noun phrase

1 noun phrase

2 noun phrase

3 noun phrase

4 noun phrase

5 noun phrase

6 именная группа

7 именная конструкция

См. также в других словарях:

noun phrase — noun a phrase that can function as the subject or object of a verb • Syn: ↑nominal phrase, ↑nominal • Hypernyms: ↑phrase * * * noun Usage: sometimes capitalized N&P : a syntactic element (as a word, phrase, or clause) that can be u … Useful english dictionary

noun phrase — noun phrases N COUNT A noun phrase is the same as a noun group … English dictionary

noun phrase — ► NOUN Grammar ▪ a word or group of words that function in a sentence as subject, object, or prepositional object … English terms dictionary

noun phrase — noun Usage: often capitalized N&P Date: 1923 a phrase formed by a noun and all its modifiers and determiners; broadly any syntactic element (as a clause, clitic, pronoun, or zero element) with a noun s function (as the subject of a verb or the… … New Collegiate Dictionary

ˈnoun ˌphrase — noun [C] linguistics a phrase that is used in a sentence in the same way that a noun is used … Dictionary for writing and speaking English

noun phrase — noun Grammar a word or group of words containing a noun and functioning in a sentence as subject, object, or prepositional object … English new terms dictionary

noun phrase — Gram. a construction that functions syntactically as a noun, consisting of a noun and any modifiers, as all the men in the room who are reading books, or of a noun substitute, as a pronoun. [1950 55] * * * … Universalium

Источник

Группа существительного (The Noun Phrase)

Группа слов существительного (noun phrase) — это словосочетание, вершиной которого является существительное или другая часть речи, употребляемая вместо существительного, например: местоимение, прилагательное: «the old» (пожилые люди), числительное: «the two» (двоя).

В русскоязычной терминологической практике, вместо термина «группа существительного» обычно употребляются термины «именная группа» [1] или «субстантивная группа». Если нас не интересует синтаксическая конструкция и состав группы слов, то вместо термина «именная группа» говорят об «имени».

Состав и порядок следования элементов именной группы

В некоторых случаях порядок следования элементов именной группы может быть нарушен, например в заголовках, вершина может выноситься в начало группы, например: «Part The First» (Часть первая).

Премодификатор в именной группе может быть выражен:

Постмодификатор может быть выражен:

Рекурсивная вложенность групп

Следует отметить, что именная группа может содержать модификатор, в который может входить другая группа, содержащая модификатор с другой группой и т.д. – так называемая рекурсивная вложенность, что можно продемонстрировать на детском стихотворении «The House That Jack Built»:

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Источник

Noun Phrase: Definition, Components and Examples of Noun Phrases

What is a noun phrase? Learn the noun phrase definition, components of a noun phrase and useful grammar rules to use noun phrases in English sentences with useful examples.

Noun Phrase

What Is a Noun Phrase?

A noun phrase refers to words that work the same way as a noun. A noun phrase features a noun, pronoun, and other modifiers. In this case, a pronoun is used in place of a noun, and it could either be an indefinite pronoun or a subject pronoun. An indefinite pronoun refers to a pronoun that does not specify a particular place, person, or thing. Words like anybody, everyone, someone, and nothing are good examples of indefinite pronouns. A subject pronoun, on the other hand, is a personal pronoun lie I, she, and he. A noun refers to the name of a thing, place, or person. This article gives you more insights on noun phrases, take a close look.

Components of a Noun Phrase

A Noun

A noun phrase must have a noun on which other modifiers are connected. A noun refers to the name of a person, thing, or place.

In this case, the nouns doctor, drugs, and hospital represent the names of a person, thing, and place, respectively.

An Article (modifier)

An article must be part of a noun phrase since it is usually connected to a noun. In modern English, articles include a, an, and the.

In this noun phrase, there is an article “the,” which is joined to the noun “office.” The subject in this sentence is the office.

An Adjective (modifier)

An adjective refers to a word that describes a noun or pronoun.

In this case, the adjective is “handsome,” and it describes the “man” Both words form a noun phrase, and they are also the subject in the sentence.

Prepositional Phrase (modifier)

It refers to words that begin with a preposition but has an object at the end.

The prepositional phrase in the sentence is ” in the dressing room” It gives details about the location of the clothes and also modifies “clothes.”

Determiner

A determiner clarifies/describes a noun. Examples include; those, these, that, this.

The determiner “these” describes the noun and forms the noun phrase “these girls.”

Functions of Noun Phrases

Noun phrases can be; a subject, direct object, indirect objects, complement, and object of a preposition.

As a Subject

A subject is a component of a clause or sentence that describes what the sentence/clause is about.

The subject in this sentence is “very many broken cars” since the sentence wishes to describe the cars. It is also a noun phrase in the sentence.

As a Direct Object

A direct object refers to a noun phrase, noun, or pronoun that is a recipient of a direct action of a verb.

The direct object is “book,” and it directly receives the action of the verb “bought” The phrase “for the whole class” also becomes part of the noun phrase.

As an Indirect Object

An indirect object identifies the person to whom or for whom a verb action is done.

The indirect object is the noun phrase, in this case, is “weak, sickly grandmother,” and it receives the food. The food is the direct object since it gets the verb action “cooked.”

As a Compliment

A compliment gives details about a noun. A compliment follows verbs like; am, will, is, were, was, are.

The noun phrase “colorful and gorgeous Ankara” is the compliment that gives more details about “the best African clothes to wear” It also complements the noun phrase” African clothes.”

As an Object of the Preposition

A prepositional object refers to a pronoun, noun, or noun phrase that precedes a preposition in a sentence.

The noun phrase in the sentence is “a dirty home” The preposition is “to.”

Noun phrases generally serve similar purposes as a noun. It comprises of a noun/ pronoun and other modifiers. It is impossible to have a noun phrase that doesn’t have a noun/ pronoun. Noun phrases can act as a subject, a direct object, an indirect object, a compliment, and a prepositional object. Noun phrases help one write descriptive information in a sentence without being wordy, and they also make sentences enjoyable.

Источник

Noun Phrase

1. What is a Noun Phrase?

A noun phrase is a group of words that work together to name and describe a person, place, thing, or idea. When we look at the structure of writing, we treat a noun phrase the same way we treat a common noun.

Like all nouns, a noun phrase can be a subject, object, or complement.

2. Examples of Noun Phrases

Example 1

The quick, brown fox jumped over the lazy dog

This noun phrase is the subject of the sentence. In other words, this sentence is about ‘the quick, brown fox.’ But, instead of just saying ‘fox,’ the rest of the noun phrase works to describe it.

Example 2

Here, the four words ‘a good pop song’ work together as a noun phrase. Instead of just saying “song,” Kesha sees “a good pop song” in anything. The phrase acts as a complement to the subject pronoun ‘there’. It is a complement because it is giving more information about the subject.

Example 3

The end of the season is hard for some athletes

The noun phrase is acting as the subject in this example. The five words in the noun phrase work together to name a period of time that is hard for athletes.

3. Parts of a Noun Phrase

a. Noun

A noun is a person, place, thing, or idea. All noun phrases will have core noun, with modifiers connected to it.

Example

The pirate buried his treasure on an island for retirement

The four nouns in this sentence are a person, thing, place and idea, respectively.

b. Modifier – Article

There are only three articles in modern English: a, an, the. An article is always connected to a noun, and so when one is used it is always part of a noun phrase.

Example 1

The river is deeper after it rains

In this example, the noun phrase contains a noun (‘river’) and an article (‘the’). The noun phrase ‘the river’ is the subject of the sentence.

Example 2

An enormous tree stands on the riverbank

c. Modifier – Adjective

An adjective is a word that describes nouns or pronouns.

Example 1

The young puppy chased its tail

The adjective ‘young’ is describing ‘puppy’. The two words combine to make a noun phrase, which is the subject of the sentence.

Example 2

This noun phrase has two adjectives: ‘quiet’ and ‘peaceful’. Each adjective modifies the noun ‘lives’. They describe what kind of lives people want.

d. Modifier – Prepositional Phrase

A prepositional phrase is a group of words that begins with a preposition and ends with an object. They add details, such as where something is or when an event occurred.

Example 1

The box in the attic is full of memories

This noun phrase includes the prepositional phrase ‘in the attic’. It is giving us a detail about the noun ‘box’ – where it is located. The noun phrase in this example is the subject of the sentence.

Example 2

My little brother always feared monsters in the closet

The prepositional phrase ‘in the closet’ modifies (describes) the noun ‘monster’. The noun and prepositional phrase combine to make the noun phrase ‘monsters in the closet’.

e. Determiner

A determiner is a word that clarifies a noun. It is used to differentiate between similar nouns. Determiners answer questions such as ‘Which one?’, ‘Whose?’, ‘How many?”, or ‘How much?’

Example 1

Those people are so friendly!

The determiner ‘those’ tells us which people are friendly. The noun phrase ‘those people’ is the subject of the sentence.

Example 2

Max gave a biscuit to your dog

In this sentence ‘your’ is clarifying to which dog Max gave a biscuit to. The noun phrase ‘your dog’ is the indirect object of the sentence (see part 4 for more on indirect objects).

