Coordination and Modifying Structures in Syntax

English 1200
Yukari Jewkes
December 9, 2014

Abstract
In the utterances of an American person, two syntax structures, coordination and the use of
modifiers are found. Coordination is commonly used in English by grouping two or more
categories by using conjunctions such as and or or. In this paper, an example of verb
coordination using and is presented. Modifiers are words and phrases that denote properties of
heads. Sometimes, nouns function as adjectives when they are placed before other nouns. And
this structure can be confusing for English language learners.

In this project, two syntactic phenomena are found. One is coordination and the other is
the use of modifiers. Both are stated as additional structures in syntax analysis. (OGrady,
Archibald, Aronoff, & Rees-Miller, 2010) Especially, I found an example that nouns sometimes
function as adjectives when they are placed right before other nouns.
A subject for the audio sample is a 44 year-old Caucasian male. The audio recording was
conducted at his home using a digital camera. He was born in Virginia, moved to Utah when he
was 10 years old, and has lived there since then.
The followings are the five utterances chosen from the recording. Their tree structures are
given in a separate form.
1. That is the way
2. They went after Colorado.
3. You can schedule independent teams.
4. They all have in-state rivals.
5. She lived and died Notre dame football. (Jewkes, 2014)

Among the above utterances, a coordination involving two verbs was found in the
sentence 5. The two verbs, lived and died are grouped together with a conjunction, and. Thus, in
the structure tree, the three words are connected by tridental hands instead of typical two hands.
Also the V part does not include any NPs as the verbs complements or any adverbs, so the V
part of the structure simply consists of the three words and connected to NP which is formed
with two nouns Notre dame football.
Another thing found here is actually the connection of the two nouns. Notre dame is a
noun by itself, but in this case, it is functioning as a modifier for football. So in the structure tree,

I categorized Notre dame as an adjective, so that the two words, Notre dame and football form an
NP together.
By examining the utterances and their structures, I found that coordination is a common
phenomenon as the textbook points out. Also more interesting is the use of modifiers, especially
some words are interchangeably used as both nouns and adjectives. Unlike the modification
between adjectives and adverbs, which is typically done by adding ly at the end of adjectives to
form adverbs, the change between nouns and adjectives are not so easily recognizable. Only their
position to each other determines their connections. For instance, in sky blue, blue is the head
of the phrase, and it is describing a color. But when we say blue sky, the head is sky, and we
are talking about clear sky, not rainy or cloudy. While coordination is easier to recognize and
understand, the modifying connection between two nouns (or a noun-working-as-adjective and a
noun) can be confusing especially for English language learners when they are to categorize
English words.

References
Jewkes, N. (2014, December 7). Personal Thoughts in College Football. [recording]
OGrady, W., Archibald, J., Aronoff, M., Rees-Miller, J. (2010) Contemporary Linguistics: An
Introduction. Boston, MA: Bedfor/St. Martins