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44 Mekishiko-jin-no tomodachi “a Mexican friend” is a complex noun phrase In Unit 38, we saw that Mekishiko-jin-no tomodachi has two interpretations: “a friend of a Mexican” and “a friend who is Mexican.” We explained that the second interpretation is possible because Mekishiko-jin “Mexican” can be interpreted as a feature of a friend. There is more to say about this. The ambiguity of Mekishiko-jin-no tomodachi derives from two different grammatical structures: [noun-no noun] and [direct-style sentence + noun]. The first structure corresponds to the interpretation “a friend of a Mexican,” and the second to the interpretation “a friend who is Mexican.” This second structure is a type of what we call the complex noun phrase, but it looks different from the type of complex noun phrase we have considered thus far. The complex noun phrases so far studied clearly appear to have the structure [direct-style sentence + noun]: Akira-ga Naomi-ni miseta shashin “the photo that Akira showed Naomi” sakuban tomatta bijinesu hoteru “the business hotel where I stayed last night” The following additional examples also match the description: Souru-daigaku-no gakusei-ja nai hito “a person who is not a student at Seoul National University” Souru-daigaku-no gakusei-datta hito “a person who was a student at Seoul National University” Souru-daigaku-no gakusei-ja nakatta hito “a person who was not a student at Seoul National University” 105 Note that the non-past positive counterpart is missing from the above. Should we not expect something like * *Souru-daigaku-no gakusei-da hito to fill the gap? Actually, this expression is ruled out by a constraint prohibiting -da anywhere except in sentence-final position. As a result, the default -no appears, resulting in the familiar pattern: * Souru-daigaku-no gakusei-no hito “a person who is a student at Seoul National University” The second meaning of Mekishiko-jin-no tomodachi can be explained in the same way: * Mekishiko-jin-no tomodachi “a friend who is Mexican” In fact, the same analysis can be applied to cases where na-nouns modify nouns: * taihen-na hi “a day which is overwhelming” Given this explanation, the appearance of the phrase particle -ga in the following sentence is not mysterious: * hahaoya-ga Nihon-jin-no Amerika-jin “an American whose mother is a Japanese” * shigoto-ga taihen-na hi “a day when the work is overwhelming” Checking your comprehension: How would you interpret the following noun phrases? Obihiro-no daigaku-de ichinensei-no otooto chichioya-ga Kenia-de daigaku-kyooju-no tomodachi 106 For related topics, see also Units 38, 41, and 45. ...

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