A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

98 Chapter 5 Nouns and noun phrases

The partitive subtype

Partitive is intended to suggest denoting a part rather than the whole thing.

• In an explicit partitive, the fused head is followed by a partitive PP comple­
  ment, such as of his remarks in our example. The NP some of his remarks is par­
  titive in the sense that it denotes a subset of the set consisting of his remarks: we
  understand it to mean "some remarks from the set of his remarks". Note, how­
  ever, that in this case we cannot expand into a construction with a separate head:
  we can't say *some remarks of his remarks.


• In the implicit partitive the of complement is understood rather than being
  overtly expressed. Thus in the second example of [4lii] both is understood
  as "both of them" (i.e. "both of the two photos of her"). This case is accordingly
  different from the simple fused-head construction: any in [i] is understood as
  "any friends", not "any of them".

The special subtype

• In [41iii] many is understood as "many people", but this represents a special
  interpretation of fused-head many: people is not retrievable from the surrounding
  text - or even from the presence of people in the situation of utterance.


• In I don 't think [much] has happened while you 've been away fused-head much
  has an inanimate, abstract interpretation.

7.2 Fused detenniner-heads

Further examples of fused determiner-heads, with the determinatives
eight, several, and this, are given in [42]:

[42] SIMPLE

ii PARTITIVE

iii SPECIAL

They sent six copies though / had ordered [eight].

They sent twenty copies but [several] were damaged.

[This] is infuriating.

Almost all determiners can occur in this construction, the main exceptions being
the two articles the and a, together with every and what.

The, 0, every

These have substitutes in fused structures: the is replaced by the appropriate form of
that; a is replaced by one; and every is replaced by every one:

[43] a. *The impact of war is more serious than the of drought.

b. The impact of war is more serious than that of drought.

ii a. */ need a pen, but / haven't got q.

b. / need a pen, but / haven't got one.

iii a. *He inspected a dozen cars, but every (of them) was defective.

b. He inspected a dozen cars, but every one (of them) was defective.