Noun Phrases and its

Respective Components
 Choice of Language
 A single concept is often signaled by a
variety of words, each word possessing
slightly different connotations.
angry , irate , incensed ,
perturbed , upset , furious ,
mad
 The broader our vocabulary, the greater
our options and the more precisely we
can convey our meaning.
 A single word, by itself, can appear
somewhat vague, no matter how
specific that word might seem.
Suppose you want to indicate a female
person across the room. If you don’t
know her name, what do you say?

That girl.
If there were more than one, this alone
would be too general.
The girl in the blue Hawaiian shirt…

The taller of the two students by the

water cooler…
 When a single term will not supply the
reference we need, we add terms to
focus or limit a more general term.

 We can construct full and specific

references using noun phrases.
 Nouns
Words that identify people, places or
things, as well as feelings or ideas.

salesman, farm, balcony, bicycle,

trust, happiness, intention
 What if a single noun isn’t specific
enough for our purposes?
 How then do we modify a noun to
construct a more specific
reference?    
To modify means to limit, restrict,
characterize, focus meaning.
 Noun Phrase = Modifiers + Noun
 Modifiers before the noun are called
pre-modifiers.
 The most common pre-modifiers are
adjectives.
Big man
White house
 Other Pre-Modifiers
 Articles
The water
 Nouns
The bathroom door
 Possessive adjectives
Her thoughts
 Pre-modifiers limit the reference in a
wide variety of ways.
  
     Order:                            second, last
     Location:                        kitchen, westerly
    Source or Origin:            Canadian
     Color:                            red, dark
     Smell:                           acrid, scented
    Material:                       metal, oak
     Size:                             large, 5-inch
     Weight:                       heavy                        
Luster:                         shiny, dull
 A number of pre-modifiers must
appear first if they appear at all.

Specification: a, the, every

Designation: this, that, these, those
Ownership/possessive: my, your, its,
Mary’s
Number: one, many
 Short and Long Noun Phrases
The table
*
The second shiny Swedish touring sedan
*

The three old Democratic legislator

*
 The Most Common Unit in English Sentences

When Isabella Swan moves to the gloomy

town of Forkes and meets the
mysterious,
alluring Edward Cullen, her life takes a
thrilling and terrifying turn.
 Expanding a Pre-Modifier in a
Noun Phrase

the book
the history book
the American history book
the illustrated American history book
the recent illustrated American history book
the recent controversial illustrated American history book
the recent controversial illustrated leather bound American history book
 Post- Modifiers
The book on the table
*

Civil conflict in Africa

*
The senate of the United States
*
 How long can a post-modifier be?

a dream deferred
*

a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves
*

and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together

at a table of brotherhood.
Post- Modifiers
 Prepositional phrase
the dog in the store
 Reduced clauses
the girl running to the store
the man wanted by the police
 Wh- clauses
the house where I was born
 That/ which clauses
the thought that I had yesterday
Tip:
If you see a preposition, wh- word, -ing
or –ed verb form, or that or which after
a noun, you can suspect a post-modifier and
the completion of a noun phrase.
 Noun Phrase = Single Unit
The noun together with all pre- and post-
modifiers constitute a single unit, a noun
phrase that indicates the complete reference.
Thus any agreement in terms of singular/plural is
with the noun at the center.
The boys on top of the house    are .......
*
 The Pronoun Test
 Pronoun replacement offers a test of a
complete noun phrase.
The boy ate the apple in the pie.
What did he eat?                         
The boy ate           the apple in the pie.
The boy ate it.
 The Pronoun Test
Not all prepositional phrases after a
noun are necessarily part of the noun
phrase.
Compare:
The boy ate the apple in the pie.
The boy ate the apple in the summer.
The boy ate the apple in a hurry.
 Boxes within Boxes: Testing
for a Complete Noun Phrase
The book on the table
*

on the table
*
We can have prepositional phrase within
prepositional phrase within prepositional
phrases.
Boxes within Boxes: Testing
for a Complete Noun Phrase
The book on the table in the kitchen
*

on the table in the kitchen

*
in the kitchen
*
Bear in Mind
 We don’t want to recognize every little
noun phrase.
 We want to recognize the larger ones
that shape meaning.

The book is not “on the table”, the book

is “on the table in the kitchen”.
The Senate of the United States is composed of two
legislator from each state.
Question: Who is the Senate?
a) two legislators
b) two legislators from each state?
We read the sentence as:
The Senate of the United States is composed of
two legislators from each state.
*
If we read the sentence as:
The Senate of the United States
is composed of two legislators
from each state.

We miss the meaning.

 Post-Modifiers can be expanded to much
greater lengths than Pre-Modifiers

The following sentence indicates something

was lost. What was lost?
He lost his book by Mark Twain about the
Mississippi that he took out of the library on
Sunday before the game so that he could
study during half time when his brother was
getting popcorn.
 What was lost?
 The answer is the complete phrase.
 The term book is modified as to author
(Mark Twain), topic (about the
Mississippi), intention or purpose (that
he took out of the library so that he
could study during half time when his
brother was getting popcorn)
 Noun Phrase: The Dominant
Construction
A month in, outrage over Gulf oil spill grows
GRAND ISLE, La. – Thick, sticky oil crept deeper into delicate marshes of
the Mississippi Delta, an arrival dreaded for a month since the crude
started spewing into the Gulf, as anger and frustration mounted over
efforts to plug the gusher from a blown-out well and contain the spill.
Up to now, only tar balls and a sheen of oil had come ashore. But
chocolate brown and vivid orange globs and sheets of foul-smelling oil the
consistency of latex paint have begun coating the reeds and grasses of
Louisiana's wetlands, home to rare birds, mammals and a rich variety of
marine life.

By KEVIN McGILL and VICKI SMITH, Associated Press Writers

Retrieved from http://news.yahoo.com on May 21st, 2010
 Implications For Reading and
Writing
 The goal of reading is not to recognize
grammatical features, but to find meaning.

 The goal is not to break a sentence or part

of a sentence into as small pieces as possible.

 The goal is to break a sentence or part of it

into chunks in a such a way that it fosters the
discovery of meaning.
 Implications For Reading and
Writing
 We do not read texts word by word, but
chunk by chunk. We must read each
grammatical construction as a single unit.

 Deciphering sentences involves isolating

phrases within a sentence and recognizing
where long phrases begin and end.
 Implications For Reading and
Writing
 To write well is not string words together, but
to string together larger phrases, to create
full references that carefully distinguish one
idea from another, going beyond talking in
vague generalities.
 We can increase the clarity and sophistication
of our thought by using extended phrases
instead of single words.
 Implications For Reading and
Writing
 By drawing careful distinctions, writers are
simply being precise.
 Weak writers can achieve an immediate gain
in the level of thought of their writing by
taking advantages of the opportunities for
adding pre- and post- modifiers. Having
written a statement, you might go back in
editing to see how you can further shape
your thoughts by making using of these slots.
Ideas for encouraging students to think about
and practice longer noun phrases

 Noun Phrase Spotting

 Grow Your Own
 Pronoun Sepculation
 Noun Phrase Nests
 References
http://www.criticalreading.com/noun_phrase.htm
(Retrieved on 04/20/10)

http://news.yahoo.com (Retrieved on 05/21/10)