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Word Order in a Noun Phrase and English Anaphors Essay

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WORD ORDER IN NP AND ENGLISH ANAPHORS
Tereza Štifnerová The purpose of this essay is firstly to show the word order of a noun phrase (NP) and how the head noun of the NP can be post- and pre-modified, and secondly to focus on meaning of some examples of English anaphors and the distinctions between them and their Czech translations. The first part is going to aim on the internal structure of NPs. Complex nominal phrase consists of the pre-modifying elements, the head noun and the post-modifying elements. The so-called pre-modifiers can be divided into two groups: determiners and prenominals. We have to say that „determiners are obligatory and unique“ (Veselovská:86), and they have a specific place in the noun phrase – they are at the …show more content…

(11) a. an office of the teacher with the white door b. * an office with the white door of the teacher

In the second part I am going to translate some examples of English anaphors into Czech and then discuss the meanings of them and I will also try to show the distinctions between English and Czech forms. Here are the examples in English: (a1) Theyi killed themk. (b1) Theyi killed themselvesi. (c1) Theyi killed each otheri. And the translation into Czech: (a2) Oni je zabili. (b2) Oni se zabili. (c2) Oni se zabili (navzájem). The example (a1) has the index i with the pronoun they and the index k with the accusative case of the pronoun they, which means that the pronoun they have a meaning of „people“, which are NOT the people included in the meaning of them, i.e. them has the so-called disjoined refference. The following examples (12), (13) and (14) show that in English the nominative and accusative cases of the pronoun they are used to mark different (groups of) people. (12) (13) (14) The thievesi killed themk. The thievesi killed the thievesk. *The thievesi killed the thievesi. → the thieves ≠ them → they are not the same thieves so they cannot have the same index

The example (b1) has the index i in both cases – it means that they and themselves includes the same people. Because themselves is a reflexive pronoun, we know that the group of people indicated in they is the same group of people as in themselves. In the example

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