptmsea m.H o m. N s. m a. m mo>apoonee tmspo n.m0 ose 4.00 000 e.00 mmm n.w0 Hos mesoz e .02 e .02 e .02 u from;lx 400a emma eo0H emma Mano mvmoq mmwuoum mpdeEoo «lllyll ‘Illl II.’ .eo0d one :0wa :H woodmamsm: Haw cw mhmxams caon An Umxuwe mnuoz mmmao Show gonna use Amado: coaoocsm wqaesaoswv Umfimfieos mmflzhmnpo nos msdozan.n manna OL ”HR 111 86 new structures and single words: prepositional sequences, noun sequences, verb + complement and object sequences, ad- jective + post-adjectival modifiers, and reflexive pronouns. Table 8 shows the relative frequency and distribu- tion of the various post-nominal modifiers in noun-headed structures of modification. Table 9 gives details as to the patterns of modification of noun-headed structures of modification with post-posed modifiers. Adjectives as Post-Nominal Modifiers Adjectives appear as post-nominal modifiers in structures like the following:30 Nida money due New time immemorial Francis court—martial grace abounding fee simple darkness yigiblg Sometimes the modifying adjective has its own modi- fiers as in these examples where the modifiers are post- adjectivalz31 3ONida, p. 88; Francis, p. 298- 31Nida, p. 89. lfih a TCE 7‘ C nn; lwl‘ I ‘ .. ll. III). I‘.‘ ."£..|ll‘lll| 87 o.ooa 500 0.00H 400 o.ooa 005 0.00H 005 Hence m.mo 050 4.05 m0© o.Ho Hoe ©.m© owe mmocmscmm Hm:0fipwmomopm m.n 00 0.0 00 H.m 00 5.0 00 mmmseao “.0 m0 5.0 00 0.m m0 e.s m0 Hence H.m ma ~.H NH m.m 0H s.a NH opapaaamca 0.N 0w 5.4 we 5.m mm m.¢ Om name when m.H ea m. m ¢.N ma 4.H OH puma anemona wnpo> H.H OH 5. 5 5. m o.H 5 mnho>vd m.~ ma N.H ma H.H m 0.~ ma mesasomnee 0.0H 55H ¢.HH NHH 0.0a mea 5.0a m5 HmpOp 0.0 an H.e oe 0.0 we o.m Hm henna m.m mm o.H 0H m.m mm m.m 0H menses: e.oa e0 5.0 00 m.oa 05 4.0. mm mm>apwmodem masoz e .02 e .02 e .02 e .02 mpofimweoz ¢©0H 40ma e00a ¢0ma mace mumoq weapoum opoaasoo IHHHUOE .HO wméfivgpw Umvmmfi .eo0d use 40mH :H mumdmamzm: Ham :« zoapmo mason ca mumawaeos HmaHeonnumOQ mo cowpsnwnumunnu.m manna .1. an!» a .2;er I. Jaunvfp .u I PF|~ *IL I»... \' AK. 1“ x. Ilii i lllllllll‘l-I 88 H.00H 500 H.ooa ewe o.ooa 0m5 o.ooH 005 Hepop e.m 05 0.4 we H.m H0 m.m om memamaeos-pmoa use whmflwweoEnmpm H.5 e0 0.0 0 m.m m0 0.0 m0 mtmweaeos-pmoa e.me 0mm m.~m Nam 0.0m m5~ 5.0m mam mnmamaeosumtm H.Ne mmm 0.0M men 0.5e 00m 4.50 Noe mpmaeaeoe-mta oz e .02 e .02 e .|..oz e .02 coapmoamaeoz nosed e00a emma .1;m0ma eoma haze enema mmHLOpm nomadsoo HmcwsocaprQ mSOHhm> on» woven ohm cows: on memo: .m manna aw cSOSm meowmwnos undo: Ho cowpmowkaeos howpmnu.0 wanes 89 Nida a person desirous of a job a man anxious to get ahead In the four newspapers examined in this study, ad— jective modifiers like the following were found:32 Governor John B. Connally g3. F. C. Carlucci 239 60 years old bid sufficiently high those present scores‘mgrg diseases incident to old age consol general attorney general a city government Republican in all its branches profits other than lawful interest Adverbs as Post-Nominal Modifiers Adverbs occur as post-nominal modifiers, but not in any great number as Table 8 shows. Nida and Francis cite these examples:33 —_ 32Examples from this point on will be merely repre- sentative of the whole sample of 300 sentences in each year and each category rather than representative of the indi- vidual newspapers. The fact that in so many instances the number of examples is relatively small and not distributed evenly across all four newspapers makes this a Simpler means of citing examples. 33Nida, p. 89; Francis, p. 305- 9O Nida the space below the are above this man here Francis the heavens above Europe now the temperature outside In the four newspapers examined in this study, the following examples appeared: the campaign for social integration 2222 with his fur aflame prices generally any day Egg the interview yesterday his defeat three years ago 2,430 apiece Verbs as Post-Nominal Modifiers Verbs as post-nominal modifiers may take three forms: (1) the present participle; (2) the past participle; and (3) the marked infinitive. These post-posed verb-modifiers may appear alone or they may have their own modifiers. Present participles as post-nominal modifiers, (2) alone, and (b) with their own modifiers:34 ——_ 3“Nida, p. 90; Francis, p. 303- 91 (a) Nida no man living the wisest man breathing (b) Nida the person tryinggto get this dong the boys wishing to go Francis the water running in the_street Past participles as post-nominal modifiers, (a) ap— pearing alone, and (b) with modifiersz35 (a) Nida the sum reguired the text used the results obtained (b) Nida a man accustomed to this Francis potatoes baked slowly Marked infinitives as post-nominal modifiers, (a) appearing alone and (b) with a complement:36 (a) Nida the time to go Francis money to burn the man §g_§§§ (b) Nida no examples Francis s 3"Nida, p. 90; Francis, p. 303- 36Nida, p. 92; Francis, p. 303- 92 In the four newspapers examined in this study verbs appeared as post-nominal modifiers in structures like the following: present participles resolutions expressing doubt a map showing the connections evidence regarding the cigarettes procession beginning atg9:25 a.m. complaint charginggpolice brutality past participles trials interrupted week before last charges mggg a journal devoted to all outdoor 19.93.25. a suit brought byAEstelle Pellit meetings being_held indictment found_against him four men exposed to severe radiation marked infinitives anything to keep;John Y. McKane out Mingling prison an heroic effort to save itself bills to stimulate the construction devices to catch speeders organization tgvcoordinate the cam- paign It will be noted that several of the verb-modifiers above have direct objects rather than modifiers: to stimulate flu 93 construction, to catch speeders, for example. Clauses as Post-Nominal Modifiers Included clauses are structures that have the same form as statement sentences.37 These sentences are pre- ceded by a function word which we can call an includer, a word which serves to link the sentence to other structures or words. Included clauses consisting of an includer + sentence may be used to modify words and other structures including sentences and included clauses. Included clauses used to modify nouns in noun- headed structures of modification are pretty much limited to those clauses whose includer is one of a small list of function words often called relative pronouns. Included clauses introduced by adverbial includers like after, before, since, till, until, while may occur as post—nominal modi- fiers, but they are not common.38 In the materials examined for this study, the most frequently appearing includers were Ego with its variants EEQE and whose, and which and that. Others appearing occa- sionally were wherg, why, and when.39 M “‘-’-—-— -—~—- .— .— ”4—- 37See Francis, pp. 389-95 for a discussion of in- cluded clauses. Francis' definition of a statement sen- tence on which it is based depends on a number of structural Patterns which he discusses on pages 379-80. 38Nida, pp. 99-100. 39For a more complete list of relative includers, see Nida, pp. 93-4. and Francis, p. 393. 94 Examples of this kind of modification cited by Nida and Francis include:‘+O Nida the man who failed to see ital the day thap_I left Francis the fact that i; is raining the woman whom he pointed out In the four newspapers examined in this study, in- cluded clauses appeared as modifiers in noun-headed struc- tures of modification like the following: Henry Mancini, whose songs have won the Academy Award 0 o o suggestions that the first trip to the moon may have to be delayed the likelihood that_there are other worlds golfers whoyplayed at the Army-Navy club hundreds whom the blizzard had kgpt indoors a man whom he did not know In some instances, the includer is preceded by a Preposition as in:’+2 Nida the man to whom he_gave the bill the story §9_which he alluded “ONida, pp. 94-97; Francis, pp. 319 and 394. thhe relative includer frequently serves as both an includer and substitute for the noun-subject of the clause. See FranCiS, pp. 393‘ho thida, p. 93; Francis, p. 39h. 95 Prepositions, not before defined in this study, are a class of function words preposed to nouns, primarily, to link nouns to other words or structures. Fries, Francis, Nida, and Whitehall all contain lists of these function words.43 In the present examples, the preposition appears preposed to a noun substiture, a relative pronoun, which is itself an includer linking a modifying structure to a head. Examples of preposition + includer as a link between clause and head from the four newspapers examined in this study: cluder:44 the case in which a Park Avenue businessman has been accused of killingyhis bookmaker art for which this is the teaser banquet to which 225 sat down Paige's hotel into which he was taken from the street the way in which modeling_is suggested hideaways along_which were stationed servants a description of which appeared in the Tribune‘ va Quite often the clause is introduced by a zero in- Nida the paper I noticgg hBFries, pp. 95-96; Francis, pp. 305-311; Nida, pp. 205-6; and Whitehall, pp. 62-63. Nida, p. 94; Francis, pp. 398-9. 96 Francis a place he goes in summer the man he told his story to In the newspapers examined for this study, the zero includer appears in structures like the following: the wound he received when President Kennedy was assassinaged strength it displayed kindnesses she had received paper you read all there is of the old Republican organization Nouns and Noun Sequences as Post-Nominal Modifiers Noun-headed structures of modification frequently consist of a noun-head or a noun-headed structure of modi- fication modified by a single noun or a noun-headed struc- ture of modification in post-nominal position. Like the nouns that appear in pre-nominal position these post-nominal modifiers may be either a simple modifier or an appositive. Francis and Nida give these examples of nouns or noun-headed structures of modification as post-nominal modi- fiers. In both instances, the sequences are appositives:45 Nida Jones, the baker Francis Mr. Jones, the art critic hsNida, p. 100; Francis, p. 301- 97 Francis gives no examples of noun-headed structures of modification or nouns as post-nominal modifiers not ap- positives and Nida lists only those few which he calls quantitative or temporal modifiersfi“6 Nida an animal this size a tree that height a woman her age the paper this morning Single word nouns marked by a determiner, like Nida's examples of appositives and modifiers, are not as common in post-nominal position as are noun-headed structures of mod- ification. Examples of the single word modifiers, apposi- tives and simple modifiers, that do appear follow. Ap- positives: Vera Tischoff, pianist another of his compositions, "Charade" Glass, a fireman Coleman and Wakefield, agent Olshan and Gruendman, attorneys We also find in post—nominal position what Nida calls semi-predicate attributives.47 These are the reflexive * 46Nida, pp. 91-2. h7Nida, p. 103. 