Syntax question worth asking

[Radius Solis]

Here's a little puzzler for y'all. There are two main uses of the word "worth" - in the first, it's a noun: "His net worth is over a million bucks.". In the second use, we get things like "That house is worth a million bucks." What syntactic category is this?

In a recent Language Log posting on transitive adjectives that take NP complements, Geoff Pullum assumes it is an adjective. I wrote to him proposing that it could be a preposition instead. I will paste in the email exchange:

Something that seems missing from your interesting post on transitive adjectives is a case for "worth" being an adjective. I am not arguing about the other examples you list, just this one... I just cannot figure out any grounds for calling it an adjective.

a) It cannot be used attributively: *the worth money, *a worth house

b) It cannot be used comparatively or superlatively: *My house is worther than yours.

c) Unlike your other examples (of transitive adjectives), it cannot be used without a complement: *My house is worth.


Whereas there seems to be evidence that it behaves like a preposition:

a) With the comparison structure it does permit, such as "My house is worth more than yours", its syntactic function seems comparable to that of "for" in e.g. "This game is for more than two players".

b) "Worth X" can also directly modify a noun to its left, as in "People worth a million bucks pay higher taxes", as might be expected of PPs.

c) Preposition stranding works as expected: "That's what my house is worth."

Don't look at preposition stranding; look at preposition fronting
("pied piping"): mysteriously fails.

And consider behavior in fronted adjuncts:

For $100, there is not much you can get.
*Worth $100, there is not much you can get.

Adjectives need something to be predicated of. Prepositions don't.

I agree with the results of his tests. I don't agree with the conclusion he draws from them, that "worth" has to be an adjective - I think it still has more behavior in common with prepositions than adjectives. And that cherry-picking one out of numerous valid tests as the definitive one doesn't help us learn anything. Myself, I'm inclined to stick this in the misfit bag and call it good, but maybe someone here has a better idea?

[merijn]

As for adjective test a), no adjective phrase that has material to its right can be prenominal. See for instance, *the happy with his raise man vs the man happy with his raise, and *the loaded with hay truck vs the truck loaded with hay.
As for adjective test b), i'd say that that is due to semantic issues
As for adjective test c), that is why it is called a transitive preposition

As for you preposition test a) I am not completely sure it is the same structure, and if it is, if it is not just the result of both being transitive.
As for you preposition test b) not only prepositions can modify a noun to their left, also some adjectives (including the loaded example above) can do it.
As for your fronting test, notice that not only prepositions can be stranded. It is never called that way because it is almost universal, but verbs are also stranded: that is what I see.

[Yiuel Raumbesrairc]

Could it not simply be a participle?

[Bob Johnson]

I'd call it half of the transitive verb 'be worth' and stop there. Sometimes it isn't worth thinking too much.

[Radius Solis]

As for adjective test a), no adjective phrase that has material to its right can be prenominal. See for instance, *the happy with his raise man vs the man happy with his raise, and *the loaded with hay truck vs the truck loaded with hay.
As for adjective test b), i'd say that that is due to semantic issues
As for adjective test c), that is why it is called a transitive preposition

On a: That's a fair point.

On b: What semantic issues? Examples like "My house is worth more than your house!" show the same semantics you'd expect a regular formation of "worther" to express.

On c: You may have misread. No other "transitive adjective" is claimed to require an NP complement in the way "worth" does, they merely allow them - and this was my point.

Your comments on the preposition-related tests are well taken. Mind that I am not really claiming it is a preposition, I'm mainly arguing it is a poor match with the "adjective" category.

[Astraios]

As for adjective test a), no adjective phrase that has material to its right can be prenominal. See for instance, *the happy with his raise man vs the man happy with his raise, and *the loaded with hay truck vs the truck loaded with hay.

Unfortunately, your * phrases are perfectly normal in my idiolect. But that's just me.

[Salmoneus]

No, I think it's very widespread. One could argue that it's due to noun-compounding: the intonation is more like a compound noun than a phrase, and one ought to spell it with hyphens, as though it were a compound noun. But that could be nitpicking.

