Basic English Grammar with Exercises

Suggested Answers and Hints - Chapter 3

prepositional complement of wild animals to form A'. The adjunct is merged with A' to

form another A' level. Adjuncts are added to the X' structure by making one of the

levels recursive. Then the higher A' merges with the subject DP to form AP as in (4).

(4) AP

e 1 A'

AP A'

very A PP

afraid of wild animals

(1d) The phrase in this sentence is a noun phrase headed by the noun book. It has a

prepositional complement about Britain. The noun merges with its complement PP to

form N', N' is further projects the NP level as in (5).

(5) NP

N'

N PP

book about Britain

Exercise 14

(1) a *The teacher from France of English likes going to open lectures.

b *Mary often drives too fast her car.

c *Every student in Cambridge of Physics gets an excellent job.

(i) The phrase that is responsible for the ungrammaticality of the sentence is the

NP teacher from France of English. The noun teacher is a one-place predicate that

takes the PP complement of English.

The prepositional phrase from France is not in the lexical entry of the noun. It is an

optional PP, an adjunct. The problem with the NP is that the adjunct intervenes

between the head and the complement. Considering X-bar theory the first rewrite rule,

the Complement Rule, is applied (2). The nominal head teacher merges with its

prepositional complement forming the X' level as rule 1 indicates in (2).

(2) Rule 1: X' Æ X YP

(3) N'

N PP

teacher of English