98 pronouns like myself, himself, herself which appear in post- nominal position, but may also appear in other positions in the sentence: Nida I myself will try it I will myself try it I will try it myself These reflexive pronouns are noun substitutes and here function as appositives. In the four newspapers ex- amined examples like the following occur: the piece itself work itself Single word nouns, simple modifiers not appositives, also appear in post-nominal position. Examples from the four newspapers examined include: the Good Government Club Egg; Central Park Egg; the Eighth Ward, Brooklyn Salem, Mggg. Riverdale, the Bronx Easton, Pennsylvania Function nouns also appear as single-word post- nominal modifiers. The most common is a number. In the four neWSpapers examined in this study we find examples like: 99 Article‘llyg Local 322 March 1; Smith, 2§ Much more common as post-nominal modifiers are noun- headed structures of modification. These may be either ap- positives or simple modifiers and may consist of noun-heads with pre-nominal modification, with post-nominal modifica- tion or with both. Examples from the four newspapers follow. Appositives: Joseph.Fh Blaut, ex-president of the Madison quare Bank counsel, Gen. Benjamin F. Tracy wife, the former Jeanne Jacoby Rolf Hochhuth, author of "The Deputy" Evelyn Gamble Webster, the wife of Burton C. Webster Thursday, the day_before a threatened mass resig- nation several amenities as a performer: a strong left handyya firm tone, a sweepingcommand of rhythm and, at times, a welcome sense of inner involve- ment Noun-headed structures of modification as simple modifiers, not appositives, include: . . ht Governor John B. Connally, of Texas, his rig arm in a cast from the wound he received when President Kennedy was assassinated 100 the Parc Vendome, 350 West 52th Street two masked men, one carrying a submachine gun the discontent of New York's night clubs 3h; pgst New Years Weeks a scandal, the first in its history a holdup . . . yesterday afternoon George D. Hall, 65 years old the loss of the World Series last October a witness last fall Paige's hotel, 301 West Street photographs, some in full c019; It should be noted that the post-nominal modifiers described above, single-word nouns and noun-headed struc- tures of modification-~eome of which are appositives-«are of two kinds: first, modifiers set off by commas from the head and the rest of the sentence, and, second, those with- out any intervening punctuation. The comma represents a distinct pause, a terminal juncture, in the spoken language which stands in distinct contrast to lack of such a pause in some structuresfi8 Note the contrast in these examples: the Parc Vendome, 340 West 57th Street, where . . . a witness last fall said that . . . h8For a discussion of juncture, see Francis, pp. 155-57, and Trager and Smith, pp. 41-52. 101 One rather peculiar structure of modification re- mains to be dealt with. This is a sequence consisting of yesterday or tomorrow as head with a post—posed noun modi- fier like morning or afternoon. For example: A»-..— yesterday morning tomorrow afternoon tomorrow night These sequences are seldom further modified, al- though they may be, they never have a pre-posed marker, and they almost always appear in a sentence in an adverb posi- tion rather than in a noun position. Tomorrow and yesterday without a post-posed modifier are clearly adverbs, but they may appear in noun-subject position as nouns and in this position be inflected like a noun. In this study we will follow Miss Strang in consider- ing tomorrow and XEELEEQEX as noun-like words which have been derived from temporal adverbs.49 This gets around the obvious difficulty that adverbs ordinarily are modified by nouns which are pre-posed, not post-posed. If yesterday and tomorrow are nouns-~at least in situations like this-~then Post-posed modifiers like afternoon, morning, and night are Perfectly ordinary modifiers of nouns like the post-nominal modifiers just analyzed. hgstrang, pp. 97-98- 102 Having taken this position, the noun-headed struc- tures of modification yesterday + noun—modifier and 32mg;- row_:noun-modifier will be considered later as nouns when the various modifiers of verbs are analyzed. Total number of these structures is not great. In 1894 there were thirty in lead sentences and eight in repre- senative sentences. In 196L there were twelve in lead sen~ tences and five in representative sentences. Prepositional Sequences as PosteWominal Modifiers The most common post-ncminal modifier in noun-headed structures of modification is the sequence consisting of a preposition + a noun or a noun-headed structure of modifi- 50 cation. Nida and Francis cite these examples: Nida a piece of bread a man in white thegplace acrossfthe water Francis above suspicion under water after dinner from the beginning like a thunderbolt SONida, pp. 90—91; Francis, p. 309. 103 Prepositional sequences may consist of a preposi— tion and a single-word noun or noun—headed structure of modification. Or the place of the noun may be taken, upon occasion, by a verb, an adjective, or adverb, a function noun or pronoun, or by a prepositional sequence.Sl Examples of prepositional sequences as post-nominal modifiers in the four newspapers examined in this study include: one of the six presidents section of the city witness in his murder trial trial upon an indictmenp dogs in Madison Square Garden ten years at hard labor building at Twenty:ihird Street floor of the assembly Post-nominal modification has some interesting as— Pects. First of all, it shows a radical departure from pre- nominal modification where the principal modifier, referring back to Tables 1 and 2, were single words. In post—nominal modification, as Tables 8 and 9 show, more than two-thirds Of the modifiers are prepositional sequences, structures of several words and varying complexity rather than a single 51Francis, pp. 305-311; Nida, pp. 205-207. 104 word. As we shall see later in analyses of other structures of modification, the prepositional sequence is the most-used of all modifiers in present-day English. Secondly, it is interesting to note what a small part all other modifiers play. Nouns amount to roughly 20 per cent of the post- nominal modifiers in 1964, a substantial increase over their use in l89h. All other modifiers, verbs, adjectives, ad- verbs, and clauses, represent less than 20 per cent of modifiers post-posed to noun-heads. The increase in nouns as post-posed modifiers of noun-heads in 1964 newspapers is countered by a roughly similar decrease in the number of prepositional sequences in use in 1964 newspapers. Table 9 shows that somewhat better than one-third of all noun-heads which have a single post-posed modifier also have pre-posed modifiers. About the same number have no pre-posed modifiers except markers and only a single POSt-posed modifier. Some 7 or 8 per cent of the noun—heads have more than one post-posed modifier, but no pre—posed modifiers, and about 8 per cent have pre-posed modifiers and more than one post-posed modifier. CHAPTER II VERB-HEADED STRUCTURES OF MODIFICATION In a structure of modification in which the verb is head, the various modifiers may appear in three positions adjacent to the verb-head; pre—posed, post—posed, or within the verb sequence between the auxiliary and the main verb. Verb modifiers also appear, but less frequently than they appear in the positions just mentioned, in a position sep- arated from the verb-head by the object or complement of the verb-head. Table 10 shows the distribution of modifiers in these positions in the materials examined for this study. As the table shows, more than twice as many modifiers ap- Pear adjacent to the verb—head as appear separated by an Object or complement. This is true in all the newspapers examined and for both years, and also holds true for both representative setences and lead sentences. The proportion of modifiers that appear pre—posed to the verb or within the verb sequence is smallest of all, as Table 10 shows. Modifiers Adjacent to the Verb-Heafl Modifiers appearing pre—posed to the verb—head, as Cited by Francis and Nida:l —____ lFrancis, p. 315; Nida, p. 138. 105 106 0.00H 0mm 0.00H Nam 0.00H who 0.00H mdo Hmooo m.mm mom a.mm emm m.om mom o.em wen pomhpo to “cmamagfiou med e.oo Hon m.oe mum e.se wee e.me use Hence m.®m hmm 0.0m ems e.oo 00: m.oo wwm ppm>aumom o.N mm ¢.m a: d.m mm 0.5 a: mocdeom ptm> on» canoe; 0.4 H4 m.m be 0.0 04 5.4 Om nnm>amnm R .02 R .02 R .02 m .02 soapfimom ebma emma eoma emwa haze mummq moatoum momameoo .qoma new emmd cw mpmammmSQG Ham :H .pomhoo no osmEmHaEOo one npm> mcflwsaocfi .mnpm> mo mnmfimfloos Ho coapwmomnn.oa oanme 107 Francis successfully tried slowly drove Nida continually wanted accidentally shot Sodifiers appearing within the verb sequence between the auxiliary and the main verb, as cited by Francis and Nida:2 Francis has sometimes seen has seldom been heard Nida were aptually compelling had never ridden Modifiers appearing post-posed to a verb-head, as cited by Francis and Nida:3 Francis works successfully stepped inside Nida sat reading stared fascinated These last, modifiers post—posed to the verb-head, aPpear actually in three different environments: (1) after -~— -—_——. 2Francis, p. 315; Nida, p. 138. 3Francis, p. 314; Nida, p. 157- 108 a transitive verb and before the direct object or indirect object or both; (2) sentence—final after an intransitive verb; and (3) after a linking verb and before the complement. Examples of post—posed modifiers of transitive verb-heads where the modifier appears between the verb-head and the verb's object:h He felt keenly his inability. He studied attentively the program of procedure. The post-posed sentence-final modifier of an in- transitive verb—head:5 They came back wounded. He went off a happy_man. The post-posed modifier of a linking verb—head appearing between the linking verb and its complement:6 He is naturally a very timid person. She is sometimes quite charming. After the Complement or Object Quite frequently, as Table 36 shows, modifiers of the verb appear after the complement of a linking verb or #Nida, p. 139. SNida, pp. 157-58. 6Nida, p. 139. 5F 4\ 109 after the object of a transitive verb: In the following example, cited by Francis, after a linking verb and its complement:7 It is dark ahead. After the object of a transitive verb, as cited by Nida:8 They saw them frequently. They planned it carefullylyesterday. There may be some ambiguity when modifiers appear after a complement or object, but it probably can be assumed that the modifier is following a head consisting of a verb and complement or object. In the sentence, It is dark ahead, Francis says that the adverb ahgad modifies the linking verb and its subjective complement together.9 And although he does not specifically say 30, Francis' diagrams of transitive sentences indicate that he considers modifiers in this posi- tion to modify both head and object.10 Nida calls all modi- fiers of verb-heads, no matter what their position, "3rd 7Francis, p. 321. 