Noun Phrase (I)

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THE NOUN PHRASEINTRODUCTION

A phrase is a construction which contains obligatory and optional elements and

which is named after the part of speech which has a primary function within therespective phrase. It is a stretch of language which constitutes a semantic whole.There are five phrase types, functioning as clause elements. The types are namedbelow and the corresponding clause elements are underlined in the examplesprovided by their side.

(a) noun phrases, e.g. Her father was an overworked business man.(b) verb phrases, e.g. She never signs herself Brown.(c) adjective/adjectival phrases, e.g. Tired of playing fairy, the child was nowsitting with her head on my shoulder.(d) adverb/adverbial phrases, e.g.Quite normally, late nights have a bad effect on

people.(e) prepositional phrases, e.g. In terms of the financial estimates, the company wasfar from bankruptcy.

The semantic whole to which we made reference above can be a grouping of lexicalitems (such as in the previous examples) or a single word, the lexical item functioningas head of the phrase. Examine this simple illustration of all those types of phrase:John never plays and people think he is dumb. We have underlined, in this order, anoun phrase, an adverb phrase, a verb phrase, a noun phrase, a verb phrase, anoun phrase (the head being a pronoun instead of a noun), an adjective phrase.

The NP structure can also be described as follows: nouns, sometimes pronouns,occupy the head position and refer to the participants in the situation described in theclause. The head takes a wide range of dependent items: (1) determiners in theform of (a) determinatives (the, some, which, etc.); (b) possessive constructions (thecats..., my daughters..., a years..., the Member of Parliaments..., etc.); (c)numerals; (2) adjectives as modifiers, (3) restrictive relative clauses asqualifiers. Those are the most distinctive dependents. What is mentioned as (1) and(2) precedes the head; what is enumerated as (3) follows/succeeds the head.Consider the example with two terminological sets and suggested abbreviations:

the last two unkept promises that I could hear from you

DETERMINERS PREMODIFIER HEAD POSTMODIFIER DETERMINATIVES MODIFIER HEAD QUALIFIER [DET] + [M] + [H] + [Q]

It should be noted that only prepositional phrases have two compulsory elements -the preposition and the central constituent of the noun phrase to follow (further downthe basic concept of this course, the noun phrase, will be abbreviated to the capitals

NP). Hence one can see the importance of NPs in English sentences as aconsequence of this multiplicity of functions: subject, object, complement, adverbial.


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We should specify a couple of things about the reference of a NP. The concept ofreference points to the relation between a semantic unit and an object in real life:this can be expressed as the relation between language and non-language. (Inmetalinguistic reference, for instance our presentation now, language refers tolanguage as an object of study by virtue of its property called reflexiveness.) Weshall be interested in more specific aspects of reference, classified as exophoric vs.

endophoric (as established by the criterion distance from reality), generic vs. non-generic (the criterion is degree of generality of the statement), divided vs.undivided (the material essence of the object referred to).

NPs refer semantically to aspects of the experience of a speaker which are perceivedas things or entities. Thing is a vague term indeed, but it is generally consideredto cover persons, objects, names of actions, places, institutions, relationships,abstractions, emotions, phenomena and possibly other classes of entities.Coreferentiality is reference to the same entity - as distinct from reference todifferent entities. For example, if the subject and the direct object in a sentence areco-referent, reflexive pronominalization occurs:

MaryexpressedMary in French Mary expressedherselfin French

In modifying elements, the items of information usually describe inherent, morepermanent qualities of the head, whereas in qualifying elements the information is ofa temporary, extrinsic kind. Compare navigable rivers to rivers navigable at this timeof year. The post-head specification is potentially of a greater length (an embeddedgroup or clause) than the pre-head one.

When personal pronouns are seen as heads of NPs, they are interpreted by meansof identification in the text of the noun or noun phrase for which they substitute.Exceptions are the first and second persons - I, YOU, WE, US - since they refer toparticipants in the speech situation.

