The Specification of the Position and Relationship between Heads and Dependents in English NPs from Government and Binding Perspective

ABSTRACT: On the basis of government and binding theory, it is crucial to specify the position of different heads in NPs, VPs, APs and PPs in different languages along with their dependents and then the rules among the phrases should be distinguished and presented. This survey has been done based on a descriptive and analytical library study in which the English NPs have been carefully investigated to see the syntactic relationship(s) of heads and dependents of English NPs and on the other hand, to support why English NPs as Radford claims are considered as head initials while English head nouns can be both followed and preceded by their dependents. This study concludes that English NPs are head-initial because the frequencies of the dependents which follow their head nouns are more than those which precede them. It also shows that there are at least three dependents preceding their head nouns and five dependents following them in English.