8Nida, pp. 139-40. 9Francis, p. 321. 10Francis, p. 314. 110 type attributives [modifiers] of the verb-head."ll He nowhere mentions the problem of the intervening object or complement in sentences like those just cited. In this study it is assumed that the modifiers appearing after a verb and its object or complement are somewhat different from modifiers appearing in positions adjacent to the verb- head. These two types of heads, verb-head and verb + comple- ment r object-head, are tabulated separately, (see Tables 11 and 13) but essentially they differ only in position of the modifier and in the fact that in one instance the modi- fier modifies the verb and perhaps some other modifiers, in the other it modifies the verb and a complement or object. Modifiers of Verb—Heads Modifiers of verb heads when they appear in posi- tions adjacent to the verb—head include adjectives, adverbs, verbs, clauses, prepositional sequences, and nouns and noun sequences. Examples of nouns as modifiers of verb—heads, as cited by Francis and Nida, include:12 Francis lived a yea; saw a mile Nida this yea; exceeded our limit died a beggar -~‘-d~~-a~w~—M¢-~q llNida, p. 136. 12 Francis, p. 317; Nida, p. 143. lll Examples of adjectives as modifiers of verb-heads as cited by Francis and Nida include:13 Francis Nida ran true went crazy fell flat talks big stOP dead sweep clean Examples of adverbs as modifiers of verb-heads as cited by Francis and Nida include:14 Francis Nida drives rapidly stepped inside continually wanted were eggually compelling Examples of verbs as modifiers of verb-heads as cited by Francis and Nida include. Francis “Qw. l3Francis, Francis, 15Francis, p. 318; p. 13L; p. 318; .15 came running eat sittigg lives to eat came to scoff Nida, p. 156. Nida, p. 137. Nida’ pp. 156-590 112 Nida went equipped stared fascinated came back wounded came running went on working lay gasping ache to think of it aspire to see him get to go grow to be a man ‘%—-.— Examples of clauses as modifiers of verb-heads, as cited by Francis:16 Francis came after I_left will go wherever_you go Nida says that clauses may modify verb-heads in any of the positions already mentioned, but his examples repre- sent only what in this study is taken to be a different kind of modification: modification of sentence-heads. This type of modification will be discussed in the next chap- ter.17 16 Francis, p. 318. 17Nida, p. 145. 113 Prepositional sequences as modifiers of verb-heads, as cited by Francis and Nida:l8 Francis spoke about his work entered into the_game with_gusto after dlpner Nida will by;all means undertake the work is in general quite pleased Mgdifiers of Verb and'Object All the modifiers just cited, nouns and noun se- quences, adjectives, verbs, clauses and prepositional se- quences, may appear in final position in the sentence where they are separated from the verb-head by the verb's object or complement. For example: killed two employes last year will address a special meeting temorrow night Since the modifiers appearing in this position are the same modifiers already described, there is no need to cited further examples as models. Table 11 shows the distribution of these various modifiers of verb-heads in all newspapers in both 1894 and 196A in both lead sentences and representative sentences. u; 18Francis, p. 319; Nida, p. 136. 114 The table shows a modest increase in the total number of modifiers in representative sentences from 1894 to 1964 and a slightly larger, though still modest, increase in the modification of verb-heads in lead sentences over the same period. There are so few modifiers of each type that it is difficult to draw conclusions. The relatively large number of adverbs is to be expected, but again the prepositional sequence ranks ahead of all other modifiers. The increase in the number of adverbs and noun sequences in lead sentences in 196A can be accounted for by an increased use of adverbs like pgdey and yesterday and noun sequences like last night in lead sentences. Examples from the Newspapere In the materials examined in this study most modi- fiers of verb-heads appeared post-posed, as Table 10 shows. Examples of modifiers in this position will be given first, followed by examples of modifiers preposed and within the sequence. Examples of modifiers appearing post-posed to the verb and its object or complement will follow. Modifiers of verb-heads post-posed: (nouns and noun sequences) flew this week sold last week will travel eggh day 115 b.m0 H0m 0.00 mum 0.00 Nne m.00 004 HMQOp a.me new 0.5m mmm e.em mmm m.om eom mmoemsemm Hmcowuwmogmnm N.m 0H ©.N «H @.m NH N.e ON mmmsmao b.m NN 0.H Ha m.m ma m.N NH Hmpop m.m ma m.H m m.m ea e.a m m>apacaeea m. N n u d. N n : puma pmmm w. m m. m d. N m. e puma enummam mptm> a.mm OMN a.mN mea m.am pea 0.mN nma mppm>e< . - m.a a m.H e m.m NH mmsapomnea 0.0 we m.oa 0m m.m 0N N.m 4N mmonmsvmm csoz was mcsoz ax .02 AK .02 mm 00% R 002 ll :00H 40ma qo0a v, e0wa haso mummg mmHAOpm mpmameoo .do0a :H was 40mH cw mamammmzm: Ham ‘I'Jl :« mummnunum> no mhmHHHboe msoaum> mass-.HH magma 116 last §Q_minutes was killed last Tuesday filed yesterday morning (adjectives) pleaded guilpy keeping silent has kept hush-hush (adverbs) was arrested yesterday has been seen here warned here will be put into operation today played a few days age (verbs) can radio to have the motprist agrested sat up Sunday night to attend his sick wife gathered to clebrate the 25th anniversary went there tg_collect $25,000 were going around the ward yesterday begging VOteS o o 0 will be presented beginningyMereh_4 is confined suffering from a fractured ankle was found stabbed to death was found raped and beatep 117 (clauses) received when President Kennedylwas assassi- nated flew into New York as another of his composi- tions waefnamed . . . 6* was performed while she was under the influ- ence of_a dgyg has been living quietly since she came from France is obtained when sh; stands up (prepositional sequences) can be found inflNew Yoyk were announced bylthe Health Departmenp has been pulsing with steady_business died at Lenox Hill Hospital responded like an old firehorse will be celebrated aatil today's sunset In the newspapers examined in this study, modifiers of the verb-head appeared pre-posed in instances like the following: (nouns and noun sequences) last night said last Saturday night was critically injured last_year decided yesterday morning heard (adjectives) £2323 save 118 (adverbs) yesterday criticized _§§;ll lack any day now may reach firmly grounded then spent (verbs) no examples (clauses) exactly as he foretold drew (prepositional sequences) by so doing attracted with permission of relatiyes removed in the Court of Common Pleas handed down of a somewhat different_natu§e have been through his counsel pleaded behind batteries of champagne on St. Patrick's Day boast on a southern reef is moldering Examples of modifiers appearing within the verb 8eQuence are less frequent, but the following were found in the materials examined in this study: (adverbs) can be unreservedly congratulated have long remembered is not coming 119 would soon bec me appeared yesterday to be setting may also send (prepositional sequences) was according to the records of the box office visited was at once arrested was at last settled down would in no way advance was at first supposed As some of the examples cited above indicate, more than one modifier frequently modifies a single verb-head. For example, a verb-head with a post-posed modifier may also have a pre-posed modifier or a modifier within the verb se- quence: are not entitled to the aid is not coming to the United States was well received at a public hearing can not say definitely firmly grounded in no-nonsense mud ever seen West of Chicago not to go outside the theater last Saturday evening was critically injured 120 Where the verb-head is modified only by post—posed modifiers, it is common to have two or more such modifiers. Three post-posed modifiers modifying a single verb-head is not uncommon, more can be found occasionally, but multiple modification is generally limited to two modifiers or three modifiers: ran back and forth between the terminals in large, shriekingwgroups howled dismally through the ruinsyyesterday was found byypolice hanging from a flagpole in the Civic Center near Grove and Park streets about 3:15 a.m.‘yesterday met yesterday with Clair M. Reddiwig to discuss the civil rights boycott in a secret session worked 14 years for the Lerner newspapers also was found gggg in bed in his room at No. 826 Milwaukee Avenue last evenigg responded like an old firehorse yesterday to the sound of an alarm Table 12 shows the distribution of multiple modifiers in the materials examined. Multiple modification, as the table shows, is much less frequent than modification of a verb-head by a single modifier. Table 13 shows that even where there is more than one modifier the range is extrerely limited. In by far the greatest number of instances of multiple modification, the verb-head has only two modifiers. Three modifiers are less frequent and in only a few instances do we find four or more modifiers of a verb-head. 121 0. N H.H 4 no N m. N mhmHmHUOZ nsom smne mpoz m.m m m.m OH ©.N b w.a e mpmflmflnoz psom ©.ma we h.ma we n.mH 4m 0.0H mm mtewflvoz amuse m.mm ema m.am ms o.mm me m.mm me etmnmneoz 039 o.mm mma H.4m mwa 0.0m oma ©.mm OmH nmwmwvoz mco & .02 R .02 R .o: R .02 dooa dama 400a JGmH it haco mcmma mmHLOpm mpmHQEoo .eoma CA was dowa ca mhmamm umSm: Ham cw mnmmnunno> mo cowumofimwboe mHQHpHde new mamcfim mo mocenwocHua.NH wanes 122 Table l3.-—Incidence of single and multiple modification of verb-heads in all newspapers in 1894 and in 1964. Complete Stories Leads Only 1894 1964 1894 1964 Total Heads 265 268 338 353 Total Modifiers 1.67 1.72 575 527 Single Modifiers 156 150 183 187 Multiple Modifiers 109 118 155 166 Verb and Object as Head Somewhere between a quarter and a third of all modi- fiers of verb-heads appear in a position apart from the head and separated from it by the verb-head's object or ob- jects or its complement. Examples of the various modifiers appearing in this position in the materials examined in this study follow: (nouns and noun sequences) will address the monthly meeting Wednesdgy took place this morning took over classrooms last week killed two employes last year will address a special meeting tomorrow night took part February 3 cut revenue $13 million 123 (adjectives) no examples (adverbs) resumed an inquiry yesterday picked up the telephone yesterday slugging it 933 gave some things gwgy afflicting the South ggy made a surprise raid two weeks ago has been a good demand recently (verbs) induces children to stay out of school were offered $20,000 to turn their backs has been raising funds to restore the old theater asked police to get back hisyigOO to have the marriage annulled was fourth lapped on Lucinda was a prisoner charged with disorderly condugp found himself fighting_a;blaze of scandel (clauses) to stage a work stoppage should a Senate_filli- busger break out was declared a deserter after he left FOIEyBragg would assist the strike if it were called to tell anything when_she saw him 12h kept the adrenalin gushing until she was recalled stabbed a woman friend to death because he was execgting the wgll of God was an awful tomboy when I was a little girl was dead before the doctor cguld be of any help (prepositional sequences) taking sides in a_preliminary cggpest driving a stolen car across the state to keep themselves in power was fresh snow on the groun_d returned the ordinance without hie approval asking $200,000 for alleged alienation Table 1h shows the distribution of the various modifiers of verb-heads when they appear apart from the head and following the verb-head's object or complement. During the seventy year period from 1894 to 1964 there was a sig- nificant increase in the total number of modifiers of verb- heads in this position in both lead sentences and represent- ative sentences, an increase that was somewhat greater than was found among modifiers appearing in positions adjacent to the verb-head. Among representative sentences most of the modifiers. showed some increase, but there was a slight drop in the number of adverbs appearing as modifiers. Among lead sen- tences the modifiers which gained the most were adverbs, 125 ill!!!