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- Title.
- Introduction: Ø What is a Noun Phrase? o In English o Structure o Function: At phrase level and at clause level. Ø How? Description of some evidence o The corpus with 24 sentences from the Brown corpus.Corpus features: American English o One million words corpus o Compiled in the 1960s o Written language o Balanced structures
- Noun Phrases 3.1 Definition of a noun. 3.2 Definition of a Phrase. 3.3 Global definition of a Noun Phrase.
- The structure of Noun Phrases. 4.1 Head. 4.2 Premodifiers. 4.3 Postmodifiers. 4.4 Complements.
- Function of Noun Phrases. 5.1 Subject. 5.2 Direct ObjectandIndirect Object. 5.3 Subject Complementand Object Complement, 5.4 Adverbial.
- Conclusion.
- Bibliography.
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1. NOUN PHRASES: FORM AND FUNCTION
2. INTRODUCTION
This essay is aimed Noun Phrases form and function. It is necessary to start with a clear definition of Noun Phrase to understand what is this essay is aimed at. It is possible to define a noun, a phrase, and, at the end, a Noun Phrase. From a linguistic point of view, a noun can be divided into different types depending on the function of the person or thing which performs the action. A noun can be: Proper (people, places…) or common (things…), Concrete (physical entities) or abstract ( non-physical entities), count ( one thing or various things that can be counted) or massive ( wrote in singular but has the meaning in plural). From a syntactic point of view, a phrase does not only work with a noun, it can work with other types of words. The main types of phrases, that can be distinguished, are: Ø Adjective Phrases, whose head is an adjective. Ø Verb Phrase, whose head acts as a verb (copulative, transitive or intransitive). Ø Prepositional Phrases, whose head functions as a preposition. Ø Adverb Phrases, whose head works as an adverb. The methodology to be followedis based on a subcorpus of 24 sentences extracted from the Brown Corpus and the most important features on a corpus are: Written in British English; it has one million word corpus, and it was compiled in the 1960s, and composed in a written language that had balanced structures. Short Nouns will be analysed from the linguistic criteria of form, function and meaning.
3. NOUN PHRASES 3.1 Definition of a noun. The concept of nouns. It is the part of speech that is used to name a person, an object, a feeling, places, quality or action. Nouns constitute an open word-class because they can express lexical meaning and have an indeterminate number of words. 3.2 Definition of a phrase The concept of phrases: A word or a group of words that include a head may be followed by others elements, lacks a subject+ predicator structure. 3.3 Definition of a Noun Phrase
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“The flag blowing this way and that way”(7). Here there is an example of the word “this” in which it can appreciate the function of the word in the sentence that occurs between two noun phrases separated by a linker which is “and”. § Post- determiner is a word that tends to appear after the determiner of the noun phrase almost at the end the words that usually work as post-determiner. They are: “many”, “few”, “several”, “sometimes”, and ordinal and cardinal numerals. For example: “ A big one” (18) here, the ordinal determiner “one” functions as post-determiner because it is placed at the end of the sentence and a subject appears. From a morphological point of view, it can classify Determiners into eight different types, which are: Personal, Possessives, Demonstratives, Reflexives, Reciprocals, Interrogatives, Relatives and Indefinites but their function is different than the pronouns because determinants tend to be followed by a noun whereas pronouns can function as a head. On the other hand, another important optional element in a Noun Phrase is the MODIFIER and it can be divided into two sub-disciplines: Pre-modifiers and Post- modifiers. 4.2 Pre-modifiers: A word or a group of words that can appear before the head of the noun phrase but after the Determinant or determinative. The main types that can fulfil the function of a pre-modifier are: o NOUN PHRASES: let's consider this example: “The boldest and most original pictures”(5) this sentence is a Noun Phrase which performs the function of pre-modifier and, at the same time, it is acting as a coordinated conjunction, so there are two noun phrases separated by a linker. o ADJECTIVE PHRASES: The cases in which an adjective phrase works as a pre-modifier are very common, for example: “ Dead animals” (4), the word “dead” is an adjective so it can be analysed as all sentence is a noun phrase whose head is “animal”, and an adjective phrase working as a premodifier whose head is an adjective. Another example is: “The very poor hospital”(15). Here, all the sentence is a noun phrase whose head is “hospital”, pre-modifiedby “The very poor”, in which “very poor” is an AdjP (premod) whose head is “poor” and, the last word “the” acts as a pre-determinant and does the function of premodifier, too. o GENITIVE PHRASE: This case is less frequent but there are examples in which it is possible to find the function of this phrase such as: “The nation’s biggest industry ”(6), here, the “'s” in “nation” could be the head of the noun phrase and word “nation” without the “'s” acts as a premodifier because it is supposed that the head is included in this word.
