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The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Page 410) defines "Fused-head NPs (noun phrases)" as follows:

Fused-head NPs are those where the head is combined with a dependent function that in ordinary NPs is adjacent to the head, usually determiner or internal modifier:

[1] i Where are the sausages? Did you buy [some] yesterday? [determiner-head]

[ii] The first candidate performed well, but [the second] did not. [modifier-head]

Now, the question is about this sentence:

[You two] are shallow.

Here, is 'you two' a fused-head NP with 'two' being a determiner-head?

If not, how should the NP 'you two' be analyzed?

David
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JK2
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    I don’t get why this is downvoted. Maybe because I’m way less versed in syntax than yourself or the downvoters; I wouldn’t even know how to approach this Q. But on first blush it definitely appears to be an educated, meaty question on the nuts and bolts of English, precisely the kind of question we all pine for here, in contrast to the dross we do get. Anyway, I’m upvoting, whether I understand the grammar or not. – Dan Bron Sep 10 '19 at 11:19
  • Whether CGEL would consider it a determiner-head or not, you two isn't the same construction at all as the first two, which are what I would label as Conjunction-Reduction instead of Fused-Head. You two is not referential, but deictic, and it's just another pronoun construction like both of you or we in the know, where context determines. – John Lawler Sep 21 '19 at 23:11
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    @JohnLawler I don't understand why it matters whether the NP in question is referential or deictic or neither. Note that 'some' in [1i] is neither referential nor deictic, whereas 'the second' in [1ii] is referential. – JK2 Sep 22 '19 at 02:33
  • Because there is no referent to be missing. Conjunction reduction on the head noun of an NP requires identity of reference between the two Ns in the conjoined constituents. You two is merely a dual pronoun, no more fused than y'all. – John Lawler Sep 22 '19 at 03:09
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    @DanBron I absolutely agree, you are absolutely correct, and I am embarrassed and ashamed as an EL&U member on the part of the downvoters. – Araucaria - Him Sep 25 '19 at 23:12

3 Answers3

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Here, "you" acts as the determinative and "two" as the head.

In The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (pp. 421-422), the following is written about "we" and "you" in the context of fused-head noun phrases:

The fused-head analysis avoids the need to recognise a large amount of overlap between the pronoun and determinative categories. In the present grammar there are just four items that belong in both categories: what, which, we, and you.

...

We regard the we/you students construction, therefore, as involving an extended, secondary use in which they [we and you] have been reanalysed as determinatives.

The we/you students construction is the same construction as the you two construction in your question. Therefore, "you" is the determinative, and "two" is the head.

Thus, if you remove "two," you are left with "you [two] are shallow," in which "you" is a fused-head noun phrase (determinative-head).

Edit:

I couldn't find any previous use of the we/you students construction that is mentioned on p. 422, so I'm not totally sure where/if they mentioned it first. Nevertheless, I did find an example of the same construction using "Irish" instead of "students."

A side-by-side comparison between "we/you" as a determinative and as a pronoun on p. 422 is:

a. [We/You Irish] will have his support.

b. [We/You] will have his support.

In sentence (a), "We/You" acts as a determinative, whereas in sentence (b), it acts as a pronoun. It is quite clear that the function of "you" in "you two" is the same as it is in "you Irish."

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Here, is 'you two' a fused-head NP with 'two' being a determiner-head?

If not, how should the NP 'you two' be analyzed?

"Two" is the (fused) head of the phrase. It is a determinative which takes over as the head of the NP for the understood noun. The noun referent "people" is left out (or guys, or dickheads..or any other noun that can be understood as having a personal referent) simply because it is too obvious to justify mentioning (however, it may add some new information that might tell more than simple "you two people". "People" doesn't contribute anything information-wise - of course they are people. On the other hand, "You two dickheads" says significantly more than just "you two")

"A SINGLE word (a determinative or adjective) is at the same time a determiner or modifier and also the head". (A Student's Introduction to English Grammar p97). In other words, what is understood as the fused head of the phrase is not "you two", but rather just the determinative "two".

The word "you" in "you two" should be analyzed as an external dependent in the NP - a determiner. It makes the nominal definite in the same way the demonstratives do, for example. (Those women and you two guys are the favorites for the award.) So, for example, the question "Which of the four of us?" might be answered with "You two", where "you" serves the purpose of identifying the persons in question.