Example 3

All children should have access to a free education

The noun ‘children’ is modified by the determiner ‘all’. The determiner ‘all’ answers the question ‘How many children?’ The noun phrase ‘all children’ is the subject of the sentence.

4. Types of Noun Phrase

a. Noun Phrase as a Subject

A subject is a noun that the sentence is about.

Example

Very few giant pandas remain in the wild

This sentence is clearly about the small number of wild Pandas, and so ‘very few giant pandas’ is the subject of the sentence.

b. Noun Phrase as a Complement

A compliment re-states or gives more information about a noun. It always follows a state-of-being verb (is, are, am, will be, was, were).

Example

A sailor’s best friend is a wide, open sea

The noun phrase ‘a wide, open sea’ gives us more information about the sailor’s best friend, the sea. Therefore it acts as a complement to the noun phrase ‘best friend’.

c. Noun Phrase as a Direct Object

A direct object is the noun or pronoun that receives the action of a verb.

Example

Grandma cooked a meal for ten people, even though there were only four of us

The verb in this sentence is ‘cooked’, and the object that is being cooked is ‘a meal.’ The rest of the phrase ‘for ten people’ creates a noun phrase that acts as a direct object.

d. Noun Phrase as an Indirect Object

An indirect object receives the direct object.

Example

Trudy gave her hungry, crying baby a bottle

The noun phrase answers the question, “Who did Trudy give the bottle to?” The phrase ‘her hungry, crying baby’ is the indirect object because it receives the bottle (‘a bottle’ is the direct object because it is receiving the action ‘gave’).

5. How to Write Noun Phrase

A noun phrase centers on a noun. But, that noun may be described by adding modifiers, and adding modifiers to a noun creates a noun phrase. You will quickly note that many nouns have articles (a, an, the) attached to them.

Источник

Structure of English Noun phrases

by Nguyen Thi Van Lam, TIL (Tun Institute of Learning, Yangon, Myanmar), May 2004

Noun phrases play an important role in the construction of a sentence. Without knowledge of noun phrases in English, learners could not produce comprehensible sentences. This article, therefore, aims to discuss the structure of noun phrases, both basic and complex. Basic noun phrases can be pronouns, numerals or head nouns with different determiners while complex ones include pre-modification, head noun and post-modification.

TIL note: This article was submitted to TIL in a format not suitable for web-publication, and was subsequently reformatted in HTML. The reader should beware that during the reformatting process, errors could have crept in for TIL is responsibile.

1 Introduction

Among the five different types of phrases in English namely noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, adverb phrases and prepositional phrases, noun phrases are the most common playing various syntactic functions in the sentence and clause structure: subject, object and complement (of various kinds), apposition and attribute. They are used to refer to things that people want to talk about: people, objects, concepts, processes and all kind of entities. However, the problem arises here: “How can we construct noun phrases, both basic and complex ones?” This article is to deal with the structure of basic and complex noun phrases.

2. Basic Noun Phrases

Structurally speaking, in the first place, basic noun phrases consist of pronouns, numerals or nouns with articles (indefinite, definite or zero) or nouns with other closed-system items that occur before the noun head including pre-determiners (pre-det), determiners (det.) and post-determiners (post-det.). The underlined parts of the following sentences are good examples of basic noun phrases:

2.1 Pronouns and Numerals

Actually, pronouns are a special class of noun. As their names imply, they ‘replace’ nouns or rather whole noun phrases, since they cannot generally occur with determiners. For example, personal pronouns have two sets of case forms: subjective and objective: ‘I’/ ‘me’, ‘we’/ ‘us’, ‘he’/ ‘him’, ‘she’/ ‘her’, ‘they’/ ‘them’; ‘you’ and ‘it’ are exceptional in showing no distinction. Subjective personal pronouns function as subject and sometimes as subject complement while objective personal pronouns as object, prepositional complement and sometimes as subject complement. These can be illustrated by:

Like personal pronouns, other types of pronouns including reflexive, possessive, relative, demonstrative, interrogative, universal, assertive, non-assertive and negative pronouns are all basic noun phrases.

Reflexive pronouns include ‘myself’, ‘yourself’, ‘himself’, ‘herself’, ‘itself’, ‘ourselves’, ‘yourselves’ and ‘themselves’.

Possessive pronouns are ‘mine’, ‘ours’, ‘yours’, etc.

Relative pronouns: ‘who’, ‘whom’, ‘that’, ‘which’, etc.

Demonstrative pronouns fall in two groups. One is “near” reference with ‘this’ and ‘these’; and the other “distant” reference with ‘that’ and ‘those’.