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“Kitty Gilborn’s death”(19), this case is the same above-mentioned situation but in this example the head of the noun phrase isn't omitted. o ADVERB PHRASES: These cases of premodifiers are as adjective phrases, one of the most common function. “Then it would be a choice” (3), the word “then” acts as a premodifier because it is a sentence adverb. These adverbs are usually in connection between sentences or clauses but it is not this case, because the adverb appears at the beginning of the sentence. For instance, “ Quietly decaying and giving their soil back” (4), in this sentence the adverb is a circumstance manner adverb. Let's see this example: “When I stand there” (7). Here the function of premodifier of the adverb is clearer because the sentence has a subject and a predicator so the adverb premodifies the pronoun. o PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES: These types of premodifiers can usually work as post-modifier too, but it is frequent to find them in both cases. An example: “A particular humiliation to Dolores” (1). The first word is a preposition followed by a noun phrase and another prepositional phrase; the word “a” acts as head of the prepositional phrase because there are not more words that can perform this function. “At this hour” (2) prepositional phrases can usually appear with time expressions, here, as it has been mentioned above, the preposition is acting as a premodifier because it is followed by a clear noun phrase whose head is “hour” and the head of the prepositional phrase is the only word that indicates that is a premodifier “at”. There is a exception with the prepositions because when a phrasal verb appears it is possible to divide the sentence in two parts: the first part without separation of the verb and the other part analyse the full verb and, on the other hand, the verb on one side and the prepositional phrase on the other side. For example: “He put on canvas” (5), “put on” is a phrasal verb so it is possible to analyse the sentence as “put”, the VP (Pred), and “On canvas” is the PP whose head is “on”. Or it can be analysed as “put on canvas” the Vp (pred) whose head is “put”, and inside the predicator there is a prepositional phrase which acts as “DO” and whose head is “on”. 4.3 Now, it is the turn of one of the last optional elements but, this time, they come after the noun phrase or after the head of the noun phrase, or after the verb phrase. They are the POSTMODIFIERS. There are different types of post modifiers and, depending on the point of view they are analysed, it is possible to find post modifiers at phrase level and at clause level.
- AT PHRASE LEVEL At phrase level, it is possible to find:
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The complement is the word or group of words that forms a prepositional phrase and tends to appear behind the head of the prepositional phrase. For example, “He had laid on the floor” (1), here the prepositional phrase acts as postmodifier, mentioned- above, and inside the prepositional phrase it can find the head which is “on” and the complement which is “the floor” formed by a noun phrase whose head is “floor”. The complement is the easiest element to identification because it normally appears at the end of the sentence. Another example: “ None of its fascination” (5). This is the same above- mentioned case. It is a prepositional phrase and inside it there is a noun phrase preforming the function of complement and whose head is “its”.
5. FUNCTION OF NOUN PHRASES The structure of noun phrases has just been explained, now, it is the turn of the elements that compose the noun phrase inside and these elements can be analysed at clause level and a phrase level. - AT PHRASE LEVEL At this level, the noun phrase can work on three aspects, before mentioned. These aspects are: Premodifier of the HEAD of the Noun Phrase, for example: “ the boldest and most original pictures” (5). Another function is APPOSITION such as, “Roger Maris” (11), and the last function as COMPLEMENT of a prepositional phrase, e.g. “between starvation and suicide” (3). - AT CLAUSE LEVEL At this level noun phrases but, especially, the nouns have some important functions that should be described a bit more deeply. Noun phrases can perform the functions of: Subject, Direct Object, Indirect Object, Subject Complement, Object Complement and Adverbial. 5.1 SUBJECT: It is the main element in the noun phrase and it can be a word, a group of words or even a phrase which is usually followed by predicator and complements and expresses the state of the noun. It can find it if we ask “who” the verb. For example: “He felt that it…”(1), “he” is the subject and is usually placed at the beginning of the sentence. “She had the feeling that” (4), the personal pronoun “she” is the subject because appears at the beginning of the sentence and it is the answer if”. 5.2 DIRECT OBJECT AND INDIRECT OBJECT Ø DIRECT OBJECT: It is a word or a group of words that tend to appear behind the predicator and receive the action of the transitive verb.
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Sometimes, there are doubts about what the direct object is so, in many occasions, it is necessary to follow some rules such as: Asking the verb “whom”, “who to” or “what” is receiving the action of the subject. Another rule is passivisation test where we put the sentence in the passive voice to check if the DO is correct and if the sentence make sense. For instance: “She had the feeling that…” (4), “The feeling had been felt by her” it is the Do because with the passivisation test checking that the sentence makes sense so, this is the correct phrase. Ø INDIRECT OBJECT: It is a word or a group of words that usually precede the direct object and convey to whom the action of the verb is done and who is receiving the direct object. The words that usually perform the function of indirect object tend to be possessive pronouns (me, her, their…) , indefinite pronouns (anybody, nobody..), etc.. For example: “She used to tell me…” (7), the pronoun “me” acts as IO because if the passivisation test is used the sentence does not have any sense and it is supposed that after it comes an Do but this not tend to be the case. 5.3 SUBJECT COMPLEMENT AND OBJECT COMPLEMENT. Ø SUBJECT COMPLEMENT: It is a word or a group of words that appears with copulative and normally transitive verbs. The following example shows it: “I was amazed at the very poor hospital facilities…”(15). The main verb is “was” which is the verb “to be” in past simple followed by an adjective phrase. Ø OBJECT COMPLEMENT: It is a word or group of words whose function only appears when there is a Direct Object and places after it. 5.4 ADVERBIAL The adverbial is a word or a group of words that can act as the head of an Adverb Phrase. But here, in the Noun phrase, at clause level usually appears at the beginning of the sentence before the noun phrase when the adverb phrase performs the function of premodifier. For instance: “ Then it would be a choice…”(3) here, above-mentioned the word “then” acts as AdvP (premod) but the head is an adverbial, there are different types of adverbials (adjunct, conjunct etc…). This adverbial is adjunct of time. 6.CONCLUSSION To summarise, noun phrase or even nouns are a group of words very numerous and can work as many functions although the only function, that a noun phrase cannot do, is VP (predicator). The construction of this structure is different that the normal one and tends to occur after the noun phrase in the middle of the sentence so it is impossible to omitted but it is possible to change the form (active à passive).