“ Manon o.ooa mam o.ooa ems e.sm mom o.ooH med . meonmsumm 0 on and a.mo sea N.oe sea e.me sad Hmeoapamoawcs omsmao e.o ma m.e ma m.e ma o.o ea m 4.0 ea o.m e m.o ea o.m oa Hence I I .40 H I I HoH N gamma 9.me . . u n a anemone o N a a a a new mpho> o.HN Ne a.ma mm N.HH mm m.sd em escapee . . . . mmozosvom N OH on 0 ma mm s e o e m o nsoz new mcsoz & .oz & .02 R .uwz R .mmx somd dmma somfl dmma ‘1. mace enema (Iv mowuopm opoaasoo 41"!) (B) All) In) I .4oma aw use sowa cw mummmm unso: Ham aw mvmmsnunoamdnaoo no poenno + npo> Ho mpoamwvoe maoaum> onana.¢a mHnma 126 nearly doubled in use, and infinitives. Prepositional se- quences in both lead sentences and representative sentences gained slightly. All these increases were too large to be accounted for by chance. It is interesting to note that here again the most common modifier is the prepositional sequence that in both lead sentences and representative sentences in both years eqmfls or exceeds in number all other modifiers combined. This is particularly interesting in the light of statements in Francis that the position here dominated by the prepo- sitional sequence is the typical adverb position.19 Francis calls this utterance-final position after a noun or nouns the principal adverb position. Ability to fill this posi- tion is the primary structural criterion for adverbs, Francis says.20 As a matter of fact, as a comparison of Tables 11 and 1h will show, prepositional sequences outnumber adverbs as modifiers of verb-heads in every position and that there are from four to five times as many adverbs post-posed to verb-heads as appear in Francis' typical adverb position after the verb-head and its object or complement. At least in the materials examined in this study it would appear that the structurally most significant ¥ 19Francis, p. 281. 20Francis, p. 281. 127 adverb position is the position immediately after the verb- head. JMore adverbs are found in this position than in any other. Table l5.--Incidence of single and multiple modification of verb + object-complement heads in all newspapers in 1894 and in 1964. ' w ‘— Complete Stories Leads Only Ig9h 1964 1894 21964 Total Heads 128 172 155 183 Total Modifiers 178 205 237 295 Single Modifiers 86 126 95 98 Multiple Modifiers #2 46 60 85 It is quite common to find more than one modifier of the verb-head and its object or complement occupying this utterance-(sentence-) final position as Table 15 and 16 show. Table 15 shows that single modifiers are commoner than multiple modification in representative sentences, but that in lead sentences there is a trend toward multiple modifi- cation. As Table 16 shows, two modifiers are most common. Mbre than two are infrequent. Examples of multiple modification of the type sum- marized in Table 15 and 16 include: helped Jews and.other refugees in a skylight apartment in Rome during_the German occupation 128 stabbed his teacher in the back with a_penknife yesterday morning before the start of classes opened his second season last niggg at ghe new hall in 50th Street near firoadway There is some question in these instances of mul- tiple modification whether the succeeding modifiers are independent modifiers of the head or whether they modify the head and the intervening modifiers. Probably both situations exist and although there is some structural ambi- guity here, meaning is usually quite clear. o. a I .. I .. 23332 95m Gene 932 m. H I I I I I I mumfimwnoz m>wm m 1H m o.H m o. a - .. 30330: has 0.0..” om 5.x. ma m.~ m we w mnmwmgos copra. a.mm No ¢.wm #4 m.mm o: 0.0N em mhmflmavoz 039 9mm mm Tao 3 TE. om." ~80 cm .8330: 0so R .02 R .02 R .02 R 1.02 33 133 403 Mano meson .II meanOpm «wramaoo Ipoonno no peoEoHQEOO + nue> .soma ca new emma cw uhmmmmmSm: Ham 2% meme: mo soaumoamwuoa mamapflss new mamswm mo monouwosHII.wH manna CHAPTER III OTHER STRUCTURES OF MODIFICATION Adjective-Headed Structures Adjectives, like nouns and verbs, may be head of a structure of modification. However, as Table 17 shows, such adjective-headed structures of modification are few in number and the range of modifiers is more restricted than is the case where the head of a structure of modification is a noun or a verb. The principal modifiers of adjectives are adverbs and prepositional sequences. Adjectives may also be modi- fied by verbs, by clauses, and occasionally by nouns. In the materials examined for this study, no other modifiers appeared. Modifiers of adjectives appear pre-posed and post- Posed to their head, as the examples which follow will show. Pre-posed modifiers may include adverbs, nouns, verbs and other adjectives, according to examples cited by Nida and Francis. Examples of adverbs as modifiers of adjective- heads:l 1Nida, p. 163; Francis, pp. 320-21. 130 131 .cso: soapoCSH mac moesaoan o.ooa *4: o.ooa *Nm m.om *mm 0.00H He Hence 5.54 am m.sm ma a.ms ma m.Hs ea manganese _ Hmnoapamomosm - - 5.5 .s m.~ a m.e m newness m.o m m.HH o m.m N m.b m mnpo> N.m¢ ma m.N¢ NN m.ms 0H a.me ma mphe>u< a .02 e .02 e .02 e .02 mtoamaeoz some emma soda emma haso meson moanoum opmamsoo .somd ad was smma :H unmammmzoc Ham aw mm>fipomnnm Ho soapMoHHHUoSII.uH capes 132 Francis (the) famous singer exceedingly somewhat always stil Nida gpppp sick absurdly fanciful quite right less appealing In the materials examined in this study, the follow- ing examples appeared: personally liable much excited too severe sharply higher better known 222 guilty utterly dead iaszeeeiaslx still very dormant Several of the modifiers noted here, ve , £99, .EEEQ. and there are others, are on Fries' list of Group D function words, function words he calls degree words and Which Francis refers to as qualifiers.2 Structurally, these —_ 2Fries, pp. 92-9h- 133 degree words do not differ from other adverbs (in some in- stances from nouns) and there are so few of them in the materials examined in this study that it was decided not to consider them apart from other adverbs. They will appear again as modifiers of adverb-heads and the same situation exists there. Nouns, appearing alone or marked by determiners, and noun sequences also appear as modifiers in adjective- headed structures of modification. Nida and Francis cite the following examples:3 Francis stone cold sea green bone dry Nida that young that sick a few months old many times finer Only three examples of this type of modification appear in the materials examined in this study: a bit difficult 100 per can; better 8 centuries old 3Nida, p. 16A; Francis, p. 321. 13h Verbs also appear as modifiers in adjective-headed structures of modification, but again, this is not a common pattern. Nida and Francis cite the following examples:4 Francis freezing cold boiling hot hOpping mad Nida pa_sys_i__ng fair chilling cold Not a single instance of a verb as pre-posed modi- fier of an adjective-head was found in the materials ex- amined in this study. Francis also cites examples of adjectives as modi- fiers in adjective-headed structures of modification, struc- tures like icy cold, but none were found in this study.5 Modifiers in post-adjective position were more common in the materials examined in this study and these POSt-posed modifiers included verbs, prepositional sequences and clauses. Examples of verbs as post—posed modifiers of adJective-heads, as cited by Nida and Francis:6 “Nida, p. 165; Francis, p. 321. 5Francis, p. 322. 6Francis, p. 322; Nida, p. 165. 135 Francis hard to get beautiful to see easy mm Nida able to do it accustomed to see ambitious to get it done Examples of this type of modification appearing in the materials examined in this study include: able to order convenient to let him curious to see sufficient to cause_gpother cent bregk unwilling to render the slightest assistance Neither Francis nor Nida cited an example of an adjective-head with a post-posed participial modifier, but one example appeared in the materials examined in this study. worth relating The adverb enough may appear as a post-posed modi- fier of an adjective, as in true enopgh, but no example was found in the materials examined in this study.7 __ 7Nida, p. 163. 136 The prepositional sequence appears almost as fre- quently as the adverb as a modifier of adjective-heads. In the materials examined in this study, seventy-six adverbs appeared as modifiers of adjective-heads and seventy-two prepositional sequences appeared as modifiers of adjective- heads. The adverbs were all pro-posed modifiers and the prepositional sequences were all post-posed modifiers. Ex- amples of prepositional sequences ad adjective modifiers, as cited by Francis and Nida:8 Francis easy on the eye§ good for nothing stronger than ever Nida glad of it short in stature inferior to him dependent upon him In the materials examined in this study, the fol- lowing examples of prepositional sequences as modifiers of adjective-heads appear: devoted to the interests liable for any debt consistent with the interests 8Francis, p. 322; Nida, p. 167. 137 larger than that incident to old age last pf the “Flying Farnums" overburdened with lands city-wide in membership Occasionally an adjective-head is separated from its modifier, as in these examples cited by Nida.9 The adjective-head is underscored twice and the modifying prepo- sitional sequence is underscored once: very similar propositions to these a very different matter from applause One example of this variant type of adjective- headed structure of modification appeared in the materials examined in this study: a rare accolade for an author ==u— My The clauses that appear as modifiers in adjective- headed structures of modification are of several types. First is the clause marked by the includers yhep, pggp, if, Ehsggyzhege, Egg, ppy,‘ypy, which, whether and by zero. Nida cites the following examples:10 h- 9Nida, p. 91. 