The Partitive Measure Phrase in HPSG

Abstract

This paper investigates the syntactic and semantic properties of the English partitive measure noun phrases. This type of phrases fall on the crossroads of measure phrases and partitive phrases. Traditionally it has been explained as a kind of partitive phrases. However, it has been an elusive goal to pin own its syntax theoretically in terms of usual partitive phrases. Among the critical issues are the semantic transparency, odd agreement patterns, and the special status of the partitive preposition of. This paper goes over each problem and classifies measure words into three types, based on syntactic behaviors. To incorporate those classifications I modify the lexical hierarchy for nouns and posit constraints for new types within the framework of Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar(HPSG).