Talk:List of English determiners

"type of", "kind of", and "sort of" are compound determiners

@User:Brett

So, you made this revert as unsupported. On the other hand, native speakers of English subconsciously and automatically use "type of", "kind of", and "sort of" as compound determiners. For example:

• "This is a type of company that..."   Correct
• "This is a type of a company that..."   Wrong!

But "part of" is not a determiner:

• "This is a part of company that..." 1   Wrong!
• "This is a part of a company that..."   Correct

I am amazed that I cannot find any source on something that should be explained in every grammar textbook. But you, as a professor of English, could explain it on your website, and then we could cite you. Regards 85.193.215.210 (talk) 13:14, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

What you have here is a careful and interesting observation paired with a hasty conclusion. There really isn't any reason to think that these NOUN + PREPOSITION strings have been re-analyzed as determiners. The words type, sort, and kind are clearly nouns:

1. Each of the words can be plural (e.g., two types of car), as we would expect if they were nouns.
2. They can be modified by adjectives (e.g., the right type of person), as we would expect if they were nouns.
3. When singular, they require a determinative (e.g., my type of person), as we would expect if they were nouns. In contrast, most determiners cannot appear together with another determiner.
4. Other nouns work in this same construction: style of game, breed of dog, form of behaviour, mode of action, variety of plant, etc.
5. This pattern can be extended to non-category nouns: point of view, rule of law, secretary of state, matter of fact, etc.

Note, also, that there are many cases where singular count nouns, which would otherwise require a determinative, lack one in a non-of PP.

• in case, in place, in fact, in turn, in town, as part of..., at work, at lunch, to bed, etc.

So the thing that needs explanation is why sometimes singular count nouns do not require a determinative in a PP, but assigning type of, etc. to the determiner category is not the right solution.--Brett (talk) 14:21, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

@User:Brett It is obvious (at least to me) that "type", "kind", and "sort" are nouns. But my observation refers to phrases. And just because "type" is a noun, does not mean that "type of" is also a noun. Phrases in language often work completely differently than their compounds. (Of course, an expert like you knows it very well. I mentioned about it with other readers in mind, as our discussion is public.) Regardless of whether those phrases are determiners, they work as if they were, at least according to Google search results.

Your further explanations (points 3 and 4) were an enlightening experience for me. I use phrases like "style of game", "point of view" etc. but now I wonder why? I see that English is even more illogical than I thought. Maybe I should extend my "improvised theory of compound determiners" and change the main rule, in which the key element would be": NOUN + PREPOSITION, or even PREPOSITION alone, though not all nouns, and not all prepositions. Besides, the very definition of a determiner is rather vague. Your approach is strictly scientific, which is understandable, but from my perspective the English language is such an illogical mess, that a practical approach seems more useful. After all, native speakers of any language do not really learn their language, they acquire it. But, generally I have nothing against rules, if the number of exceptions is much smaller than 50%.

Here is what I found in Google (the second number comes from books):

• "the speed of bullet is" 26k 400
• "the speed of a bullet is" 81k 6k

• "the speed of satellite is" 67k 1k
• "the speed of a satellite is" 112k 3.3k

It is easy to notice a pattern in the above examples, but the number of exceptions is overwhelming.

I am really impressed with your explanations. Thank you! 85.193.215.210 (talk) 02:13, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

When you say, "and just because type is a noun, does not mean that type of is also a noun," my reply is, of course not, but not for the reasons you seem to think. Noun (and Determiner) are lexical categories. They apply to lexemes, individual words, and are never composed of other words.

It is simply not possible for a noun to be composed of a noun and another word (setting aside cases like breakfast where the words are no longer independent; you can't have *brokefast in the way you can have types of). What you can have is a noun phrase (NP), determiner phrase (DP), verb phrase (VP), etc. But to get a DP, you need a D and to get a VP, you need a V. You can't get a DP from an N and a Preposition.

The constituent structure in the NP a kind of car, is

[ [a] [kind [of [car] ] ] ]

Note the open bracket after kind or the lack of a close bracket after of. There's the PP of car and the NP kind of car, but there's no phrase that is kind of.

So, again, there is the question of why car can appear in this PP without a determiner, but assigning the string kind of to the determiner category is not a possible move that can be made towards answering it. Brett (talk) 21:13, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

@Brett With all due respect, grammarians like to present examples that prove the rule, and such is the case with "a kind of car". The problem is that those examples make up, say, 60-80% of similar phrases. But what about 20-40% of exceptions like "speed of"? Which rule explains why "type of" works like a determiner and "part of" does not? The problem with English is not "hard to understand rules", but thousands of exceptions. And even the rules themselves are not always consistent, like those referring to conditionals and reported speech. You wrote:

• So the thing that needs explanation is why sometimes singular count nouns do not require a determinative in a PP ()

So, you want to add an additional rule that defines exceptions to the main rule. Note that such a compound rule would have no exceptions. The real exception is something that is not included in a rule. But now, our compound rule includes all possible exceptions. So in fact we created a rule without exceptions, which is exactly what we need because it is much easier to memorize one additional rule than hundreds of exceptions. So where is the problem? The problem is with that additional rule. We have a main rule that defines a set of elements that we do want, but we also have a large set of elements that we do not want (we call them exceptions). This set of excluded elements is large, so we want a rule that somehow defines them, otherwise we would have to explicitly list them, which would be highly impractical, for example to list a hundred of them. We need a rule that would be a simple criterion for excluding unwanted elements like "words that starts with a letter 'B' ". Unfortunately, those elements seem to have nothing in common with each other, which means that we will never find any criterion, and all we can do is memorize them. If there are only several exceptions, then we can explicitly define them in the additional rule. But even if we excluded only one element, such a definition would not be elegant. We might well define a narcotic as a "psychoactive substance with numbing or paralyzing properties" and then add: except morphine or except alcohol.

What you wrote about the brackets comes down to: add "of" between "kind" and "car". I think that the more general rule is: [a] [kind [of [NOUN] ] ]. Of course, a kind car does not make sense, unless in a phrase like "one of a kind car", which completely changes the meaning. 85.193.215.210 (talk) 21:14, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Exactly what change is it that you want to make to the article? This talk page is not a forum. 86.187.226.197 (talk) 20:49, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

The IP wrote:

• Exactly what change is it that you want to make to the article?

Not only did I want to make a change, but I did make it. The fact that my change has been reverted does not make this talk unnecessary - just the opposite - because now Brett, who is a professor of English, explains why I was wrong. And his explanations are very important to the article because there are lot of problems with determiners in English. And even native English speakers make mistakes related to determiners.

• This talk page is not a forum.

To be more precise: it is not a forum on which you can claim that I am not welcome here [1] or accuse me of incompetence in English just because you disagree with me or do not like me or hate me. If you are competent in English grammar then feel free to write something constructive here. If you enlighten me I will appreciate your effort - seriously, no sarcasm intended. 85.193.215.210 (talk) 15:49, 19 November 2022 (UTC)