Any elements of NPs can be achieved recursively, within the process of expandinglinguistic units. Each element of structure may occur more than once.Recursion/recursiveness is the property of language to repeat any unit. It iscreative use of language, but it cannot be abused. The speaker obtains a complex,such aspre- and post-operative care; happy though poor; many undergraduates anda number of graduates; over the wall and into the garden. Inside recursive formulas,the relationships established can be eitherparatactic orhypotactic. The former is acoordinating relationship and the elements are of equal grammatical status; the latter

is a subordinating relationship and the elements are of unequal grammatical status.Both relationships can be realised syndetically (by a conjunction) or asyndetically(without a conjunction; instead, in writing, a comma is necessary or, in speech, aslight pause). Let us illustrate the expansion of each element of a NP by means ofrecursion:(a) recursive determiner, e.g. half this last chapter(b) recursive modifier, e.g. an unattractive yellowish Venetian manuscript(c) recursive qualifier, e.g. everything most interesting to rememberFinally, a recursive head can be (a) asyndetically coordinated ( Her brother is myboss, my worst enemy, my bad dream) and (b) syndetically coordinated (You or I orsomeone will be made to feel guilty).


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There are cases when an element of the NP conflates its own function and thefunction of the unexpanded head element. Thus, an elliptical head is found in thefollowing example:

The girl cared for yellow roses, but her sister said she preferred red . (= redroses)When determiners such as those, each, many, twenty, etc. stand alone, they are

used pronominally and they are heads themselves and not elliptical heads, accordingto most grammarians. Then, there is the case of the conversion of adjectives, suchas the humble, for which the head people is not named, but if named, this headleads to the omission of the definite determiner.

There has been signalled the tendency of heads and postmodifiers to beellipted, and this has been called final ellipsis. For example:

Although Marys world of daydreams seemed to vanish, they were left withLilys.The grammar rule of ellipsis states that some items in the antecedent are repudiatedor semantically cancelled out. The two constructions - one with a full form, the otherone elliptical - must have a degree of parallelism; in the most appropriate manner,

they should have a contrastive relationship. In the particular case of genitiveconstructions, a sentence like

I have to admit that your photos are as good as Tomsis interpreted to be an example of ellipsis. At the same time, ... are as good as his issaid to have a possessive pronoun functioning as head, so strictly speaking this is anexample of substitution. The sentence Its about time you went to the barbers istreated as situational ellipsis, because the genitive does not have an antecedent forits ellipted head. Sometimes cataphoric ellipsis occurs:

My first was a failure but my second essay brought such praise that I wasthrilled to bits.Grammars do not treat an example such as You are my favourite as ellipsis, in spiteof appearances. The last item is said to be a noun derived from an adjective byconversion, and this interpretation is supported by the behaviour of the last itemwhen it is inflected for the plural number: You are my favourites said by a teacher toone of his classes of pupils.

Substitution of H can be described in the following way: in a stretch of language, apreviously mentioned noun is referred to by a word which has no semantic identity ofits own, but only the grammatical function of substituting for that noun. Grammars callthe items such, same, one/ones substitute heads, the first two displaying theadditional semantic feature of comparison. We shall deal with them in turn.

(a) THE SAME substitutes for a whole NP:The streets are infested with a band of religious beggars. They wear looseblack gowns and sandals, and their wives the same (= loose black gowns andsandals)THE SAME here expresses similarity. In

What make of car are you going to buy? The same as I always buy (= thesame make of car)THE SAME is an elliptical adjectival head and it expresses identity. In this case THESAME can be followed by ONE. In other examples, THE SAME extends beyond NPsand substitutes for a whole clause:

The exam lasted too long. I think the same.

The broad scope of reference has led to the use of THE SAME in a number ofcolloquial expressions: Its all the same (= it doesnt matter); Just the same... ( =


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Nevertheless...);Same to you!(= I wish you the same thing); Same again!(customerto bartender).(b) SUCH refers anaphorically or cataphorically to a noun phrase ( Is this what youcall the house of my dreams? I wouldnt consider it as such = as the house of mydreams) or it substitutes for a previous clause ( Someone left a small parcel twistedup in thin white paper; such was the surprise he had promised = that was the

surprise).When SUCH expresses similarity, it substitutes for a noun similar in meaning

with other nouns in the context:The windows were open to admit the sun-warmed air, and also flies, bees or

some such.SUCH can be analysed here as an elliptical determinative head. The implied headshould be a hyperonym of the preceding nouns, such as insects.

