A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

14 Coordination and more

A simple piece of evidence for this is that a sentence division can occur between

the two clauses. The two sentences might even be spoken by two different people,

one adding to what the other said. And when we separate the two clauses like this,

the coordinator goes with the second:

[2] A: She 's a good teacher. B: And her students really like her.

We therefore use the term 'coordinate' not only for her students really like her, but

also for and her students really like her. We distinguish them, when we need to, by

calling the first a bare coordinate and the second an expanded coordinate. Here

are simplified diagrams representing the structure for [li] and [liii]:

[3]

a. Coordination

�

Coordinate, : Coordinate2:

Clause Clause

�

Marker: Coordinate2:

Coordinator Clause

I�

Jane is a and

good teacher

her students

really like her

b. Clause

�

Subject:

NP

Predicate:

VP

�

Predicator: PredComp:

V Coordination

�

Coordinate, : Coordinate2:

AdjP NP

�

Marker: Coordinate2:

Coordinator NP

I�

her assistant is very young but a quick learner

External syntax: where coordinate constituents can occur

Whether a coordination is admissible in a certain position depends primarily on the
individual coordinates. In the default case, if each of the bare coordinates can occur
on its own in some position, the coordination can occur there. Thus the admissibil­
ity of [liii] is predictable from that of the separate clauses Her assistant is very
young and Her assistant is a quick learner.
The fact that it is usually possible to replace a coordination by any one of the
coordinates is the key reason for saying that coordination is a non-headed construc­
tion. This kind of replacement distinguishes coordination very sharply from head +
dependent constructions, as illustrated in the following examples: