Nouns and Noun Groups

Nouns and Noun Groups

Definition of Noun Group and Noun

A noun group is a linguistic sequence which may function as subject, object, and subject complement, complement of a preposition or in a PossG structure, or as dependent element of another noun head.

The Nouns are the heads in the structure of a NG.

They have the following properties:

a) Typical nouns refer semantically to those aspects of our experience which we perceive as “things” or “entities”: concrete entities, names of actions, relationships, emotions, qualities, phenomena and many other classes of entities.

b) The categories of number, gender and case are generically applied to nouns.

c) The distinctive dependents are: determinatives, AdjGs, NGs, PGs, PossG and clauses.

Pronouns are also nouns, sometimes even being used to stand in place of a whole NP.

Sometimes no noun is present in the NG and the head element is realised by a word expressing one of its attributes as in “the poor” or an –ing form

Non-elliptical noun groups, then, have a noun as a headword and may optionally have other elements dependently related to it and placed before and/or after it: pre-head and post-head dependent elements.

In fact, we describe the structure of the English NG in terms of four basic elements: Head, determiner, modifier (epithet and classifier) and complement.

NP

Determiner epithet classifier HEAD complement

Definers objective nominal nominal nominal

Deictic subjective qualitative pronominal circumstantial

Quantitative circumstantial substitute attributive

Qualitative elliptical

Not all the elements occur in every NP.

These functions must be realized by particular linguistic forms, such as the ones in the diagram.

NP

Determiner epithet classifier HEAD complement

Articles AdjP clause noun NP

Demonstrative NP adjective pronoun AdjP

Possessive participle adverb verbal noun PrepP

WH-words adverb participle AdvP

Distributive PrepP PrepP clause

Numerative clause noun

If we combine these choices, the structure of a NP is describable, in abstract, on two separate levels of analysis, though in communication they are realized simultaneously and in combination.

Text: that short summer course we attended

Function: Determiner Epithet Classifier HEAD Complement

Class of unit: Demonstrative Adjective Noun Noun Rel. Clause

The correct expression and understanding of a NP depends not only on the semantic information conveyed by its elements, but on the syntactic relations between the elements.

Between the head of a NP and the other elements there is one basic logical relationship: that of subordination.

Pre-head dependents

Determiners

They are used to identify a headword functioning deictically or simply as quantifiers, that is, they serve as definite or indefinite reference or to give information about quantity and proportion.

There are five main kinds of determiners:

1. The articles a (an) and the;

2. The demonstratives;

3. The possessives and PossG;

4. The numerals and

5. The indefinite determiners.

Many of these determiners can be pronouns. A NG may have none, one, two or up to three determiners.

Scheme of the English Noun Group

Predeterminer Central determiner Postdeterminer Modifier Head Complement

All

Both

Double

Such

What

Half

Two-fifths

A/an

The

This, that...

My, your,

His...

Every

Each

No

Some

Any

Enough

Either

Neither

What

Whose

Which

WH + ever

Peter’s

One, two...

First,

Second...

Next

Last

Past

Further

Many

(a) few

Several

More

Much

Little

Plenty of

Loads of

- Adjectives

- Nouns - Nouns

- Clauses - some adjectives

- NGs

- PGs

- Clauses

Many of the determiners are mutually exclusive as only one of them can appear in a noun group. Thus, definite and indefinite articles are mutually exclusive. Pre-determiners cannot appear together either, nor can ordinals and quantifiers.

Modifiers

The main function of a modifier is to describe a headword. So a modifier is an element that depends on the head. It is a “one-way dependency”.

Adjectives are the most common modifiers in English. However, adjectives may have their own modifiers as in “a definitely necessary person”.

Determiners precede modifiers except when the modifier is preceded by how, so, too as in “so fine a story!”

It is also frequent in English the modification of a noun by another noun, as in the brick wall.

The possessive determiner can also be realized as a possessive group (PossG) as in “the boy’s parents are in Canada”.

This PossG or genitive takes the sentence position normally occupied by determiners. However, a PossG may also function as a modifier: Contrast these two examples: “the young Mozart’s symphony” and “a disabled children’s hospital”

About the analysis of the PossG, if we consider that possessive‘s is similar to of in “the house of Peter”, then the ‘s must be treated as a head.

Complements

Complements are also dependent elements of a head. A complement expands the semantic contents of the noun.

In English adjectives are not so common in post-head complementation as in pre-head modification.

However, the indefinite pronouns (somebody, everybody...) accept post complementation. Present, proper and some adjectives ending in –able and -ible have different connotations when used predicatively, as in “the present members” and “the members present”.

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