An exophoric type of reference for SUCH can be found in the following text,where there is no clue about what the item can cover:

He advised me to take such and such into account.SOME SUCH above means quantification, and so do MANY SUCH and

NONE SUCH:Boas grow to a great length. Many such have frightened the locals. But none

such survived their guns.(c) ONE does not replace a whole antecedent NP, but only part of it and is alsoaccompanied by a determiner, a modifier or a qualifier. We shall illustrate with thelongest NP to include them all:

She was overwhelmed by the verdict, that unjust, belated one which you didntknow how to take.ONE refers to a singular count noun and can be used alone:

These are interesting books. Ill have one.ONES cannot be used alone: ...Ill have the most recent ones.To use this one is correct, but not the plural these ones. Compare:

Ill take this one. Ill take these.ONE/ONES can be omitted after superlatives:

Ill choose the most promising (ones).

Pre- and post-modifiers can be described either as restrictive ornon-restrictive. Inthe first case, the head is viewed as linguistically identified only through themodification supplied by the respective NP:

The big bottle was set in a corner and the one smaller and half-empty on thewindow-sill.

Additional information which is not essential for identifying the head is callednonrestrictive:Helen, who is half an angel already, is an example to all of us and I couldnt

ask anything better than to have my naughty daughter take pattern after her.A difference in emphasis can be pointed out: restrictive modification is given moreprosodic emphasis, with the differentiating nuance that nonrestrictive premodificationseems to signal a speakers wish to be taken for granted in what he informs us about,whereas restrictive premodification, just like restrictive postmodification, is interpretedas a specific means of identification. When the head-modifier relation is parenthetic,the written message is enclosed by commas and the spoken message gets aseparate tone unit.

Greenbaum & Quirk (l99l:366) comment on the higher degree ofexplicitnessthat goes with postmodification. We can exemplify starting from the contrast betweenthe most envied person on earth and the person on earth whom she most envied, the


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latter example improving the message when it ascribes the action to a specifiedhuman being. On the other hand, postmodification itself can be shown to coverstages in ever more severe reduction of explicitness:

the schemes which were rioting in her brains (a)the schemes rioting in her brains (b)the schemes in her brains (c)

When compared to (c), (b) benefits from the indication contained in specified actionand (a) adds the information on tense and also gender agreement of the relativepronoun with the head of the NP.

Another aspect of explicitness is the ambiguity that arises in premodificationand is worked out in postmodification. Thus, the NP mysterious confabulation can beparaphrased as:

- conversation that is confidential, therefore inaccessible to an outsider;- conversation that sounds strange;- conversation that is kept secret by the interlocutors;- conversation that is personal and on an inexplicable topic.

Or we can come across examples which are ambiguous not in point of effects, but of

actions performed. For example: news room can be paraphrased as- the room in a library where you can consult newspapers;- the room in an editorial office where they write the news;- the stall where you can buy the press.

A problem of syntagmatic arrangement is put forth by discontinuous NPs. Let usexemplify: the city of London proper; the best idea possible; a larger house thantheirs; the easiest lesson to teach; too boring a book to read; daring enough amanager to test the market now; comparable mistakes to mine; an attractiveproposal financially. These are examples (most of them comparisons) ofpostponement achieved for end-focus or end-weight. They can be referred to asinternal discontinuities, since elements within the NP are affected and in order tomake our grammar point we were not forced to intervene with material not formingpart of the NP. But there are cases when postmodifying clauses are postponed:

Children, the time has come to decorate the house for Christmas.To this, we add the case of postmodifying phrases of exception:

All of them wanted to return except the youngest child.The subject NP in apposition with an emphatic reflexive pronouns allows

nuclear stress to fall on the postponed pronoun:I showed him the mice myself.Another pronominal apposition involving all, both, each postpones the second

member of the apposition to a position immediately following the operator:The stockings had all been filled by Santa Claus.When adjectives take complementation in the form of prepositional phrases,

discontinuity takes place by the frequent insertion of degree adverbials:She was to be pitied, though some were fond to some extent of her early

paintings.I have my hands full with Cathy and she is different in many respects from

what you might expect.