His fronting point is surely wrong, though. First, that construction is perfectly legal, it just means something else (there's not much you can get when YOU are worth $100). Second, the same objection applies to other prepositions too: ?"without fleas, there's not much you can get". [Legal, but only when the prepositional phrase modifies 'you', not the thing you're getting, as in the 'for $100' case]. In fact, "for" is a really odd case, I think, because almost nothing else can be fronted while keeping the meaning like that, and some aren't even legal. *"On a bus, there's not much you can put". ?"On a bus, there's not much you can stack" [legal, but not the same meaning as "there's not much you can stack on a bus".] "Beside a dog, there's not much you can safely leave" - NOT a fronted version of "there's not much you can safely leave beside a dog"!

So so far as I can see, "worth" behaves like any other preposition in that situation - with the exception of "for", and maybe a few other odd ones.

[Salmoneus]

Just looked it up. Dictionary.com (based on Random House Dictionary) agrees that it's a preposition. Cambridge's online dictionary agrees with him, and says it's an adjective. Mirriam-Webster sits on the fence and gives four meanings - making it a noun, a verb, an adjective AND a preposition.

However, M-W basically agrees with you, because the adjectival use is marked as 'archaic'.

So I'd say you've got a fair amount of academic support on your side, and he certainly shouldn't have just dismissed the idea!

[zompist]

Dictionaries are not a good guide to syntax; they're generally written as if linguistics stopped in 1950.

But I agree with Sal that problems with other prepositions cast doubt on Pullum's objection.

It's true that "Worth what is the house?" / "Worth $100 is the dog" are awful, but these are not much better:

On what is the dog?
On the house is the dog.
At what is inflation?
At 5% is inflation.
Via Mefi is the link.
Without what is hope?

For his other test, note
*Of at least 5% I'm looking for a discount.

FWIW you also can't modify "worth" with "very" or "too". Though "easily" works fine.

Adding "right" is a test for prepositions ("right up the stairs", "right down the street"), but it doesn't always work ("right via Mefi") so it's not too important that "right worth $100") fails.

In short, I'm happy to call it a preposition.

[Chuma]

It sure feels like an adjective to me. That's not a very good argument, tho.

It would seem that the most correct answer is to say that the standard model for syntax breaks down in this particular case. A lot of scholarly debate is spent trying to wedge things into predefined categories, even when they just don't fit.

I'm not sure how this etymologically came about - did it use to be something like "worth(y) of"?

I'm trying to find other words that behave similarly. The best I can come up with is the Swedish word "tillägnad", "dedicated to" (as in "the song was dedicated to his wife", not in "he was dedicated to his work"). It would also be very peculiar without a complement. This word seems to quite clearly have come from a preposition+adjective combo; "till" ("to") + "ägnad" ("intended", or something). Much like other combined words, such as "it's", it's hard to fit into a part of speech.

My lecturer mentioned another peculiar category, namely, transitive nouns, such as "lack". In Swedish we can have the combination "avsaknad", from "av" ("of") + "sakna" ("lack" as verb) + "-d" ("ing"), but it oddly still requires the preposition, "avsaknad av".

[Radius Solis]

My lecturer mentioned another peculiar category, namely, transitive nouns, such as "lack". In Swedish we can have the combination "avsaknad", from "av" ("of") + "sakna" ("lack" as verb) + "-d" ("ing"), but it oddly still requires the preposition, "avsaknad av".

Do you mean the English noun "lack"? Because I do not see how it can take NP complements. PP complements definitely, and of course much more often it's a verb, but surely nominal uses of "lack" do not permit nominal complements:

a) I lack money.
b) my lack of money
c) *my lack money

[Kai_DaiGoji]

Since (by all the arguments) 'worth' seems to be either an adjective with a few unique properties, or a preposition with a few unique properties, I'm happy to give up on coming up with a categorization we're all happy with..

[Chuma]

Rad: No, you're right, that would be a PP. Still, it's a noun which requires an argument, which is kind of interesting, I think.

[Salmoneus]

It doesn't require an argument. It just usually has a genitive phrase attached to it - but that's not necessary. Cf "father" (usually "the father of" of "'s father"), "distance" (usually "distance to __" or "distance from __"), or "possibility" (usually "possibility of"). "That's the father", "that's the distance", "that's a possibility" and "that's a lack" are all possible.