10Nida, p. 166. 138 . I am afraid he is here. He was so boastful that he could do it. Some were uncertain whether they should go. In the materials examined in this study, the fol- lowing examples of clauses as post—posed modifiers of ad- jective-heads were found: to make sure (that) they do not supportgippe that diggriminate became so much excited that he took measures . . . The security . . . is so tight that for nearly three years it has kept hughehush a crime . . . _ The adjective-head in structures of modification like these is frequently conditioned or marked by a pre- posed adverb, pp:ll pp dense that the diners were forced to leave the room '”'""” ‘— pp meager that almost no business was ppssible pp tight that for nearly three years it was kept hush—hush Than or as also serve as markers for clauses modify- ing adjective-heads. Nida cites the following examples:12 llNlda, pp 0 166‘67 o 12Nida, pp. 166-67. 139 better than we thought such as these men described In the materials examined in this study, the fol-— lowing examples of this type of adjective-headed structure of modification were found: such as we desired greater than characterized the plays In some instances when the modifying clause is introduced by than or pg, the adjective-head has a preposed conditioner or marker. When the modifying clause is intro- ducec by gg, the conditioner or marker is either gg_or so: as as good bad 30 as nice fine When the modifying clause is introduced by than, the conditioner or marker is more or less or an adverb in- flected with the comparative suffix -pp: more than -er than 1A0 Nida cites the following examples of this type of modification of adjective heads:13 more thoughtful than the others pp quiet as Dick Examples of this type of adjective-headed structure of modification found in the materials examined in this study include: controversial as the first If; n) (0 significant as it was unique As Table 18 shows, slightly more than half the modi- fiers of adjective-heads are post-posed. The largest group of modifiers, adverbs, are pre-posed, except for the adverb gggggh. The second largest group of modifiers, the prepo- sitional sequence, always is post-posed. Adverb-headed Structures Adverb-headed structures of modification are similar to the adjective-headed structures of modification. Modifiers appear pre-posed and post-posed and include nouns and noun seQuences, adverbs, clauses, verbs and prepositional se- Quences. Adjectives do not appear as modifiers of adverb- heads. 13Nida, pp. 166-67. 141 o.ooa as o.ooa Hm o.ooa mm o.ooa ms Hugo» s.ao em 0.0m am H.5m om o.Ho om mpapooneenpmoa o.wm ea a.ms mm a.ms ma a.mm ca o>apomneeIota e .02 e .02 e .02 e .02 eoapamom soda smma soda smma memo meson mmaLOpm euoamaoo .sosa :a use smmd :« mncmmmmxoe Ham aw mo>wooonum mo mnoamavoa Ho sowusnunpmaQII.mH oases 1&2 The pre-posed modifiers are adverbs, nouns and noun sequences like the following examples cited by Nida and Francis.14 First, adverbs as modifiers: Francis unusually eagerly fax: away sometimes below rather slowly Nida extremely hard In the materials examined in this study, the fol- lowing examples of adverbs as modifiers of adverb-heads were found: egyly yesterday Mon ‘ge quickly shortly thereafter ppp easily gggip yesterday arise again just exactly certainly not Some of these adverb—modifiers appear on Fries' list of Group D degree words: just, still, for example, but so l“Nida, pp. 1A1-h3: Francis, p. 323. 1.43 few of the Group D words appear as modifiers that they are lumped here with other adverb-modifiers. Nouns and noun sequences frequently appear as modi- fiers of adverb-heads:15 Francis a foot away that easily some way up Nida a lot better a great deal sooner ten feet further Examples of this type of modification appearing in the materials examined in this study include: a year ago a shade lower a short time ago seconds later all day yesterday a couple of blocks away ghare and share alike a year later Post-posed modifiers of adverb-heads include prepo— sitional sequences and clauses. Nida cites examples of ¥ 15Francis, p. 323; Nida, p. lhl. 1AA verbs as post-posed modifiers of adverb-heads, structures like sufficienplyyto be nopiped, but none were found in the materials ~examined in this study.16 Examples of prepo— sitional sequences as post-posed modifiers of adverb-heads, as cited by Francis and Nida include:17 Francis away for a week behind in his work outside in the cold Nida luckily for him far from here near to theyplace Examples of this type of modification as found in the materials examined in this study include: out of classes unfortunately for him ahead p£Z§acramentp back to their kennels and home here within reach out of the city later on in the day léNida, p. 1h3. 17Nida, p. 143; Francis, p. 323. hea lh5 Clauses also may appear as modifiers of adverb- heads as the following examples from Nida indicate:18 here where the church stood once when the preacher copghed pp frequently that he completely destroyed the power of resistance pg fast as he could more frequently than the rest Clauses modifying adverb-heads pattern like the clauses that modify adjective-heads.19 Examples of this type of modification as found in the materials examined in this study include: __ much as they were 0) O effectively asyit sells aypmodqu rapidly as some climb I‘d If; It? slow that gpme clubs are only open weekends pp far out that he makes the_pew math look like old stuff more factually thanggp has been abrpgg No examples of structures like Nida's here where the church stood were found. M... 18Nida, p. 142. 19Nida, p. 142. fi: CE 110 11.6 Table 19 shows the distribution of the various modi- fiers of adverb-heads. Adverbs represent nearly 50 per cent of the modifiers and the distribution of nouns and noun sequences, clauses, and prepositional sequences appear- ing as modifiers is relatively even. For the first time, however, we find prepositional sequences trailing. Prepo- sitional sequences represent no more than 25 per cent of the modifiers of adverb-heads in some categories and as little as one-seventh of the modifiers in other categories. Table 20 shows the distribution between pre-posed and posteposed modifiers. Pre—posed modifiers, as the table indicates, are more common than post-posed modifiers of adverb-heads. Prepositional Sequences as Heads Prepositional sequences which appear so frequently as modifiers may also be the head of a structure of modifi- cation. This is not, as Table 21 shows, a frequent occur- rence, but instances appear regularly. .Modifiers of prepositional sequences include nouns and noun—sequences, adjectives, adverbs, and other prepo- sitional sequences. Nida and Francis cite examples as fol- lows:20 Nouns and noun sequences as modifiers of preposi- tional sequences: 20Francis, p. 32h; Nida, pp. 212-13. 1&7 0.00 mm H.00H MN o.ooa em 0.00 mm Hmpop H.0H o H.0N o N.m N 0.4H : moocoswom Haaowpwmoaohm ModH m I I Nom N #oHN 0 mmmfiwflo 0.04 0H m.m¢ OH 0.H¢ OH m.N4 NH mnho>v< m.NN m ¢.0m 0 0.H¢ OH ¢.HN o mooaosvom msoz cam mnsoz e .02 e .02 e .02 a .oz 2238: dcma smma 400a emma (I haze meson moasoum ouonEoo (I) II .400H ad was ¢0wH :« whommmmzon Ham.e« unho>em mo coapwowmavozTI.0H canes "and Aflmvfiwfi FF.“ Mui— AJLAIAMMNZNVHH H In TH E T "IT‘IIIII 1A8 0.00 mm 0.00H mN o.ooa 4N o.ooa wN Hence H.0m ma 0.0N o o.mN o ¢.04 ma pho>vaumom m.Nw NN o.¢0 0a o.mn ma b.mm ma bumpewuoum R .02 R .02 R .02 R .02 soapamom 400a ¢0ma eo0HI, 40ma haze memoq . mmHAOpm opmamsoo E .4o0a ea use ¢0mH cw manganese: Ham ca momonIpno>um mo whofimwuoa mo soapsnwhpnanII.ON canes 1A9 o.ooa 0H 0.00 0N o.ooa ea 0.00 ea amuop I I H.HH m 4.HN m I I mooCmSUom Hmsoapamodonm 0.00 Ha m.mm 0 o.mn Ha RImm Na mpho>e¢ I I e.m a I I a.s a mo>apomae< H.Ne m w.Hm 4H I I H.R a mmommsaom nsoz was masoz R .02 R .02 R .02 R .02 noauavoz ¢o0a ¢0ma so0a ¢0wa haze enema moanoum opoaaaoo .eo0a ea was 40wH ca mLoQMQmSo: Ham ca moonosvom Hmnoaoamomohm mo coauMoa waeozII.a~ oases 150 Francis a bit under the weather g pile off shore W off base Nida a little over 10 a mile beybnd the hill Nouns and noun sequences as modifiers of preposi- tional sequences appear both pre-posed and post-posed in the materials examined in this study: $84,064.09 in arrears minutes before death this time for a letter to the editor a little at sea six months after the slaying £13 million below expectations at the American premier tomorrow night at the Columbus theater last night from the same period last year during the annual winter discontent the_past few weeks Francis cites one example of an adverb as a post- posed.modifier of a prepositional sequence:21 on the mark exactly 21Francis, p. 324. 151 In the materials examined in this study a number of adverbs appeared as post-posed modifiers of prepositional sequences: for some time ppy from 2 to pom. daily until sundown yesterday Neither Nida or Francis cite an example of adjec- tives as modifiers of prepositional sdquences, but one ex- ample appeared in the materials examined in this study: fresh from the hands of the builders Prepositional sequences may also modify preposi- tional sequences, although this is a less common occurrence than other types of modification. Nida and Francis cite no examples, but the following examples appeared in the ma- terials examined in this study: at l a.m. on Saturday at the Opening in Philadelphia in his sermon in the Bloomingdale church Table 21 shows the distribution of the various modifiers of prepositional sequences and Table 22 shows the distribution of the modifiers in relation to the head. Noun Markers as Heads Noun markers or determiners, Fries' Group A function words, may appear as heads in structures of modification. 152 o.ooa 0a o.ooa RN o.ooa ea o.ooa 4a ampop o.am o o.mm ma s.am m a.mm m emmoaIumoa a.mo ma ¢IJ¢ NH 0.00 dd n.40 0 vomomIonm R .02 R .02 R .02 R .02 moapamom 400a s0ma 400a ¢0ma haso muwoq moanopm opoameoo .400H :a new 40mH ea unemenZoa Add :a moocosvom Hmcoapamomowm mo macamaeoa no coausnahumanIIINN canes 153 They may have both pro-posed and post-posed modifiers, but modification is limited and not frequent. Only nouns, ad- verbs and prepositional sequences appear as modifiers of noun markers in the materials examined in this study, as Table 23 shows. Francis cites the examples below as typical of marker-headed structures of modification.22 He limits modi- fiers to adverbs, qualifiers, and prepositional sequences, but some of his qualifiers are adverbs and one is a noun.23 His examples: adverbs very many people ppp a few friends function noun much more money prepositional sequence more than enough money Nida cites examples of pre-posed modifiers of noun determiners, but no examples of post-posed modifiers. His examples:24 —__+ 22Francis, p. 324. 23 ° ‘ hat still See Francis p. 279. rathep, somew , , mush are adverbs; a little, a lot, g_bit, lots, a good deal, £13122. are nouns and noun sequences. 2h Nida, pp. 82-83. 