Due to the fact that an apposition is primarily a relation between NPs, we shalldefine it here and have a summary treatment of a number of aspects.

Two linguistic units called appositives must be identical in reference. Therelationship denoted by apposition is analogous to a copular relationship: appositive lis appositive 2.


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(l) Mrs Worrett, an old friend of Aunt Izzies, was in the habit of coming for luncheon,on days when business brought her into town.(2) Mrs Worrett, who was an old friend of Aunt Izzies, was in the habit of ...(3) Mrs Worrett was in the habit of ...(4) An old friend of Aunt Izzies was in the habit of ...Sentence (l) is the original statement. Sentence (2) shows that appositive 2 in

sentence (l) may be considered to be the reduction of a relative clause. There aregrammarians who include nonrestrictive relative clauses among appositives, as longas the coreference between the WH-word in the clause and the antecedent NP isobvious. Sentences (3) and (4) are meant to show how the appositives - units of thesame rank - can be omitted each in turn and the reference of the two resultantsentences is the same.

Grammar books describe apposition in detail, recording the combinations ofappositional types introduced as full vs. partial, strict vs. weak, nonrestrictive vs.restrictive. We shall not insist here. We will only wish to call attention upon thepresence of one appositive acting as the defined element (in our example, MrsWorrett) and the other one with a defining role (= the definer) (in our example, an

old friend of Aunt Izzies). We must add that in our example, which is nonrestrictive,we find two more restrictive appositions, namely two pairs of appositives: Mrs andWorrett; Aunt and Izzie. They belong to the class of appositives with names ofpersons.

Greenbaum & Quirk (l99l:383) caution against believing that appositives needbe noun phrases exclusively, and they exemplify with the following statements havingthe appositives underlined:

She is bigger than her brother, heavier, that is.Sixthly and lastly, I reject the claim on ethical grounds.

We will eventually refer to such sentences as syntactically anomalous to someextent. Consider the examples:

Like master, like man.More haste, less speed.The less said, the better.Out of sight, out of mind.No work, no money.Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

They appear to be elliptical, retaining the nominal part. Their pattern is the structuralbalancing of two equivalent constructions. These verbless proverbs are dubbedaphoristic sentences by syntacticians. The list of verbless clauses can be

lengthened with such illustrations as existential patterns in colloquial English:(l) The aunt gave the little scamps such a shake, and no mistake.(2) She might have made no promises, and nobody the less happy.(3) Aunt Ann rapped her over the head with a thimble, and she so sensitive.(4) Who wiser than you?(5) Just my luck, your forgetting about my debts.The examples above evince various logical relationships: coordination of the basicstatement with a comment - and there was no mistake about that(l); nobody wouldhave been less happy than they are now - implicit conditional in (2); ... although sheis so... - concession in (3); who should be... - the rhetoric of a hypotheticalsubjunctive transmitting the meaning of a superlative in (4); the first appositive

member in an apposition producing an identification in (5).In informal conversations, exclamatory NPs are also called nonsentences.

They generally communicate scorn and disapproval as shown below:


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Dirty place! The fuss you can make! The way they beat the child! Him and hisupsetting grin ! Of all the hobbies you might have taken up!

Another type of nonsentences, by contrast, can show total approval:Good girl! A perfectly lovely person!

These can easily acquire ironical overtones. NPs can convey sheer information: Thatway! Fire! No more noise! They can request information: Your name? Tasty? The

category of case, the vocative in particular, will later resume this problem in ourinvestigation.

Noun Phrase (I)

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