Nouns & Noun Phrases

9 November 2012

Based on “A student’s Introduction to English Grammar”, R. Huddleston, G. Pullum

What are the functions of the NP?

In a clause:• Subject A new book was published• Object They published a new book.• Predicative complement It is a new book.

In PPComplement I am talking to students.

NP= N + dependents

NNoun category includes:• physical objects: people, animals, places, things• substances: grapes, horses, Warsaw, mother, water• abstract entities: work, hatred, debt, presence

Nouns inflect for: number (singular, plural) case (plain, genitive)Plain : architect architectsGenitive: architect’s architects’

Dependents

They occur exclusively or with nouns as head.

Certain determinatives the girl, a month, every child, which firm

Pre-head adjectives old people, a big car, recent news

Relative clauses the boy who studied, the slides I’m presenting

Dependents in the structure of the NP

determiners some books, the girls, three boys, no reason

complements the loss of blood, a ban on smoking, the fact that she’s alive

modifiers a young teacher, a student from Ukraine, patients who complained

Determiners – obligatory with certain types of singular noun.I saw a girl. *I saw girl.

Complements are licensed by the head nounhis loss of patience/He is losing patience

Modifiers – no limit to the number of modifiers in a NP. a young student from Ukraine who complained

Internal & external dependentscomplement Internal a/knowledge of Latin)/, the /idea that he loved it/

determiner External these/old students/, some /students I met/

modifierInternal

External

a/ small house/, the /slides I’m presenting/

almost the /only survivor/, even a /good method/

Number: singular & plural; inflectional forms: cat, cats

Nouns with fixed number

• some nouns are invariably singular: - footwear, harm, nonsense, information, furniture, money- italics, linguistics, physics, news, phonetics *Informations are. *Linguistics are boring. *Money are

• or invariably plural- clothes, belongings, scissors, trousers- cattle, vermin *This cattle.

Count and non-count nouns non-count nouns are in minority

• Count nouns take cardinal numerals as dependents. Count noun: one chair two chairs.

Non-count noun: *one furniture, *two furnituresInvariably singular: furniture, clothing, equipment, eagerness, wetness

Count noun: one chair two chairs.

Non-count noun: *one remain, *two remainsInvariably plural: remains, credentials, proceeds, genitals

Furniture , remains cannot combine with any numerals.

Nouns with count and non-count usesMost nouns can be used with either kind of interpretation.

• Would you like a cake? Would you like some more cake?

• I’ve bought a new football. Let’s play football.

• I’ve suggested a few improvements. There’s been little improvement.

Subject-verb agreementThe verb agrees with the subject; inflectional forms of the verb; agreement involves person and number.

4 special cases:

1. Measure expressions

Ten days, thirty dollars, five kilometers are plural in form but the quantity and the measure they denote can be treated as a single entity; it determines the form of the verb.

Fifty days is a long time to stay abroad.Thirty dollars seems far too much for a pizza.

That ten days we spent together in Spain was wonderful. Another three days is all we need.

Quantificational nouns

2. Quantificational nouns: lot, rest, numberA lot= NP

The meaning of number is such that the NP must be plural.

singular plural

(A lot of money) was wasted. (A lot of things) were wasted.

(The rest of meat) is over there. (The rest of the eggs) are over there.

(Not possible) (A number of errors) were found.

Collective nouns3. Collective nouns, groups of peopleIn British English singular words which refer to groups of people can be used either as singular or plural. Singular- group as an impersonal unitPlural - group as a collection of people doing some things.bank, choir, class, club, government, jury, ministry, orchestra, party, public, school, staff, team, union.

My family have decided to move to England.The average Polish family has 2,1 members. It is smaller than 50 years ago.

My firm are wonderful. They do all they can for me.My firm was established 20 years ago.

Any, no, neither, none

4. Any, no, neither, none

• Any, no occur with both singulars and plurals. No objection is valid. No objections are valid.

• Neither & either occur only with singulars. Neither objection is valid.

• None occurs with both singulars and plurals None of my friends is interested. (formal) None of my friends are interested. (informal)

Determiners and determinatives• Determinative for the category; adjective -ive, category• Determiner for the function; modifier -er, function

Determinative: the student some good carsDeterminative Phrase: almost all students, very few new booksGenitive NP: my son, the teacher’s young son

What does the determiner do?

