※ 國立清華大學語言所101學年度第二學期專題演講一 ※

演講者： 何萬順 (國立政治大學語言所教授)

演講題目：Sound of Silence:
Revisiting Richard Kayne's 'Grand' Analysis

時間： 2013 年 3 月 6 日(星期三) 中午 12 時 30 分

地點： 語言所研討室(人社院 B305 室)

Abstract
In colloquial English grand is used as a monetary unit, e.g., ten grand meaning ten thousand dollars/bucks. Kayne’s (2012) account relies heavily on the idea of silent elements (SEs) and ten grand has for itsunderlying source: ten THOUSAND BUCKS IN grand TOTAL, where grand is an adjective and elements in capital letters are SEs. Law (2012) argues for a similar but simpler underlying source: ten THOUSAND grand BUCKS, where grand is likewise an adjective. This paper first offers a specific conception of SEs in a feature-based taxonomy of lexical items in lexical array and then challenges the very foundation of the two SEs accounts by demonstrating that the sources and the surface forms are not semantically equivalent. Contrary to Kayne’s (2012) claim, there are many other cases where grandis unmistakably a noun and the monetary grand has not lost its earlier plural form grands entirely. The SE accounts also have difficulty explaining the acquisition issue. Our account situates grand among other similar terms, e.g., penny, nickel, quarter, buck, greenback, thou, G, mil, etc., and poses grand as a noun, whose grammatical status is on a par with that of G and nickel.