15h o.ooa ma o.ooa om o.ooa Ra o.ooa 0N annoy mIOM 4 0.0 N m.mm o a.ma e moocosumm HmeOHpamoaonm N.0o 0 ¢.0o mN a.be m o.em 0 mano>e< I I o.mN 0 ©.Ra m 0.00 ma masoz R .02 R .02 R .02 R 62 98a See: 400a 40ma 400a s0ma haeo mused moahopm mooaasoo £()) .sb0a ca use 40md ca whommmmso: Ham ca Anhonaanopouv muoxnms anon Ho soapMoamavoZII.MN canes 155 adverbs nearly a pint not a man jppp these two such a man function nouns both the people Nida gives no other examples of usage, but cites a lengthy list of pre-determiner modifiers, including a num- ber of adverbs with the derivational affix sly; the adverbs épggp,.ppip§, glgp; the function nouns pgpy, all, what and half; and the prepositional sequence at least.25 In the materials examined in this study, the ex- amples below appeared in pre-determiner position: nouns and function nouns number 7 22.22mes more a little more than one third half the city's school population g1; the union men many a day adverbs gpgpfi A alsase 5 25Nida, p. 82. 156 Just 7 nearly 4 ppp less than 15,000 scarcely any pp much as many ppp two possibly 5 approximately 125,000 fplly 15,000 ppp a member gppp a long trip pply the toleration almost a year often the object of criticism about a mile earligp this month prepositional sequence at least two police officers at least eight centuries old We have two types of modification here: (1) pre- posed modifiers of the determiner; and (2) preposed modi- fiers of a sequence consisting of a determiner and noun or noun sequence. In the following examples, the determiner is the head: 157 a little more 25 times more fully 15,000 at_least two police officers In the following examples the whole sequence is the head of the structure of modification: earlier this month all the union men many a day half the city's school population often the object of criticism Where the determiner is also a function noun, the pre-posed modifier stands in modifier relationship only to the determiner: only 3 possibly 5 Where the determiner is a definite or indefinite article, a personal pronoun or a specifier, the pre-posed modifier stands in modifier relationship to the entire se- quence: many a day all the union men pgplgpp this month pal; her salary 158 Where the modifier is post-posed to the determiner, the modifier stands in modifier relationship only to the determiner. Of course, the whole sequence of determiner, and modifier or modifiers then stands in modifier relation- ship to the noun which the determiner marks. Post-posed modifiers of determiners are limited to prepositional se- quences and adverbs: more than social less than happy more thany500 million as many as 50 one more Table 23 shows the distribution of noun determiners in all four newspapers in the two years under study and in lead sentences and representative sentences. As the table indicates, there appears to be a lessening of the use of nouns and adverbs as modifiers of determiners and an increase in the use of prepositional sequences. However, the occur- rence of this type of modification is so limited that the figures are not particularly significant. Table 24 shows the distribution of pre-posed modifiers and post-posed modi- fiers. Pre-posed modifiers outnumber by far the post-posed modifiers. 159 o.ooa ma o.ooa on o.ooa Ra o.ooa pm ampop a.mm m a.aa e m.mn o a.ma s smeaetopoeIpmom m.os oa a.mm mm R.ep aa p.4m mm pmeaatopoeImpa R .02 R .02 R .02 R .02 coapanom sc0a :0ma eo0a e0ma haze mvmoa moanoum opoameoo g .eo0a ea new ¢0md ea mquMQmSo: Ham ea Amnoeaewopouv mnoxnms :50: Ho muoamavoa no soapsnanpnamII.sN canes 160 Sentences and Clauses as Heads So far we have examined structures of modification in which nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, noun markers, prepositional sequences, and noun sequences were the heads. Sentences may also be the head of a structure of modification, and it is to the sentence-headed structure of modification that we now turn. Sentence-headed structures of modification consist of a sentence and various modifiers which may be pre-posed, occur within the sentence, or be post-posed to the sentence. Modifiers of sentence-heads include nouns and noun sequences, adjectives, adverbs, verbs, clauses, prepositional sequences, and a modifier which we find in use nowhere else-~the apgp- lute construction. The frequence and distribution of these various modifiers is shown in Table 25. The sentence-head in most cases consists of one of the sentence types described by Fries in which there is a contrast between a Class 1 word (a noun) and a Form Class 2 word (a verb).26 This is the subject + predicate relation- ship of the normal English sentence. However, in a written corpus such as the one used in this study, other independent structures appear which do not show this contrast. These may be structures like the response, call, or exclamation — 26Fries, pp. 144-45 ff. 161 p.00 om a.ooa 0m a.ooa as 0.00 ms aepop m.m a NIOH o I I I I meoaposnpmsoo mpfiHOmn< a.mm aa a.ms Rm a.me om n.0e mm mooeoseom ameoapamommnm MImm OH N.Nm 0a N.wa m 0.0N ma momsmao o.o~ o m.m m e.aa m o.oa w ampop m.m a R.a a I I m.a a mm>apaeaaea MIM H I I I I I I when pmma m.ma e w.o s sIHH m m.0 0 puma anemone mano> m.m a I I a.ma m 0.0m ma mntm>ea I I R.a a m.~ a m.a a mo>apomae< m.m H 0.H H m.e N m.H a moonosvom :502 new mesoz R .02 R .02 R .02 R .02 mnoamaeoz so0a e0ma ¢o0a e0ma haso mvmoq moanOpm opoamsoo (II ‘III'IIII. .so0d :a new 40ma ca mammmmmzmc Ham ma moocopsom Ho :oapmoawavozIIImN canes 162 sentences described by Francis.27 Most of the sentences which appear as heads of structures of modification, how- ever, will be structures consisting of a subject + predi- cate and the various modifiers associated with the two. Modifiers of sentences, as it has already been noted, may appear in one of three positions: pre-posed to the head; within the sentence-head; and post-posed to the sentence-head. This distribution is shown in Table 26. Pre-posed modifiers are most common and represent 50 per cent or more of the sentence modifiers in every in- stance. There are fewer post-posed modifiers and the ap- pearance of modifiers within the sentence-head, usually be- tween the subject and the predicate is least common of all as Table 26 shows. Examples of the various types of sentence-modifiers are given below. Included clauses as sentence-modifiers, as cited by Francis and Nida:28 Francis When he comag, we will go. If it raine, close the window. Nida They will never get it right, which after all will be to our advantage somew at. I told them I thought so too, which didn't make the slightest difference to them. 27Francis, pp. 37h-389o 28Francis, p. 400; Nida, p. 188. 163 . . VIM? OIOOH Om 0.00 00 o.ooa as o.ooa 00 ampop m.ms ma 0.0m HN NIma w 0.NN 0H accommomIpmom I I m.ma m a.0 s m.ma oa manna; RIpm Ra m.om cm a.me mm o.ep we poempemmImpa R .02 R .02 R .02 R .02 eoapamoa 400a 40ma 400a 40ma haze mecca mmaAOpm opoamsoo .4o0a :a use ¢0ma ca mnommmmzo: Ham ea mooeoueom no mamamanoa mo soapspwnpmanII.oN capes 164 Prepositional sequences as sentence modifiers, as cited by Francis and Nida:29 Francis He is innocent, in my opinion. At the corner, a policeman was directing traffic. Nida On the contrary, I believe . . . In consequence, do you believe Verbs as sentence—modifiers as cited by Francis and Nida include both present participles and infinitives.3O Past participles may also serve as sentence-modifiers, but none were cited by Francis or Nida. Their examples: Francis To be sure, he didn't mean it. To drive well, you must always be Ialert. Continuing our story, the next chapter is a sad one. Nida To tell the truth, this is not To be honepp, this thing is too shaken to . . . Adverbs as sentence-modifiers, as cited by Francis and Nida:31 29Francis, p. 403; Nida, p. 187. 30Francis, pp. 401-402; Nida, p. 188. 31Francis, p. 403; Nida, pp. 186-87. 165 Francis Obviousl , he was lying. Naturall , I am opposed to war. Nida Undoubtedly, this preposition will mean a great deal. Altogether, this is most unfortunate. Nida cites the following examples of nouns or noun sequences as sentence-modifiers:32 Nida Sympathy or no sympathy, I wanted toga... All the same, this is going . . . Nida also cites what he refers to as parenthetical expressions and which Francis calls clauses with a zero includer.33 These are expressions like I thought, I think, I suppose, which appear within a sentence or post-posed. The examples which appeared in the materials examined in this study were lumped with other clauses. Absolute constructions are the only modifiers which have not appeared as modifiers of other heads. No examples are cited by Nida, but Francis gives the following illus- trations:34 __ 32Nida, p. 187. 33Francis, p. 404; Nida, p. 189. 34 Francis, pp. 400-401. 166 Francis the vans havingarrived, we were ready to move wprk_finished, we went home the rain over, we went indoors Stalin dead, the way was clear for Malenkov Francis defines these absolute constructions as noun-headed structures of modification with a post-posed modifier consisting of a participle, either present or past, and sometimes other modifiers as in his example: the raip OVGI‘oBS Pre-posed Modifiers In the materials examined in this study, the follow- ing examples of pre-posed modifiers of sentence-heads were found: (Nouns and noun sequences) The next morning, they decided to drive right on through to Sunnyvale-~the men taking turns at the wheel. Just two months before the opening of the New ¥Q§k werld's Fair, on April 23, the Fair is a anciful never-never land firmly grounded in no-nonsense mud. (adjective) And, third, Mr. Kennedy saw the need to provide an adequate space program. 35Francis, p. 401. 167 (adverbs) Fourteenyears a 0, Mr. Beckman and his wife, the former Jeanne Jacoby, took part in the inauguration in Israel of the Techneon's 300—acre campus. Two years later, he was named Acting Queen's County Judge in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court and remained in that post until becoming fire commissioner. (verbs) Reversing himself with a suddenness that caug__ many_civil rights leaders by supprise, the Rev. Milton A. Galamison announced yesterday that a second school boycott would be held here on March 6. (clauses) When you want a thin idea_§pun out into an attenuated play, apply to Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall. If Frank Charles CarluccijordI the new United States charge d'affairs in Zanzibar finds things a bit difficult in his new_post, it will be no new experience. (prepositional sequences) Since 1949 the service has pursued an anti- discrimination policy, Bernstein said. At his Yerba Buena home, he was serenaded by school children. (Absolute constructions) His dapder up, Governor Rockefeller lashed out yesterday at American "secrecy" in Viet Nam and took sharp issue with President Johnson's suggestion that foreign policy is a sacred cow as far as politics is concerned. 