• It marks the NP as definite or indefinite

• The determiner can be a modifier/The better student/ won. Determiner in NPI feel /all the better/ for my holiday. Modifier in Adj.PWho’s /that tall guy/? Determiner in NPHe shouldn't have driven /that fast/. Modifier in Adv.P

definite the, this, that, these, those, all, both, relative: which, whichever, what, whatever

indefinite a, each, every, some, any, either, neither, no, another, a few, a little, several, many, much, more, most, few, fewer, little, less, enough, sufficient, interrogative: which, whichever, what, whatever, one, two, three,……….

Complements

Nouns do not take objects, they take complementsI criticised her decision. My criticism of her decision … object complement

Complements: Preposition Phrase, subordinate clause N + PP the return of the warriors an attack by a hooligan the removal of the files by the secretaryN + subordinate clause the people who need help things you forgot to say your ability to complete the task the rumour that he is ill

Internal modifiers

• Internal pre-head modifiers

A long story, the condemned man, a sleeping child, another two candidates AdjP past participle pr part. DP

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• Internal post-head modifiers

Food for the baby, students fond of linguistics, some people I met on the train, an email written by me PP Adj.P clause past participial

Combination of modifiersthe grammar book we have to study

that handsome, tall, young student in the room with a book

an old English tutor with 50 angry students who are complaining bitterly

External modifiers

• are within the NP but outside the head nominal Even the director herself, all the mistakes I made,

The fused-head constructionA single word is at the same time a determiner/modifier and the head.

/NP/Simple I have lots of grammar books but you don’t seem to have /any/.

They sent three exams though I ordered /ten/.

Partitive /Some of your notes/ are quite good.I have two photos of her, but /both/ are out of focus.They sent twenty copies but /several/ were damaged.

Special /Many/ would disagree with me on that point. I don’t think /much/ has happened while you’ve been away./This/ is amusing.

• the > that The impact of war is more serious than that of flood.

• a > one I need a book but I haven’t got one.

• every > every one I inspected a dozen cars but every one was defective.

No > none, none is the inflected form of no I have no money and you also have none. Compund forms:Some famous person > somebody famousNo harmful thing > nothing harmful

The, a, every in fused structures

Classify the fused heads as: simple, partitive, special1 Mary has two exams and Mark four.

2 Lots of students understood it and most thought it was easy.

3 You’ve made progress, but much still remains to be done.

4 There are foreigners out there; I saw several.

5 Many are called but few are chosen.

6 There were several options, and as usual he took the best.

7 Which of the topics did you find the most interesting?

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Pronouns

• Personal: I like them.• Reciprocal: They dislike each other.• Interrogative: Who saw them? What do you want?• Relative: the guy who helped us the book which you recommend

Gender• Masculine; he is used for males-humans or animals• Feminine; she is used for females, political entities,

ships• Neutral, it is used for inanimates or for male or

female animals, human infants

Cases

• Nominative ‘the man’• Genitive ‘of the man’• Dative ‘to the man’• Accusative ‘the man’• Ablative ‘by the man’• Vocative ‘O man!’

No locative case

The nominative-accusative contrast of case• They wrote the examinations. subject: nominative

• They finished them in room 102. object of verb: accusative

• I talked to them yesterday. object of prep.: accusative

• It was they/them who complained. Predicative Complement (PC) : nominative or accusative Verbless constructions: She is a year older than I. She is a year older than me.

Style: nominative - formal style accusative - informal, ordinary conversation

The Genitive

Genitive is marked by the apostrophe and the suffix ‘s – cat’s or by the apostrophe alone cats’. The teacher’s car was stolen. The teachers’ car was stolen.These people’s fate is unknown.• The ‘s suffix occurs at the end of the genitive NP

someone else’s responsibilitythe guy next door’s voice

• Dual function of the genitive asa definite determiner the patient’s condition and a clause subject the condition of the patient is serious

The genitive constructions

1 Subject of a gerund participial clause

She didn’t approve of /his being given a second chance/.

2 Fused head They accepted Mary’s proposal but not Mark’s.

3 Oblique The argument was caused by a stupid remark of Mark’s.

4 Predicative Everything in this room is John’s.

5 Attributive They’ve moved on to a new students’ dormitory.