Interrogative pronouns: ‘who’, ‘whom’, ‘what’, etc.

Universal pronouns: ‘each’, ‘all’, and ‘every’ series: ‘everyone’, ‘everything’, etc.

Partitive pronouns, parallel to the universal ones, consist of assertive pronouns including the ‘some’ group (‘some’, ‘someone’, ‘something’, etc.); non-assertive with the ‘any’ series (‘any’, ‘anyone’, ‘anything’, etc.); and negative with the ‘no’ series (‘none’, ‘no-one’, ‘nothing’, etc.)

Apart from pronouns, numerals including cardinal numbers (‘one’, ‘two’, etc.) and ordinal numbers (‘first’, ‘second’, etc.) can form basic noun phrases, as in:

2.2 Basic Noun Phrases with Determiners

Not only can basic noun phrases consist of pronouns or numerals, but they can also comprise a head noun with determiners or determiners modified by pre-determiners and/or post-determiners. The head noun of a noun phrase is the central element and decisive factor in performing the syntactic functions of the whole noun phrase. It can be singular count noun such as ‘book’, plural noun ‘books’ or mass noun like ‘ink’.

Determiners can be indefinite article ‘a’ and ‘an’; definite article ‘the’; or zero article as in the noun phrase ‘books’. The use of articles is not the only possibility for determining nouns, but we can use such words as ‘no’, ‘what’, ‘this’, ‘some’, ‘every’, ‘each’ and ‘either’ before the head noun like ‘book’. These words, also called determiners, forming a set of closed-system, are mutually exclusive with each other, i.e. there cannot be more than one occurring before the head. Both ‘a the book’ and ‘a some book’ are ungrammatical. Determiners are in a “choice relation”, that is they occur one instead of another. In this respect, they are unlike ‘all’, ‘many’, ‘nice’, which are in a “chain relation”, occurring one after another as in:

The articles are central to the class of determiners in that they have no function independent of the noun they precede. Other determiners like ‘some’ are also independent pronouns:

B: Here is the. (ungrammatical)
B: Here is some. (grammatical)

With regard to the co-occurrence of determiners with the noun classes singular count (‘book’), plural count (‘books’), and mass noun (‘ink’), there are six classes of determiners:

The Possessive (‘my’, ‘your’, ‘his’, etc.)
Genitive (‘my father’s’, ‘Anne’s’, etc.)
No
Whose
Which (ever)
What (ever)
Some (stressed)
Any (stressed)

Zero article
Some (unstressed)
Any (unstressed)
enough

A (n)
every
each
either
neither

In addition to the determiners mentioned before, there are a large number of other closed-system items that occur before the head of noun phrases. These items, referred to as closed-system pre-modified, form three classes (pre-determiners, ordinals and quantifiers) which have been set up on the basis of the positions that they can have in relation to determiners and to each other.

The first class of the closed-system pre-modifiers, pre-determiners, is unique in occurring before the determiners. They are: (1) ‘all’, ‘both’ and ‘half’; (2) the multipliers ‘double’, ‘twice’, ‘three times’, etc. and fractions ‘one-third’, ‘two-fifths’, etc. and (3) ‘such’ and ‘what’ (exclamative). Like determiners, pre-determiners are mutually exclusive. Therefore, ‘all’, ‘both’ and ‘half’ have restriction on their co-occurrence with determiners and head nouns. The illustrations are as follows:

singular count noun

The, my, etc.
These, those
Zero article

The, my, etc.
This, that
Zero article

The, my, etc.
These, those
Zero article

The, my, etc.
A, this, that

singular count noun

The, my, etc.
These, those

The, my, etc.
This, that

These pre-determiners can occur only before articles or demonstratives, but none of them can occur with such quantitative determiners as ‘every’, ‘either’, ‘each’, ‘some’, ‘any’, ‘no’ and ‘enough’. However, ‘all’, ‘both’ and ‘half’ have ‘of’-construction which are optional with nouns and obligatory with personal pronouns:

All (of) my time = All of it

With a quantifier following, the ‘of’-construction is preferred

‘All’, ‘both’ and ‘half’ can be basic noun phrases:

Apart from ‘all’, ‘both’ and ‘half’, the multipliers such as ‘double’, ‘twice’, ‘three times’, etc. can occur before determiners to denote a number, an amount, etc.:

Twice his strength

‘Once’, ‘twice’, etc. can occur with determiners ‘a’, ‘every’, ‘each’, and ‘per’ (less commonly) to form “distributive” expressions with a temporal noun as head:

Preceding the determiners can also be the fractions ‘one-third’, ‘two-fourths’, etc. which can have the alternative ‘of’-construction, e.g.:

‘Such’ and exclamation ‘what’ can occur only with indefinite articles and zero one, e.g.:

The second class of closed-system pre-modifiers is ordinals which include the ordinal numbers (‘first’, ‘second’, etc.) as well as ‘(an) other’, ‘next’, and ‘last’. These words are post-determiners, that is they must follow determiners in the noun phrase structure, but they precede quantifiers and adjectives as modifier.