168 Modifiers Within the Head As Table 26 shows, there are fewer instances of modification of sentences where the modifier is placed within the setence-head. A few examples from the materials examined in this study: (adverbs) Mr. Davis, therefore, had to refuse to accept the bail. The concessionaires, too, are deserving of praise for their courtesy to the children. (clauses) Mr. Healy, when seen by a reporter for the New Times, admitted that the appointment was a surprise. Abraham Reimer nine-years-old, of No. 47 Mor- rell St., Williamsburg, was run over and, ip is thought, fatally injured by trolley car No. 1,913 of the Graham Ave. line, yesterday after— noon. (prepositional sequence) It was hit, for instance, for $1,050 last ma $900 in March of 1962; twice in 1961 for £1,000 and $1.975; and for $624 in 1958. Erastus Wiman, through his counsel Gen. Ben'amin Ep_Tracy, in the Court of General Sessions, beiore Judge Martins, yesterday pleaded not guilty to two indictments found against him last week for forgery in the second degree. Post~posed Modifiers In the materials examined in this study, as Table 169 26 shows, a limited number of instances of post-posed modi- fiers of sentence-heads appear. Some examples: (verbs) An explosion shattered a storage room in the Chicago stadium, 1800 Madison st., late yester-. day afternoon, injuring Robert Horton, 32 of 6117 May st., a porter. The June 2 primary election in California will be crucial for Goldwater and Rockefeller, Nixon said, terming_it "a sudden-death play:off in which both of them will be toe-to-terIslugging it Gun." (clauses) The executive board of the Chicago Teachers union voted unanimously to postpone a strike vote yesterday, after the board of educatgpn approved a "collective bapgainingpmemorandum" with the union. Nikolai Okthpkov, a leading theatrical director of the Soviet Union, is not coming to the United States, although hey the State Department and the Soviet Ministry of Culpure had approved the six-week visit. (prepositional sequences) Four men exposed to severe radiation in an acci- dent at Oak Ridge, Tenn., in 1958, seem to have recovered from radiation-caused sterility,qu- cordgng to a reportypublished yesterday. (absolute constructions) The Roby bookmakers had a breathing spell yester- day, but two favorites winning. The course of yesterday's wheat market was grat- ifying to the bulls, the price sellipg up 1% cents for Wednesday's officia c ose and hold- much of the advance. 170 The structure we have defined as a sentence-head appears not only alone as an independent linguistic form, but it appears Quite frequently as one of the structures making a larger independent linguistic form. These larger independent linguistic structures may consist of two sen- tences linked by conjunctions, app, ppp, or pp, for ex- .36 ample. Francis defines these as compound sentences. The spring has come, but the weather is cold. In other instances, the sentence is used as modi- fier of a noun, verb or other head, including sentence- heads, by means of a linkage provided by words like because, aftgp, since, although, ypp, Epigp, ppap or zero, words which are frequently referred to as includers.37 Sentences thus brought into other structures by means of includers have already been identified as inplpded clapses. As we have already seen, included clauses appear as modifiers of nouns, verbs and other words and as modifiers of sentences: news that the war is over came after I lefp stronger than he was before when he comes, we will go 6 3 Francis, pp. 415-16. 37See Francis, p. 389 ff. 171 The point to be stressed here is that included clauses and sentences are basically the same structure and both show the same characteristic contrast between noun and verb described by Fries in his discussion of sentence types. The sentence and the clause, essentially the same linguistic structure, are modified in essentially the same way. As Tables 22 and 28 show, sentence modifiers are also clause modifiers and they appear in the same characteristic posi- tions. Since both clauses and sentences are modified in the same way and by the same modifiers there is no reason to cite further examples of the modifiers from Nida,Francis or the neWSpapers examined.- Comparison of Tables 25 and 27 show that there is considerably less modification of clauses than of sentences and that the frequence with which certain modifiers appear is somewhat different. Comparison of Tables 26 and 28 show somewhat the same pattern of distribu- tion for modifiers of sentences and modifiers of clauses. Information contained in Tables 27 and 28 and in - Tables 25 and 26 is combined in Tables 29 and 30 below. These combined tables show that again the prepositional sequence is the most frequent modifier and that the clause represents the second largest group of sentence or clause modifiers. The tables show some differences between the modification in lead sentences and in representative sen- tences, and shows also that in lead sentences there has 172 0.0m eH o.OOH em 0.00H o o.ooH Om Hmpoe . . . . mmoqmsvom m 4H N m m4 Ha m mm N 0 0m 0 HmGOprmommum a.mm m m.w m m.mm m 5.0m HH mememHo H.e H 5.0H e - - o.oH m Hence I I I I I I I I mm>flpacamaa I I N 04 .H I I I I 0.th ”WM“ H.b H m.NH m I I 0.0H m puma pnmmmhm mnnm> e.mm m n.0H a e.0H H m.mH s mncm>e< H.e H a.mH m 5.0H H o.OH m Hence I I a.mH m I I 5.0 m mmocmsamm nsoz Mir H I I 5.0H H m.m H mnsoz Co 0 I l e m: e oz e .02 e .oz anuHeoz eomH eomH haao momma weapoum mpmamsoo .eoma cw one emma :H mummmmmSmc.HHm cH momswao mo noHpMoHHHuoSII.um magma I“ o.OOH eH o.OOH em o.OOH o 0.00H on H33 n.da N n.0a : I I m.mN m mmsmHqumom m.eH N I I I I 5.0 N cHesz 4.Hu 0H m.mw 0N 0.00H o 0.05 HN mmsmHoImum R .02 R .02 R II .02 R .02 soprmom eoma coma soma emma haco momma mmauopm momHQEoo .aomn ca one 40ma ca mhmammmSm: Ham ma newsman Ho muowmwoos mo nowpsnahpmHQII.mN mnnwe 174 been a shift in the distribution of modifiers from 1894 to 1964. While the distribution in representative sentences remained very nearly the same over the seventy—year period, the distribution in lead sentences shifted. Fewer preposi— tional sequences appeared as sentence and clause modifiers in 1964, but clauses and adverbs increased as sentence and clause modifiers. Verbs as modifiers increased slightly. It is interesting to note that the absolute con- structions are infrequent and that they appeared only in lead sentences. Adjectives appeared too infrequently to be significant and nouns and noun sequences, also relatively few, seemed stable. 175 o.ooH as a.ma mm o.oOH me N.00H ROH Hmpop m.N H N.h @ I I I I mnoauosnpmaoo mQSHomDH m.mm MH m.me mm 0.44 mm o.~s as mmoemsemm . HMQOHpHmommnm H.¢m mH m.mN HN ¢.0N 0H m.¢N 0N mmmsmHo o.oH R m.OH m N.OH m m.oH HH Hence m.~ H N.H H I I o.H H mm>HeHeHHeH m.N H N.H H I I I I puma pmmm o.HH m ¢.m n N.OH m m.m OH 99mm pzmmmhm mpho> o.MH o m.: a a.mH m H.mH 0H mnuo>o< I I N.H H O.N H H.H H mm>Hpomnv¢ m.¢ N w.¢ a H.e N m.m : Hmpou m.N H m.¢ e H.¢ N m.N m mmocodvmm csoz m.N H I I I I o.H H mcdoz R .oz R .02 R .02 R .02 muoHHHeoz aomfiII JQwH HomH eme tho momma mmwMme mooHQEoo [fill g} IIIIIIMIIIIIII'JHIIIIIHI .400H nH cam meH :H mummmmmzo: HHm :H momsmHo cam moocopcmm Ho GOHpmoHHHUoSII.mN oHnms 176 0.00H ea 0.00 mm 0.00H ad o.OOH mOH HauOQ H.em mH H.0m mN m.oH m o.NN 4N ammoeIpmoN m.e N 0.0 m N.m s e.HH NH aanHe s.Ho RN N.oo cm a.me Rm R.me me ammonImta R .02 R .02 R .02 R .02 II. noHpHmom IeaH .32 II 48H .62 tho momma mmHhopm moonEoo .eomH :H one emmH :H mquMszmn HHm :H momsmHo new moocmpqom mo muoHHHvos mo coszpprmHnII.0m oHnt CHAPTER IV CONCLUSION The System of Modification The system of modification in present-day American English which the present study has analyzed in some detail is a formal and intricate system, a highly predictable system, and, paradoxically, in practice, an amazingly simple system. The system of modification might be called intricate because it consists of carefully built up layers. The form class words and various structures, including sentences, can be modified, and their modifiers can be modified-~and their modifiers-—and so on. A single word, for example, can be modified by a sentence——a structure that itself may con- tain structures of modification with head—words modified by other structures of modification. DeMorgan's great fleas with little fleas upon their backs is a counterpart of the system of modification in which modifiers can modify modifiers, and so ad infinitum. A£_l2££lpates§ystem Intricacy of the system can be demonstrated by a basic sentence like the following in which parentheses indicate positions where the modifiers of the noun—subject and noun-object, both underlined, can be placed: 177 178 The ( ) contract ( ) was a ( ) package ( ) The ( ) contract that settled the (_) dispute was a ( ) package ( ) The ( ) contract that settled the ( ) dispute ( ) a $36 million package ( ) The ( ) contract that settled the ( ) dispute ( ) was a $36 million package that went into (#1 effect ( ) The ( ) contract that settled the ( ) dispute ( ) was a $36 million package that went into ( ) effect in (_) June (_) Although this sentence, taken from the materials examined for this study, is now complete, there are still six positions that could be filled with modifiers of nouns. Other modifying positions are present, of course, but they have not been indicated. Another example, this time showing the mOdification possible when the original head-word is a single-word noun- subject: Qgg was a(n) admiral One ( ) One wathe (s) golfers (“1 One of the keen—eyed_gplfers who played ( ) Addition of modifiers of the noun-subject began with a Post-posed prepositional sequence. Next the noun golfers 179 was modified by an included clause whose verb can now be modified, and by an adjective which, too, can be modified. One of the most keen-eyed golfers who played at the (_) Country ClubAL_1 One of the most keen-eyed golfers who played at the Army-Navy Country Club ( ) One of the most keen-eyed golfers who played at the Army-Navy Country Club outsige Washing- MM One of the most-keen—eyed golfers who played at the Army-Navy Country Club outside Washington a few years ago ( I This structure of modification, starting with a single noun-subject, now includes twenty words and these modifiers: three prepositional sequences one included clause one adjective one adverb-headed structure of modification one adverb one noun-headed structure of modification one structure of coordination The original noun—head, one, is modified by a single modifier, the prepositional sequence of the golfers. All the rest of the modification is built up within this 180 sequence. The noun golfers is modified by two modifiers, first, an adjective-headed structure of modification con- sisting of an adjective—head, keen-eyed, and an adverb- modifier, mggp; second, by an included clause introduced by Egg. This included clause contains the verb plgygg which is modified by two prepositional sequences, gt the nggtry ngb and outside Washington, and an adverb-headed structure of modification, a few years ago. The adverb ggg is modi— fied by a pre-posed modifier consisting of a noun-headed structure of modification, a few years. This last structure