"You two" is not a case of apposition, although the concepts of "definitiness" and "reference-specifying" do overlap partly. Apposition is to be understood simply as "naming". Most often the appositive NP literally names the previous NP referent - refers to it by a proper name.

CGEL (p374) gives a couple of properties distinguishing this construction from apposition. The striking point of difference is obviously the fact that we have only plural you and we/us in this construction. This means that the following head has to have a plural referent. (I think that a case could be made for "them" as well: I hate them crazy weirdos.) No such restriction applies to the use of appositive NPs. Even with plural referents the two constructions will be distinguishable. To take the examples from CGEL:

We supporters of a federal Europe will eventually win the argument.

vs.

We, the supporters of a federal Europe, will eventually win the argument.

  • As I understand from your brief discussion of apposition here and your more extensive discussion on other threads, the comma-delimited phrases in the following sentences would be regarded by the CGEL as apposition / not apposition respectively: 1. The closest planet to the sun, Mercury, is... and 2. Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, is.... Have I got the CGEL right? – Shoe Feb 14 '20 at 11:37
  • Yes Shoe, it is how I would analyze these NPs. Most often apposition comes down to literally naming the preceding NP referent. However, the terms "apposition" and "naming" cannot be used synonomously, unless we understood "naming" in a broader sense of "specifying" or "identifying". So, in the example from CGEL "A surprise present, a boquet of roses.. the appositive NP can be understood as "naming"something only in the sense of "pointing to", or "precisely specifying" the reference of the anchor NP. –  Feb 14 '20 at 12:01
  • It is clear that the intention in "Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, .. " is not to specify. "The closest planet to the Sun" is understood as simply predicating something about Mercury. If, for example, a professor of astronomy pointed to a constellation of planets on the screen and said like: Mercury, the planet closest to you on the right, .. the parenthesized NP would qualify as apposition. –  Feb 14 '20 at 12:13
  • Thanks. CGEL's position clearly separates the appositional sheep from the not-appositional goats. Hitherto, I have called both of the comma-delimited phrases (or similar examples) apposition in my teaching of English learners. I will need to ensure in future that I also say that one authoritative grammar classifies only the first as apposition. But that will be as far as I go. – Shoe Feb 14 '20 at 12:26
  • What I think is more important is that they understand the reason why or the context in which sentence 1 would be preferred to sentence 2 (and vice-versa). And this involves understanding the concept of theme as developed first by Michael Halliday in Systemic functional grammar. – Shoe Feb 14 '20 at 12:26
  • I understand Shoe. The key here is to understand what it means to "specify" and how it contrasts with "to ascribe a property" to a noun referent. The difference between apposition and NP predicates is comparable to that between determiners and modifiers (speaking of which, articles, demonstratives etc. were in the past subsumed under the class of adjectives). As I said before, for me this is not an issue of terminology. Proper categorization is necessary for clear understanding of different concepts. I also said that apposition is a concept with a limited use and effect in language. –  Feb 14 '20 at 12:46
  • Yes, terminology and classification are essential in linguistics. And if, for example, you want to compare apposition in English and German, then you must know exactly what you are referring to. But they are much less important in pedagogy - beyond basic knowledge of the names of word classes, verb constructions, cluase types, etc. Ok, that;s it for today. – Shoe Feb 14 '20 at 12:53
  • Classifying the other NP in "Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, ... as an appositive is a mistake, but not as big one as the mistake of failing to understand the syntactic construction that it really belongs to. "The closest planet to the Sun" here is a subjectless clause. A noun phrase is only one of the forms which are commonly used this way, especially in writing. –  Feb 14 '20 at 12:55
  • While explaining the OP's You two with the concept of the fused-head NP, you seem to be describing it as a case of ellipsis (e.g., of people). How come? Also, you're saying that two is the fused head. But you haven't told me whether it's a determiner-head or a modifier-head. Which is it? Thank you. – JK2 Feb 15 '20 at 00:53
  • I'm beginning to feel that we are talking at cross-purposes! Elsewhere I listed alternative views of what constitutes apposition. Other examples are Radford in Analysing English Sentences (p396) who discusses what he calls appositive relative clauses. And Celce-Murcia in The Grammar Book (p596) refers to reduced non-restrictive relative clauses as appositites. Whether or not one has failed to understand the various syntactic constructions at issue here seems to be irrelevant to the main point I am making - namely, and simply, that there is no consensus on what constitutes apposition. – Shoe Feb 15 '20 at 11:16
