The Noun Phrase

The Noun Phrase

A noun phrase may consist of just a single noun or pronoun:

(1) She loves diamonds.

Or it may be a very complex structure with a whole string of constituents, including subordinate clauses and further phrases dependent on the main noun (the head as it is called):

(2) She loves those huge sparkling diamonds set in the gold earrings you gave her when you decided to divorce her last year in Reno.

We'll come back to this sentence and analyse it later. Let's start with something simple:

(3) the pig

And give it some literary appeal:

(4) the big fat white pig

The undeniable poetic quality of the phrase stems from the three well-chosen adjectives, which, together with the article, make up the premodification. If we expand the phrase into

(5) the big fat white pig rolling in the mud

we now have a postmodification as well:

premodification / head / postmodification
↓ / ↓ / ↓
{the big fat white} / pig / {rolling in the mud}

Elements of premodification

The first element of premodification here is the definite article, which belongs to a category called determiners. These are "article words". Their semantic function is that of identification. They locate the head noun in a particular field of reference. Determiners are:

the articles / the, a/an, zero article
demonstratives / this, that
possessives
s-genetives / my, your, our, her
Susan's, the woman's
quantifiers
numerals / much, many, (a) few, (a) little, some, all, each, every, no
two, twenty-five

The use of determiners is basically a semantic problem. But there are certain systematic relations involved which have a syntactic character. This concerns the compatibility of particular types of determiners with particular types of noun. And this in turn depends upon morphological components in the field of singular-plural relations. So here again, as is so often the case, we see that syntax is greatly affected by semantics and morphology. To give just three illustrations: in English you can't say *much people or *an information or *three news.

We don't want to go into all the ins and outs of determiner usage here. What we're concerned with in this seminar are the main points about determiners, which we can mention fairly briefly.

First, though, we have to clarify a basic semantic-morphological feature of nouns with regard to singular-plural relations:

Count and non-count nouns

(a) Most nouns can appear in the singular and plural: a/one pig; two pigs

These are called count or countable nouns.

(b) A large group of nouns, however, are "mass" nouns: air, earth, sand, water, furniture, crockery

A lot of abstract nouns such as love, anger, information, etc. also belong to this category. They do not have a singular or a plural form, as they do not refer to separate entities. You can't talk about "one" or "two" or "twenty-four" of them. We therefore call them non-count or uncountable nouns. As they govern a singular verb, however, they are sometimes called singular non-count nouns, to distinguish them from those in (c).

Also in this group are a number of words with a plural form but a "mass" meaning, such as news, billiards, phonetics, mathematics.

(c) Plural non-count nouns have a plural form and govern a plural verb. Many of them actually refer to single entities rather than a "mass": scissors, shears, pliers, trousers, shorts, swimming-trunks, scales, glasses, spectacles, compasses, minutes, quarters, contents

Others have mass meaning: riches, thanks, clothes, goods, surroundings, remains, outskirts, arms

It should be noted that many nouns can be used in both count and non-count forms, depending on their meanings.

The count or non-count character of a noun is important in that it affects the choice of determiner. Indefinite articles (and of course the numeral one) are restricted to singular count nouns, and the zero article to singular non-count and plural nouns. All numerals apart from one are restricted to plural count nouns. The demonstratives have special forms for plural nouns (these/those). Possessives and s-genetives are not restricted at all, but quantifiers are, for example: some, any and enough to plural and non-count nouns, many and (a) few to plural nouns, much and (a) little to singular non-count nouns, each and every to singular count nouns; both and neither are confined to "pair relations", but both has count-plural reference and neither count-singular reference.

Categorisation of nouns into count and non-count is therefore important because of syntactic compatibility with determiners. A further point in connection with language learning is that the countability features of nouns, although largely based on "natural semantics", do not necessarily correspond entirely across different languages. News and information, for instance, are singular non-count in English, but count in many other languages, such as French and German. And this, of course, can be a source of error.

General points on determiners

Determiners, as we have seen, are not a single word-class. Several different parts of speech can fill the role of determiners. The term determiner therefore refers to a kind of function - not at clause-level, but at phrase-level. This applies also to general concepts like premodification and postmodification. The determiner is a functional slot within the larger phrase-function of premodification. The determiner is typically (though not always) the first element of premodification and precedes other premodifying elements such as adjectives, nouns, gerunds and participles. These are "framed", so to speak, by the determiner and the head, as in (4) above:

(4) the big fat white pig

Determiners can only occur once in a single noun phrase. Two determiners cannot be combined:

(7) *the his white pig

However, some words that are usually determiners can alternatively appear as adjectives, e.g. certain quantifiers and numerals:

(8) the many white pigs; his thirty-seven white pigs

The quantifiers all and both can precede other determiners:

(9) all the pigs

Used in this way they are called pre-determiners. In this function they can also be combined with the preposition of:

(10) all/both of the pigs

Only all, both and half can directly precede determiners, as in (9). But the of-construction is also possible with other quantifiers, including numerals:

(11) each/many/ten of the pigs

Here too the unit "quantifier + of" is known as a pre-determiner. Semantically these are partitive expressions, i.e. they refer to parts of a whole entity or group of entities. Fractions and percentages are also common partitive expressions:

(12) three-fifths/60 % of the pigs

And in addition there are many nouns used in this kind of construction to denote quantities of objects or substances:

