Noun Phrases (NP)

NP NP NP

Det N Det A N N

the student the controversial book it

[NP[Det the [N student]]

• Evidence that NPs are syntactic units comes from the fact they can often
be replaced by a single word such as the pronoun they or it
– The students read the controversial book.
– The students read it.
– *The students read the controversial it.
 The Categories: Part of Speech. Open Categories: Nouns
• Nouns: typically refer to entities
• Inflection:
• number singular, plural
• gender feminine, masculine, neuter
– case nominative, genitive, accusative, dative, vocative

– semantic classification:
• human/animal/(non-living) things: driver/bird/stone
• concrete/abstract: computer/thought
• common/proper: table/Microsoft

– syntactic classification: countable/uncountable: book, water

– morphological classification:
• Pluralia /singular tantum: data (is), police (are)
• “adverbial” nouns: afternoon, home, east (no inflection)