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I am having trouble picturing the structure of this preposition phrase

from the point of view of generative syntax (PP)

My attempt to run it down goes like this:

from (preposition) + the point of view of generative syntax (NP)
the (DET) + point of view of generative syntax (nominal)

And I am stuck here, because I am uncertain if it should be

[point of view] [of generative syntax](PP complement)

or

point [of view [of generative syntax]]

Namely, is the PP complement "of generative syntax" attached to the noun "view"? It feels weird if that's the case. Because that way it would mean "of view of generative syntax" constitutes a PP and "view of generative syntax" an NP, but that doesn't appear to be true.

Also I think the NP "point of view" is headed by "point" instead of "view", so shouldn't the complement attach to the head noun "point" or the entire NP? BillJ's answer here specifies licensing as the criterion for complements. So in such a case where the core that is followed by an NP complement is an NP itself, which is the noun that does the licensing or permitting?

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  • You are partly right. See my answer for a detailed analysis.
    – BillJ
    Commented May 6, 2021 at 14:38
  • from the point of view of generative syntax (PP) = same as: from the point of view of [whatever]
    – Lambie
    Commented May 6, 2021 at 15:00

2 Answers 2

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... from the point of view of generative syntax.

The whole expression is a PP.

The PP "from the point of view" is analysed as prep + NP complement, where the head noun "point" has the PP "of view" as its complement.

The PP "of generative syntax" then functions as a complement within the larger PP, so we have a PP functioning within a larger one.

We know it's a complement because if it is dropped the expression becomes ungrammatical (we can't say *"from the point of view of". "Of" requires a complement to complete the PP).

enter image description here

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  • I learned the part about determining if a PP is a complement from your Linguistics SE answer, so that part is clear. Regarding the phrase structure though, just so I understand your answer clearly, so "of generative syntax" is a complement of the PP "from the point of view", not the NP "the point of view"? Also would I be wrong if I said "of generative syntax" is licensed by "point", the head noun of the NP "point of view"?
    – Eddie Kal
    Commented May 6, 2021 at 16:23
  • @EddieKal I've added a tree diagram to my answer.
    – BillJ
    Commented May 7, 2021 at 17:23
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Since "point of view" is a lexical unit (non analysable) (OALD) it is not correct to consider "of view …" as a prepositional phrase. Accordingly, the parsing is as follows ("point of view" is treated as a noun and there is just one embedding.

  • from [the point of view [of generative syntax]]

Were it not the case of "point of view" being a lexical unit there would be two embeddings.

  • from [the point [of view [of generative syntax]]]
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