  • We are not Shoe, I understand you perfectly well :) However, I can only repeat the same: The term "appositive relative clauses" is inconsistent with the grammatical model expounded in CGEL. It may make sense in a different model, I wouldn't know about it. In my view, it is wrong to think of these different definitions as "alternative" ways of defining the same thing. There cannot be alternative definitions of apposition, all other things within the grammatical model being equal. Apposition is not an island in grammar, and neither is any other grammatical concept. –  Feb 15 '20 at 11:42
  • My point is that we cannot compare different definitions of apposition in isolation from the rest of the proposed grammatical model. To discuss the definitions of apposition in the books you refer to, I'd need to see how the authors define relative clauses, non-finite clauses, reference, clauses in general and everything else that pertains to the question at hand. Here, a forum member referred to a grammar book which states this: –  Feb 15 '20 at 11:47
  • "The grammar proposed in this book has no need for a class of particles, phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs, and it does away with the functional categories Subject Complement, Object Complement, and Obligatory Predication Adjunct" (Aarts, English Syntax and Argumentation, 2017, p. 189)" . The author's model must depart very strongly from the grammatical theory of CGEL, so it wouldn't make much sense discussing any single grammatical concept from his work in terms of the concepts established in CGEL. –  Feb 15 '20 at 11:52
  • Well, Aarts says in the preface to his Oxford Modern English Grammar that his 'framework relies heavily' on Quirk's and on Huddleston and Pullum's monumental grammars, 'but it should be noted... that I have not in all cases followed by the grammatical analyses presented in these books'. Later Aarts (p350) lists the various differences, one of which is the subject of this thread: fused-determiner heads. My background is in pedagogic grammar so I would find it challenging, as I said elsewhere, to pick a horse in this race. – Shoe Feb 15 '20 at 12:03
  • And to answer what JK2 asked above, and I'm done with my discussion here. "Two" in the phrase "Two people" is a determiner. If we leave out the head noun "people" two may stand for the entire phrase - it becomes a fused determiner-head. (Note however, that within the broader phrase "you two people", "two" is understood as a modifer, rather than as determiner) –  Feb 15 '20 at 12:06
  • I understand Shoe. Well, the author must have had a change of heart in between writing those two books :). The model which dispenses of so many concepts defined to minute details in CGEL, can hardly be imagined as "heavily relying on CGEL". Also, Quirk's grammar is at variance with CGEL on a number of theoretical points, so it leaves me wondering what that model looks like :) Anyway, the moderators will hate me for writing at length in the comment section. Thank you for the meaningful discussion Shoe. –  Feb 15 '20 at 12:13
  • @RejlanGivens Then, two must be a modifier-head. And thanks for the tip. Whenever my argument becomes indefensible, I should just say "I'm done with my discussion here". – JK2 Feb 16 '20 at 00:17
  • For one thing, my answer to your question hasn't been well-received so far, so I don't want to push my point any further for now. I need to see some interest in my views on the subject to be able to discuss the point in more detail. There's no point pursuing a discussion which is not wanted in the first place, it won't help anyone. Let's get some more feedback and see which way it goes in the future. What also doesn't help is an endless repetition of same things in the comment section. I can clearly see your problem understanding this, but I can't help you if you will have that attitude. –  Feb 16 '20 at 10:16
  • @RejlanGivens The OP cites CGEL and uses CGEL's terminology, such as 'fused head NP', 'determiner-head', 'modifier-head'. CGEL adopts the fused-head NP instead of the traditional approach (e.g., ellipsis, apposition, etc.) for pre-head dependends. So it was unnecessary for you to focus on discussing ellipsis and apposition in such detail. The poor reception might be due to your failing to focus on the call of the question within the framework of CGEL. This failure on your part is rather surprising to me because you seem to know the subject matter down cold. – JK2 Feb 17 '20 at 01:18
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"Two" is an appositive/appositive phrase to describe "you". For example, my sister Mary might actually be an angel. "Mary" is an appositive to rename "my sister".

According to the Cambridge definition above, "two"(not "you two") is a fused-head NP[determiner-head] like "some".

Allan
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