명사구의 수식관계와 서술관계

Noun Phrases as Junction and Nexus

Jespersen (1924) classified noun phrases composed of secondaries (modifiers) and primaries (nouns) into two different types: junction and nexus. The noun phrase a silly person was given as an example of a junction that denotes a particular thing or person like a composite name, and the noun phrase many cooks as an example of a nexus that denotes a clause-like statement. This paper aims at reinforcing Jespersen's distinction of junction and nexus by analysing various examples of noun phrases and then at showing that a sentence containing a junction noun phrase can be paraphrased as an existentially quantified proposition and a sentence with a nexus noun phrase as a conditional proposition. Sentences like too many cooks spoil the broth are ambiguous and can be interpreted in two different ways such as ⅰ) there are too many cooks who spoil the broth and ⅱ) if we have too many cooks, they spoil the broth. Such an ambiguity can be shown to be dealt with systematically, depending on how the noun phrases in these sentences are analysed as either junction or nexus or both.