The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language (16 page)

Conversely, a single concept, like “being interested,” can be expressed by different parts of speech:

A part of speech, then, is not a kind of meaning; it is a kind of token that obeys certain formal rules, like a chess piece or a poker chip. A noun, for example, is simply a word that does nouny things; it is the kind of word that comes after an article, can have an ’
s
stuck onto it, and so on. There is a connection between concepts and part-of-speech categories, but it is a subtle and abstract one. When we construe an aspect of the world as something that can be identified and counted or measured and that can play a role in events, language often allows us to express that aspect as a noun, whether or not it is a physical object. For example, when we say
I have three reasons for leaving
, we are counting reasons as if they were objects (though of course we do not literally think that a reason can sit on a table or be kicked across a room). Similarly, when we construe some aspect of the world as an event or state involving several participants that affect one other, language often allows us to express that aspect as a verb. For example, when we say
The situation justified drastic measures
, we are talking about justification as if it were something the situation did, though again we know that justification is not something we can watch happening at a particular time and place. Nouns are
often
used for names of things, and verbs for something being done, but because the human mind can construe reality in a variety of ways, nouns and verbs are not limited to those uses.

Now what about the phrases that group words into branches? One of the most intriguing discoveries of modem linguistics is that there appears to be a common anatomy in all phrases in all the world’s languages.

Take the English noun phrase. A noun phrase (NP) is named after one special word, a noun, that must be inside it. The noun phrase owes most of its properties to that one noun. For example, the NP
the cat in the hat
refers to a kind of cat, not a kind of hat; the meaning of the word
cat
is the core of the meaning of the whole phrase. Similarly, the phrase
fox in socks
refers to a fox, not socks, and the entire phrase is singular in number (that is, we say that the fox in socks
is
or
was
here, not
are
or
were
here), because the word
fox
is singular in number. This special noun is called the “head” of the phrase, and the information filed with that word in memory “percolates up” to the topmost node, where it is interpreted as characterizing the phrase as a whole. The same goes for verb phrases:
flying to Rio before the police catch him
is an example of flying, not an example of catching, so the verb
flying
is called its head. Here we have the first principle of building the meaning of a phrase out of the meaning of the words inside the phrase. What the entire phrase is “about” is what its head word is about.

The second principle allows phrases to refer not just to single things or actions in the world but to sets of players that interact with each other in a particular way, each with a specific role. For example, the sentence
Sergey gave the documents to the spy
is not just about any old act of giving. It choreographs three entities: Sergey (the giver), documents (the gift), and a spy (the recipient). These role-players are usually called “arguments,” which has nothing to do with bickering; it’s the term used in logic and mathematics for a participant in a relationship. A noun phrase, too, can assign roles to one or more players, as in
picture of John, governor of California
, and
sex with Dick Cavett
, each defining one role. The head and its role-players—other than the subject role, which is special—are joined together in a subphrase, smaller than an NP or a VP, that has the kind of non-mnemonic label that has made generative linguistics so uninviting, “N-bar” and “V-bar,” named after the way they are written,
and
:

The third ingredient of a phrase is one or more modifiers (usually called “adjuncts”). A modifier is different from a role-player. Take the phrase
The man from Illinois
. Being a man from Illinois is not like being a governor of California. To be a governor, you have to be a governor of something; the Californianess plays a role in what it means for someone to be governor of California. In contrast,
from Illinois
is just a bit of information that we add on to help identify which man we are talking about; being from one state or another is not an inherent part of what it means to be a man. This distinction in meaning between role-players and modifiers (“arguments” and “adjuncts,” in lingo) dictates the geometry of the phrase structure tree. The role-player stays next to the head noun inside the N-bar, but the modifier goes upstairs, though still inside the NP house:

This restriction of the geometry of phrase structure trees is not just playing with notation; it is a hypothesis about how the rules of language are set up in our brains, governing the way we talk. It dictates that if a phrase contains both a role-player
and
a modifier, the role-player has to be closer to the head than the modifier is—there’s no way the modifier could get between the head noun and the role-player without crossing branches in the tree (that is, sticking extraneous words in among the bits of the N-bar), which is illegal. Consider Ronald Reagan. He used to be the governor of California, but he was born in Tampico, Illinois. When he was in office, he could have been referred to as
the governor of California from Illinois
(role-player, then modifier). It would have sounded odd to refer to him as
the governor from Illinois of California
(modifier, then role-player). More pointedly, in 1964 Robert F. Kennedy’s senatorial ambitions ran up against the inconvenient fact that both Massachusetts seats were already occupied (one by his younger brother Edward). So he simply took up residence in New York and ran for the U.S. Senate from there, soon becoming
the senator from New York from Massachusetts
. Not
the senator from Massachusetts from New York
—though that does come close to the joke that Bay Staters used to tell at the time, that they lived in the only state entitled to
three
senators.

Interestingly, what is true of N-bars and noun phrases is true of V-bars and verb phrases. Say that Sergey gave those documents to the spy in a hotel. The phrase
to the spy
is one of the role-players of the verb
give
—there is no such thing as giving without a getter. Therefore
to the spy
lives with the head verb inside the V-bar. But
in a hotel
is a modifier, a comment, an afterthought, and is kept outside the V-bar, in the VP. Thus the phrases are inherently ordered: we can say
gave the documents to the spy in a hotel
, but not
gave in a hotel the documents to the spy
. When a head is accompanied by just one phrase, however, that phrase can be either a role-player (inside the V-bar) or a modifier (outside the V-bar but inside the VP), and the actual order of the words is the same. Consider the following newspaper report:

The aggrieved woman had a modifier interpretation in mind for
between two parked cars
, but twisted readers give it a role-player interpretation.

The fourth and final component of a phrase is a special position reserved for subjects (which linguists call “
SPEC
,” pronounced “speck,” short for “specifier”; don’t ask). The subject is a special role-player, usually the causal agent if there is one. For example, in the verb phrase
the guitarists destroy the hotel room
, the phrase
the guitarists
is the subject; it is the causal agent of the event consisting of the hotel room being destroyed. Actually, noun phrases can have subjects too, as in the parallel NP
the guitarists’ destruction of the hotel room
. Here, then, is the full anatomy of a VP and of an NP: