NOUNS,

PRONOUNS AND
NOUN PHRASE
 NOUNS, PRONOUNS, AND THE BASIC
NOUN PHRASE
• The basic noun phrase
(a) The girl
(b) The pretty girl
(c) The pretty girl is in the corner is Mary Smith
(d) The pretty girl who became angry
(e) She
The NP typically functions as subject, object, complement of
sentences, and as complement in prepositional phrases.
 Noun – Noun classes
Noun classes

Proper nouns Common nouns

E.g. Tom, John

Count Ns Non-count Ns

Singular Plural Singular

table tables freedom

 Noun – Noun classes
Proper nouns

Personal geographical calendar institutions/

names names items organizations

Bill Clinton the Nile Easter the UNICEF

 Noun Phrase

Definition: A noun phrase is a group word with a noun or a

pronoun as the head & other constituents as modifiers.
• Example: The second black bag on the table is
very nice.
art numeral adj head PP
 Noun Phrase

• Functions: noun phrases perform 6 major

grammatical functions in the English language:

1. Subject: This book is very interesting.

S
2. Direct Object: Mary kicked the ball.
 Noun Phrase

4. Subject Complement
Ex: He is a student.
S Cs
5. Object Complement:
Ex: We elected you team leader
O Co
6. Prepositional Complement
Ex: I work in this company.
 Basic noun phrase

Basic NP

(Determiners) + Head noun

Determiners = words of close-system used before a
N to “determine” the precise meaning of
the N.

Pre-determiners

( Central ) Determiners

Post-determiners
Pre-determiners All, Both, Half

Multipliers

Fractions

such , what (exclamative).

Pre-determiners All, Both, Half

+ Before: - Articles ( a, an, the, zero articles)

Ex: All the time
- Possessive determiners (my, her ,his, etc.)
Ex: Both his sisters
- Demonstrative determiners ( this, that, these, etc.)
Ex: Half those days.
+ Not before: Quantitative determiners (no, each, any, some,
enough, (n)either, every)
Pre-determiners All, Both, Half

+ Take partitive “ of-phrases” Optional with Nouns

Ex: All (of) the time
Obligatory with pronouns
Ex: All of them, both of us, Half of it
+ “All, both” occur after head, either immediately or after the operator
Ex: They (all) were (all) accepted.
Pre-determiners Multipliers Once, twice, three
times, double, etc.

+ Used to denote the quality of the nouns

Ex: Twice his strength
Double their papers
+ Occur with the determiners “a, every, each” and “per”
to indicate frequency.
Ex: Once a week
Twice every day
Three time each year
Pre-determiners Fractions one-third, two-fifths,
three- quarters, etc .

+ The fraction have the alternative of-construction.

Ex: One-third (of ) the time .
Two-fifths (of) the students.
+ The indefinite article can replace “one”
Ex: He did it in one-third/ a third of the time it took me
Pre-determiners such , what (exclamative).

+ Occur before the head noun .

+ “ Such” combined with “all/no, quantifiers,
cardinal numbers”
Ex:No/many/30 such incidents
 Determiners

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Possessiv
e : My, Zero (A)n every,
our, her, Article each, This, , Those much
.etc...Wh- some, (n)either
That These
words, any
some, any (unstress
(stressed), ed)
no enough
Determiners (six classes)
COUNT NON-COUNT

SINGULAR bottle

PLURAL bottles furniture

[A] the
√ √ possessive (my, our, etc.)
√ whose, which(ever), what(ever)
some (stressed)
any (stressed)
no
[B] zero article (as in ‘They need furniture’)
√ some (unstressed)
√ any (unstressed)
enough
 COUNT NON-COUNT

SINGULAR bottle
furniture
PLURAL bottles

[C] √ this
√ that

[D] these
√ those
COUNT NON-COUNT

SINGULAR bottle
furniture
PLURAL bottles

[E] √ a(n)
every
each
either
neither

[F] much
√
Note: Either book ~ Either of the books
His every word (= ‘each of his word’)
Post-determiners

Cardinal numerals

Ordinal numerals

closed-system quantifiers

Opened-system quantifiers
 Post-determiners

Cardinal numerals

- Apart from One , which can co-occur only with singular

count nouns , all cardinal numerals ( two, three...) co-
occur only with plural count nouns:

Ex: The two students The two cars

Det post-det head Det post-det head
 Post-determiners

Ordinal numerals

-In addtion to the ordinals which have a one-for-one relation with the
cardinals ( fourth~four; twentieth-twenty), we consider here items like next,
last, (an) other, additional, which resemble them grammtically and
semantically.Ordinal numerals, exept first, co-occur only with count nouns.

Ex: The first three planes His last two book

Det post-det head Det post-det head
 Post-determiners

close-system quantifiers

- Before count Ns: many , (a)few, several

- Before non-count Ns: much, (a) little

Ex: The few words Much stress

Det post-det head post-det head
 Post-determiners

Open-system quantifiers

- Include : plenty of, a lot of, lost of, a great of, a

large of etc.
- Verbs have number concord with the second nouns
, not the quality nouns (lot, deal, lost, plenty, etc.)
Ex: Lots of food was on the table.
There was a lot of food on the table
 Complex noun phrase

I. Structure
- Noun phrases play an important role in the construction
of a sentence.

- Basic noun phrases can be pronouns, numerals or head

nouns with different determiners while complex ones
include pre-modification, head noun and post-
modification
 Structure

Complex NP

Pre- Post-
+ Head noun +
modification modification
E.g.: All the 11 pupils playing football
 Structure
Pre-modification Head noun Post-
modification

Three Men In a boat

The Italian Expression For coffee

A Pen On the table

 Structure
• Modifiers before the noun are called pre-modifiers.  All of the
pre-modifiers that are present and the noun together form
a noun phrase .
NOUN      PHRASE
• pre-modifiers noun
      * ←
• white   house
    * ←
• large     man
     * ←
• Post -modifiers—modifiers coming after a noun.
a dream deferred
      → *
 Head noun
• A "head noun" is the main noun that is modified by other
elements in a noun phrase.
• It is important that you can find head nouns, because this
allows you determine whether the phrase can take an
indefinite article (if the head noun is a noncountnoun, then it
cannot occur with 'a' or 'an')..
• Like in the basic noun phrase, the head noun, first of all, is the
central element and core component of the complex noun
phrase.
• It may be count or mass noun which dictates concord and (for
the most part) other kinds of congruence with the rest of the
sentence outside the noun phrase.
 Head noun

• Ex: The only girl in this class is hard working

head
- All of the beautiful girls in my class are kind
- I like the car that you bought.

Car is the head noun because the adjective

clause modifies it.
.
 Head noun

• Look at these examples. The head nouns

are underlined. Notice that the head noun is
NOT the noun right before the adjective
clause.
• Ex:. The people in Japan I met were very polite
and friendly.
 Modification

Modification

function status

Restrictive Permanent

Non-restrictive Temporary
 Modification

Modification

• helps identify the head & indicate a

function status
status of the
limitation on the possible reference

Restrictive head Permanent

Permanent
• tends to come after the head
• tends to be given more prosodic
Non-restrictive
Non-restrictive Temporary
Temporary
emphasis
than the head
E.g.: The flowers in your garden are nice.
 Modification

Modification

• gives additional information to the head

function but is not essential for identifying the

status
status
head
Restrictive • the reference: unique or as member of a
Permanent
Restrictive Permanent
class that has been independently identified
• tends to come before the head
Non-restrictive • tends to be Temporary
Temporary
unstressed in pre-head position
E.g.: The book, which I gave you yesterday,
is quite readable. (member of a class)
She is his poor, old mother. (unique)
 Modification

Modification

function
function status
• Have reference to characteristic
features Non-restrictive
Non-restrictive Permanent
• Mainly the items which are placed
in pre- Restrictive
Restrictive Temporary
Temporary
modification position
E.g.: an ugly man
the easy-going lady
 Modification

Modification

• Have reference only to a specific

function
function status
time
Non-restrictive
Non-restrictive
• Mainly those adjectives which have Permanent
Permanent

to be
predicate Restrictive
Restrictive Temporary
E.g.:
A man who is timid = A timid man
A man who is afraid # An afraid man
 Premodification
1. Defination

•Pre- modification including modifiers that stand before the

head off complex NP.

• modifiers is a word (adj, adv…) that describes an other

word or group of words or restrict its, meaning in some
way. IT is the unit of forming a structure element.

• modification is the act or process of changing

something in order to improve it or make it more
acceptable. It is the structure element
 Overview
Premodification
Premodification
Predeterminer
Predeterminer

determiner
determiner Determiner
Determiner

Determiner
Determiner Post-determiner
Post-determiner

participle
participle

Adverbial
Adverbial

Sentence
Sentence

S-genitive
S-genitive

Multiple
Multiple premodification
premodification
 opinion
opinion
Premodification
Premodification
size
size
Determiner
Determiner

Adjectives
Adjectives age
age

participle
participle
shape
shape

Adverbial
Adverbial
color
color
Sentence
Sentence
origion
origion
Noun
Noun modifier
modifier
material
material
Multiple
Multiple premodifi-cation
premodifi-cation

purpose
purpose
 Adjective modifiers

a real hero, a definite loss, a

complete fool, a close friend
a certain person
the exact answer
the only occasion
the very man
 Premodification by participle

-ing participle: temporary: the approaching train

(=the train which is approaching)
Permanent: an interesting book
(=a book that interests readers).

-ed participle: passive: the broken vase

(=the vase that was broken)
Non-passive: a retired teacher
(=a teacher who has retired)
 Adverbial modifiers

Standing before noun to modify it.

The chidren are playing nearly house
My house have to go to far-away school.
Eg: I visited his far-away hometown.
 Noun modifiers
“a children book”
“a children book” means a book for children
the city council, the love story…
Or I bought a new computer game

In these cases the noun pre-modifier is closely connected to the

head noun that the two can almost be considered one word.

This illustrates that when nouns pre-modify other nouns they

always come next to the head noun ; nothing else can come
between them
 S-genitive

The spy’s companion

The spies’ companion
 Multiple pre-modification
Premodifiers head noun

Deter adj participle denonial

Predet det postdet gen age col shape… -ing/-ed adj noun

This beautiful new white Japanese cat.

The old pentagonal crumbling church tower.

 Multiple pre-modification

+ multiple head with one modifier

Old man and women
+modified modifier
A noun can be premodified by either adjective or noun….

The meat production increase measures.

The extremely beautiful pictures.

 Post – modification

• Definition of post – modification

Post – modification ( also called post –
modifiers) comprising all the items placed
after the head.
• The girl speaking English fluently.
Head post – modification
• The man who is standing outside is my neighbor.
Head post - modifier
 Types of post – modification

• Relative clause
Ex : the girl who is playing in the ground is my
daughter.
• Nonfinite clause
Ex : the girl playing in the ground is my daughter.

• Prepositional phrase/adverb
Ex : she loves the monitor in your class.
• Adverb
The road back
The students over there
• Appositive clause
The fact that he is rich
• Clause of time, place, manner, reason
The date when she was born
The reason why he was late
The way how I cooked the beef
The university where I’m studying
• Adjective
Something strange happened last night
• Multiple post-modification
The girl in the corner talking to John
Prepositional nonfinite
 PRONOUNS
(1) They do not admit determiners
(2) They often have an objective case
(3) They often have person distinction
(4) They often have overt gender contrast
(5) Singular and plural forms are often not
morphologically related
 CASE
 Common case (somebody)
 Genitive (somebody’s)
 Subjective
 Objective
 PERSON
 Personal pronouns
 Reflective pronouns
 Reciprocal pronouns
 Possessive pronouns
 Relative pronouns
 Interrogative pronouns
 Demonstrative pronouns
 Universal pronouns and determiners
 Partitive pronouns