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KMID : 0366519960160010323
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Annual Bulletin Seoul Health
1996 Volume.16 No. 1 p.323 ~ p.342
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On the Structural Properties of Postnominal Adjective Phrases
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Jung Soo-Yong
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Abstract
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The English construction of the postnominal modification seems to be one of difficult constructions for Koreans to learn and master. It is partly because there is no such syntactic construction for post nominal modifiers in Korean. This study is intended to examine and analyze the structural properties of postnorninal adjective phrases (PostN- APs), focusing on the different properties of prenominal APs (PreN-APs) and PostN-APs, and the almost identical structural properties of PostN-APs and complement APs (Comp-APs). The remarkable structural properties of PostN-APs confirmed by the analysis and considered to be quite useful for the preparation of grammatical teaching materials are as follows : 1) The PostN-AP is of attributive modification in that a PostN-AP as an adjunct modifier is syntactically added to a noun phrase (NP), a modifiee and composes an endocentric maximal projection of the NP, just as a PreN-AP does. 2) The surface structure of the PostN-AP, unlike that of the PreN-AP, is not properly analyzed syntactically and structurally. This implies that its surface structure is a transform generated from an underlying structure. The restrictive relative clause is claimed to be its underlying structure in the literature. A PostN-AP was a Comp-AP in the clause governed by a copula and dominated by a verb phrase(VP), and still retains the syntactic and semantic properties of a Comp-AP after it is transformed. 3) The status of a PostN-AP as a Comp-AP in the underlying structure provides explanation and understanding of the predicative and clausal properties of the PostN-AP construction identical to those of the Comp-AP of predication. 4) The tense element of INFL is found to playa decisive role in capturing the semantic and structural differences between PreN-APs and PostN-APs which are claimed to express the characteristic quality and temporary quality of the external arguments respectively. 5) The PostN-AP is a dual-functioning AP, functioning syntactically as a modification and functioning semantically and structurally as a predication. Considering that good teaching and learning should be accompanied by good and efficient teaching materials, I expect this study to be of help for the provision of good materials for English Grammar.
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KEYWORD
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postnominal adjective phrase, modification, predication
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