M Larsen / English Syntax
IDENTIFYING NOUN PHRASES
Identify the Noun Phrases in the following texts.
Use the following table to classify them.
Head: PRO Head: Proper Name DET + [NOM] ØDET + [NOM]
Text 1
They were driving into the park to start filming, when their guide stopped the jeep to
move a turtle from the middle of the road just ahead of them. Winter, Chadwick and
their guard got out to stretch their legs and watch. But when Chadwick turned to look
up the road, he saw something terrible.
About 50 metres away, a rhino was charging at them. Rhinos can sprint at more than
40 kilometres an hour, so there was no time to leap back in the car. Instinctively, the
guard fired a shot into the ground just in front of the rhino. The crack of the rifle and
the dirt that the bullet kicked up was enough to distract their attacker and he veered
off into the grass seconds before reaching them.
Text 2
Amid the rancorous bickering this week by European leaders over a relocation plan to spread
asylum seekers around the Continent, a Coast Guard officer stood on the dock here at Greece’s
main port screaming a blunt command at a throng of rain-soaked new arrivals: Hurry up and
relocate yourselves.
“Get out of here. Get on the bus! Go, go, go,” the officer shouted, ordering another shipload of
Afghans, Syrians, Iraqis and others who had just been ferried from outlying Greek islands to
keep moving to wherever it is in Europe they want to go.
The scene at Piraeus underscored the huge distance between decisions made in the conference
rooms of Brussels and the often chaotic realities on the ground for a refugee crisis that keeps
thwarting promises of a “European solution.”