consists of a noun-head modified by the adjective fgw and a noun marker. In one of the prepositional sequences modi- fying played, at the Country Club, the noun sequence Qgggtgy Club is modified by’a structure of coordination consisting of two nouns, Army-Navy. Let us look at another example of this intricate, layer-upon-layer building up of a sequence through modifi- cation. In this example, the verb and its modifiers are expanded through further modification: Th question was put ( ) (D The question was put to him ( ) The question was put to him as he argiyed ( ) The question was put to him as he arrived ggdgg an assumed namg ( ) The question was put to him as he arrived under an assumed name after a flight ( ) 181 The question was put to him as he arrived under an assumed name after a flight from San Juan ( ) In this example, the verb was put has been modified by the prepositional sequence tg_him. The verb and its modifier-~was put to_h;g--is modified by the clause g§_hg arrived. The clause contains a verb, arrived, which is modified by two prepositional sequences, Eager an assumed ggmg and after a flight. The noun flight in the last se- quence is modified by another prepositional sequence, fggg San Juan. Only a few of the modifying positions possible in this sentence have actually been filled. For example: ( I question ( ) ( ) was ( ) put ( ) an ( ) assumed name ( ) a ( ) flight from ( ) San Juan ( ) A Predictable System In addition to its intricacy, the system of modi- fication in present-day American English has a high degree of predictability based, first, on the regular, fixed posi- tions of modifiers, and, second, on the regularity with which certain modifiers appear in these positions. All single words which can be modified, and all the larger structures--sequences, sentences, and clauses-~may be 182 modified by pre-posed and post-posed modifiers, thus: ( ) NOUN ( ) ( ) ADJSCTIVE ( ) ( ) ADVERB ( ) ( ) NOUN WIRKER ( ) Some sequences, the verb sequence consisting of an the sen~ C.: auxiliary verb and a main verb, the clause, an tence, have a third position within the sequence verb sequence ( ) auxiliary ( ) main verb ( ) Clause includer ( ) subject ( ) predicate ( ) sentence ( ) subject ( ) predicate ( ) Not all these available positions are always filled, of course, but they may be and in the case of nouns and verbs extensive use is made of these modifying positions as Table 31 and earlier tables show. Tables accompanying the discussion of the various structures of modification show which of the possible modi- fier positions are most often used. In the verb-headed Structures of modification, for example, from 65 to 70 per cent of the modifiers are post—posed to the verb; another 183 0.00 moon 0.00H mean 0.00 mdwN a.mm mHoN HwROp m. 0H m. 5N m. 4H 0. 4H woodmavmm Hmcowpamoampm e. MH o.H on 0. RH o.H 0N museum: 0. mm m. mN m. eN o.H mN mnnm>v< N.H es m.H Nm N.H mm R.H He mopepomnee N.H ee e.N mm R.H 0m H.e m0H Hmeop e. eH R. eN N. o N.H Om mmmsmHo m. Om N.H mm o.H so m.N mm moonmpamm o.eN 0mm m.NN NHm m.MN Ree m.eN mes Hmeou N.m mmN H.© NMN H.n moN m.o wEH .nno no .9500 + ¢.©H Ham d.©H mum m.©H Nb: 0.5H boa mGOHm mflhm> a.me eNmN R.mo mmmN H.oe NmoN H.me onH Hmpoe H.mN moo n.wN emm H.0N 0mm m.oN oow ammoanmoa m.ee RHeH m.oe HHeH o.ee eRNH m.em sea emmoa-mta endoz R lwoz R .02 R .02 R .02 women somH somH somH tho momma mmHuoom mpmHano iii .RUSpm man :H UmumHmcm cowomonHuos mo mops» Icahpm :H muses mSOHhm> one we :OHpmoHMHoos mo zocmsvmnm one mo somHnmdsoo H.w 0mm m.n com m.oa mom o.© mmm mnnm>e< 0.6H one m.©a 0mm n.ma mom m.na mme mm>woommv< e.mm saoa m.Hm ease m.em mews H.5N was mmocmzamm :502\m:soz MW .02 R .02 R .02 R11. .02 mpmflmflcomw soma do a doma soma .mwano mvmmq mmwuoum mumameoo it igl .coma paw emmfl ca mummmm amSmc Ham a“ mupoz use: Haw :pH3 mcflpmmgdm mhmflMflvoE msowuw> map mo humeezmin.mm mHQMH 193 use of prepositional sequences declined somewhat and the use of nouns and noun sequences increased from 1894 to 196A. Where prepositional sequences were the principal modifiers in 1894 by 10 per cent margin in representative sentences and by a 5 per cent margin in lead sentences, in 196L they trail behind nouns and noun sequences in use. Table 31 is interesting in comparison with Table 32. It shows that nouns are the most modified of all head- words, roughly 70 per cent of all modifiers appearing with noun—heads, and that verbs are the next in number of modi- fiers. Between 20 and 25 per cent of all modifiers appear with verb-heads. Other heads show remarkably little mod— ification. Totals shown in Table 31 do not represent the total number of head-words, but rather the number of modi- fiers appearing with head—words of the various classes. Application of This Study This study and further studies of the same type which make quantitative analyses of systems within the language should have some practical use in applied linguis- tics. For example, a knowledge of what modifiers are most frequently used in certain types of writing might be of considerable use in teaching composition skills to native speakers of English at various levels. And the most-fre- quently used modifiers and types of structures of modifica— tion, singled out as they are in a study like the present one, would seem to show where emphasis should be placed in 19h teaching non-native speakers about the use of inglish. Linguistics relies on usage to show what a language is really like, and usage implies not only what is possible, but what is done, and how frequently. A quantitative study such as this gives a new dimension to usage, a dimension lacking in catalogs like Nida's and summaries like Francis'. As this study shows, while all kinds of modification are possible, certain kinds of modification predominate. Ap— plied linguistics would find it more useful to know what structures of modification are actually in use, and the extent of their use, than to know that in a language as flexible and accommodating as English almost anything is possible. Suggestions for Fugther Study A number of other studies are possible as a sequel to this analysis of the structures of modification in present-day American English. First of all, this study might well be replicated using another sample from selected newspapers. The news- papers used in this study were selected because they were considered to represent the best in journalistic writing style, and perhaps another study based on other newspapers, not necessarily the test, might yield different data. Second, the same type of analysis might be made of other types of written American English. 195 A standard corpus of edited present-day American English has been compiled at Brown Univ sity and would probably be ideal for this purpose.8 This corpus consists of more than a million words from various sources. It is written and edited, not spoken English, and consists of some 500 samples of approximately 2,000 words each, and includes some materials from newspapers, magazines, journals and various types of books, both fiction and non—fiction. This corpus is available on computer tape and no doubt an analysis similar to this, but using several different and larger samples, might be done by computer. Other analyses might be suggest ed. Since preposi- tional sequences prove so great a part of the system of modification, further study of the system of prepositions might be worthwhile. What prepositions are most used or least used? Could a list be made of all prepositions in use and a relative value given to each? There would be some interest, too, in closer study of the adverb, particu— larly base adverbs which seem to have a number f functions and to appear in various positions in the sentence. .0- V See w. Nelson Francis, "A Standard Corpus of Edited Present~Day American English, College English, XXVI (Janu- ary, 1965), 267- 273. BIBLIOGRAPHY Books Akhmanova, 0. 8., I. A. Mel'chuk, R. M. Frumkina, and E. V. Paducheva. Exact Methods in Linguistic Re— search. Translated from the Russian by David G. Hays and Delores V. Mohr. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1963. Bloomfield, Leonard. Language. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1933, reprinted April, 1962. Budd, Richard N. and Robert K. Thorp. An Introdgctign_tg Qgptent Analysis. Iowa City: School of Journalism, State University of Iowa, 1963. Curme, George 0. A Grammar of the English Language' Vol. LJV. III, Syntax. Ne“; York: Do Co Heath, 1931. Francis, W. Nelson. The Structure of American English. New York: The Ronald Press, 1958. Fries, Charles Carpenter. The Structure of English: An ‘ Intquucti n to_the Construction of English Sen- tences. New York and Burlingame: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1952, reprinted 1961. Herdan, Gustav. The Calgulgs of Linguistic Observations. 's—Gravenhage: Mouton & Co., 1962. Hill, A. A. Introduction to Linguistic Structures. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1953. Hockett, Charles F. A Course in Modern Linguistics. New York: The Macmillan Company, 195S. Mott, Frank Luther. American Journalism. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1962. Nida, Eugene A. A Synopsis of English Syntax. Ed. Benjamin Elson. Norman, 0kla.: University of Oklahoma, Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1960, second print- ing, 1962. 196 197 Robertson, Stuart. The Development of Modern Englis . Revised by Frederic G. Cassidy. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1954. Strang, Barbara. Modern English Structure. New York: St. Martin‘s Press, 1962. Trager, George L. and Henry Lee Smith. An Outline of English Structure. Washington, D. C.: American Council of Learned Societies, fifth printing, 1957. Whitehall, Harold. ~tructugal Essentials of English. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1956. Articles and Periodicals Anon., "The TOp lO Dailies Almost Same as in 1952 Poll," Editor and Publisher, April 9, 1960. Anon., "The Top U. S. Dailies," Time, January 10, 196A. , Chicago Tribune, February 189A and February 1964. Editor and Publisher, Editor and Publisher International Yegrbook 1964. New York: Editor and Publisher, 19 4. Francis, W. Nelson, "A Standard Corpus of Edited Present- Day American English," College English, XXVI (January 1965), 267-273. Haugen, Einar, "0n Reading the Close Appositive," American 8 eech, XXVIII (1953), pp. 165—170. New York Herald-Tribune, February 196A. New York Times, February 1894 and February 196A. New York Tribune, February 189A. The S. H. Parvin's Sons 00., The S. H. Parvin's Sons Co. Ngwspaper Director 1893-4. Cincinnati: The S. H. Parvin's Sons 00., 1893. San Francisco Chronicle, February 189t and February 1964. Tebbel, John R "Rating the American News " y . paper Saturda Review, May 13, 1961, pp. 60-61.. ' 198 Unpublished Material Wolff, Hans. Structural Highlights of American English. Typescript, n.d. In possession of the author, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. h- _. ———_-————_——.7 ”WHITMAN! iifuillfifufiifln WW 3 1193 03082 11988