1. Nouns & Noun Phrases
9 November 2012
Based on
“A student’s Introduction to English Grammar”,
R. Huddleston, G. Pullum

2. 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 PP
Complement I am talking to students.

3. NP= N + dependents

4. N
Noun 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 architects
Genitive: architect’s architects’

5. 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

6. 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 noun
his 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

7. Internal & external dependents
complement Internal a/knowledge of Latin)/, the /idea that he loved it/
determiner External these/old students/, some /students I met/
Internal a/ small house/, the /slides I’m presenting/
modifier
External almost the /only survivor/, even a /good method/

8. 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.

9. 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 furnitures
Invariably singular: furniture, clothing, equipment, eagerness, wetness
Count noun: one chair two chairs.
Non-count noun: *one remain, *two remains
Invariably plural: remains, credentials, proceeds, genitals
Furniture , remains cannot combine with any numerals.

10. Nouns with count and non-count uses
Most 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.

11. Subject-verb agreement
The 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.

12. Quantificational nouns
2. Quantificational nouns: lot, rest, number
A lot= NP
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.
The meaning of number is such that the NP must be plural.

13. Collective nouns
3. Collective nouns, groups of people
In British English singular words which refer to groups of people can be used
either as singular or plural.
Singular- group as an impersonal unit
Plural - 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.

14. 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)

15. Determiners and determinatives
• Determinative for the category; adjective
-ive, category
• Determiner for the function; modifier
-er, function
Determinative: the student some good cars
Determinative Phrase: almost all students, very few new books
Genitive NP: my son, the teacher’s young son
What does the determiner do?

16. • It marks the NP as definite or indefinite
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,……….
• The determiner can be a modifier
/The better student/ won. Determiner in NP
I feel /all the better/ for my holiday. Modifier in Adj.P
Who’s /that tall guy/? Determiner in NP
He shouldn't have driven /that fast/. Modifier in Adv.P

17. Complements
Nouns do not take objects, they take complements
I 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 secretary
N + subordinate clause the people who need help
things you forgot to say
your ability to complete the task
the rumour that he is ill

18. Internal modifiers
• Internal pre-head modifiers
A long story, the condemned man, a sleeping child, another two candidates
AdjP past participle pr part. DP
==============================================================
• 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

19. Combination of modifiers
the 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

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

21. The fused-head construction
A 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.

22. The, a, every in fused structures
• 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 famous
No harmful thing > nothing harmful

23. Classify the fused heads as: simple, partitive, special
1 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?
8

24. 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

25. 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

26. 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

27. 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

28. 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 responsibility
the guy next door’s voice
• Dual function of the genitive as
a definite determiner the patient’s condition
and a clause subject the condition of the patient is serious

29. The genitive constructions
1 Subject of a gerund She didn’t approve of /his being given a second chance/.
participial clause
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.