Cardinal numbers and quantifiers belong to the third class of closed-system pre-modifiers. They are mutually exclusive, following determiners but preceding adjectives as modifier. Cardinal numbers are ‘one’ (with singular count nouns) and ‘two’, ‘three’, etc. (with plural nouns), e.g.:

All (of) the three brothers

Closed-system quantifiers are ‘many’ (with the comparatives ‘more’ and ‘most’), ‘few’ (‘fewer’, ‘fewest’), ‘little’ (‘less’, ‘least’) and ‘several’ as in:

All her many good ideas

A basic noun phrase may contain various determiners, more concretely, pre-determiners, determiners and post-determiners which are in a fixed order:

As mentioned above, basic noun phrases consist of only one component such as pronouns, numerals or of two components including determiners and the head nouns.

3 Complex Noun Phrases

Complex noun phrases contain three components: pre-modification, head noun and post-modification. We are to deal with these components in turn.

3.1 Head Noun

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. This is exemplified in:

All of the beautiful girls in my class are kind.

Also, when the genitive is as pre-modification, the head nouns can be omitted:

3.2 Pre-modification

The second component of a complex noun phrase is pre-modification, also called pre-modifiers, including modifiers that stand before the head noun. Pre-modifiers can be closed-system and/or open-class items. Closed-system pre-modifiers are discussed in the structure of the basic noun phrases above. These items are optional in the complex noun phrases. Meanwhile, open-class pre-modifiers come after the closed-system ones and precede the head noun as in:

adjective as pre-modifier

Pre-modifying adjectives can be those denoting general description (‘beautiful’, intelligent’, ‘good’, etc.); age (‘young’, ‘old’, etc.); size (‘big’, ‘small’, etc.); shape (‘square’, ‘round’, etc.); colour (‘red’, ‘blue’, etc.); material (‘silk’, ‘metal’, etc.); resemblance to a material (‘silken’ in silken hair, ‘cat-like’, etc.); and provenance or style (‘British’, ‘Parisian’, etc.). These adjectives can be both attribute and complement.

In addition, pre-modifying adjectives can be intensifying ones which have a heightening effect on the noun they modify or the reverse, a lowering effect, e.g.: ‘real’ (a real hero), ‘definite’ (a definite loss), ‘complete’ (a complete fool) and ‘close’ (a close friend). These adjectives are generally attributive only.

Restrictive adjectives, another class of pre-modifying adjectives, restrict the reference of the noun exclusively, particularly or chiefly, e.g.: ‘certain’ (a certain person), ‘exact’ (the exact answer), ‘only’ (the only occasion) and ‘very’ (the very man). Like intensifying adjectives, the restrictive ones are attributive only.

However, there are a number of adjectives which cannot pre-modify the head, but can be predicative such as: ‘faint’, ‘ill’, ‘well’, ‘able’, ‘afraid’, etc. Not only are the head nouns pre-modified but pre-modifying adjectives can also be, especially when they are the first items after the determiner. In this case, it can be pre-modified in the same way as it can be in the predicative position. This is illustrated by:

With indefinite determiners, some intensifiers such as ‘so’ are differently used. ‘So’ is replaced by ‘such’, which precedes the determiner or else ‘so’ plus adjective would be placed before the determiner, e.g.:

Apart from pre-modifying adjectives, the head nouns of the complex noun phrases can be pre-modified by particles, either present or past, e.g.: an approaching man (present participle), the badly injured dog (past participle), etc.

The head noun can also be pre-modified by genitives, e.g. these qualified doctors’ salaries,these doctors’ high salaries, etc.; group genitives as in the teacher of English’s salary, an hour and a half’s discussion, etc.; or other nouns as in the city council, a love story, etc.

Another class of pre-modifiers is the type of denomical adjective often meaning “consisting of”, “involving”, or “relating to”. These items must come next before the head and can be preceded by a wide range of pre-modifying items, e.g.: the pleasant social life, a city political problem, etc.

Finally there are various classes of pre-modification, both closed-system and open-class. Therefore, when the complex noun phrases consist of different classes of pre-modifiers, they may be placed in a relevant order. The acceptable order of pre-modifiers in a complex noun phrase is as follows:

Источник