(13) a pint of milk; a ton of sand; two pounds of beef; a drop of wine; a slice of bread; a bar of chocolate

All such partitive expressions with of can be regarded as pre-determiners. (It may be objected that there is no determiner present in the examples in (13), but actually there is: the "zero article")

Nouns referring to containers of various kinds are also common in partitive constructions:

(14) a glass of beer; a jar of jam; a pot of tea; a jug of water

And this poses an interesting syntactic question, relevant also to the examples in (13): is the second noun the head noun? Or is the head noun really the first one? If we say that in the phrase a pot of tea the unit a pot of is a partitive expression, then the head noun is tea, and it is premodified by a pot of (which, therefore, is a pre-determiner). But we could also say that the head noun is in fact pot: in this case we would have no premodification (and therefore no pre-determiner), but an of-phrase as a postmodifier instead. Basically this is a semantic issue dependent on the context of utterance. If someone orders a pot of tea in a restaurant, then clearly they mean, first and foremost, tea. If an artist paints a pot of tea, then the main thing in mind is likely to be the object referred to by the noun pot. In other words, it is the semantic prominence given to one or the other of the nouns which decides the syntactic structure.

So far we've talked about determiners and pre-determiners. What about the rest of the premodification? This, as we said, is "framed" by the determiner and the head, and typically consists of adjectives such as big, fat, and white as in example (4) above. But nouns can also premodify in this way:

(15) the bus stop; the kitchen door

Two nouns together like this are often regarded as one compound noun. The semantic relationship between the premodifying noun and the head varies. In bus stop the premodifier gives the purpose of the head-referent; with kitchen door it is a locative and genetive relation. Another common type is where the premodifier is a proper noun (i.e. a name):

(16) Victoria Station; Leicester Square; Regent Street; Oxford Circus

A significant point here is the fact that such nouns in English have no article before them. Another common type of compound noun has a gerund premodifying the head:

(17) an ironing board; a walking stick

The semantic relationship is one of purpose: a board for ironing, a stick for walking with. On the other hand the head may itself be a gerund (referring to an activity), with an ordinary noun premodifying it and specifying it more closely:

(18) wind-surfing; water-skiing; hang-gliding

At least hyphens are usual with this type of compound. But many are written as one word: sightseeing, sunbathing, etc. There are many other kinds of compounds written as single words: seaside, saucepan, bedroom, raincoat, etc.

Participles are another kind of premodifier:

(19) a moving object; a used car

There are several points to note here. Firstly, it is important to distinguish between a premodifying present participle, as in (19) and a gerund, as in (17). The meaning is entirely different. The participle can be paraphrased by a relative clause:

(20) a moving object = an object which is moving

But a walking stick is not of course a stick which is walking. Premodifying gerunds and present participles are also pronounced with different stress. With a gerund only the premodifier (and not the head) is stressed:

/

(21) a walking stick

With a participle there is stress on the head too:

/ /

(22) a moving object

A second point is that when made into adjectives like this, gerunds and participles have any complementation placed before them, thus becoming compounds in their own right [on the pattern of the gerund examples in (18) above]:

(23) a tea-making machine; a beer-brewing kit [gerunds]

(24) a money-spinning enterprise; a pile-driving shot; a bone-shaking crash [participles]

This "pre-complementation" (i.e. pre-modification) involves nouns derived from direct objects:

Od

(25) a tea-making machine = a machine for making tea;

Od

a bone-shaking crash = a crash which shakes bones

In addition, participles can be premodified by adverbs:

(26) a badly damaged roof; a dangerously protruding nail

and gerunds by adjectives:

(27) a quick tea-making machine; but not: (28) *a quickly tea-making machine

A special note on participle premodifiers

We can say in English:

(29) a passing car; a waiting taxi; freezing weather; falling leaves; but not: (30) *a standing woman; *the smoking man

The participles in this case must appear as postmodifiers:

(31) a woman standing; the man smoking

This is a semantic problem, but again one with a syntactic consequence. Participle premodifiers like those in (29) are felt to have the force of adjectives. And we do in fact say that the participle is being used here as an adjective. That is, it describes a characteristic of the head-noun referent, and not simply an action that the referent is performing. The semantic emphasis with premodifying participles is on a type or category. Freezing weather is a kind of weather and falling leaves are particular kinds of leaves, or leaves in a particular state. One can speak of standing spectators (e.g. at a sports event), as opposed to sitting spectators, referring to two categories or types of spectator. Similarly, passing cars and waiting taxis are vehicles in a particular kind of state. Only certain participles can be used in this way. They express conventionalized concepts in particular collocations which cannot be constructed ad hoc.

Order of modifying items

Finally, there are certain general principles governing the order of modifiers. Returning to our pig, we can see that the big fat white pig cannot be expressed as (32) *the white fat big pig. A certain semantic order must be kept. The head is immediately preceded by the modifiers most "intrinsic" to it, which become less "intrinsic" from right to left. Usual conventions are

general / age / colour / proper noun / material / purpose
↓ / ↓ / ↓ / ↓ / ↓ / ↓
a fine / old / white / Indian / ivory / hunting / knife
a nice / modern / yellow / French / fibre glass / speed / boat

Finally, adjectives can themselves be premodified by adverbs:

(33) a very fat pig

Elements of postmodification

As the term implies, the postmodification follows the head, e.g.

(34) The man who is standing on the corner

This can be reduced to

(35) The man standing on the corner