HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY ĐỀ KIỂM TRA TỰ LUẬN MÔN: NGỮ PHÁP LÝ

E-LEARNING CENTRE THUYẾT

Test No: 1

Question 1: What is the difference between the basic noun phrase and the complex noun phrase? Give
examples for illustration.
Question 2: What are the main types of concord? Give examples for illustration.
BÀI LÀM
Question 1:
1. Basic Noun Phrases
Structurally speaking, in the first place, basic noun phrases consist of pronouns, numerals or
nouns with articles (indefinite, definite or zero) or nouns with other closed-system items that occur
before the noun head including pre-determiners (pre-det), determiners (det.) and post-determiners (post-
det.). The underlined parts of the following sentences are good examples of basic noun phrases:
I stayed at home during all the last few days
Pronoun zero article + noun. pre-de. + det + post-det + noun
Some people dislike ‘13’
det. + noun numeral
1.1 Pronouns and Numerals
Actually, pronouns are a special class of noun. As their names imply, they ‘replace’ nouns or
rather whole noun phrases, since they cannot generally occur with determiners. For example, personal
pronouns have two sets of case forms: subjective and objective: ‘I’/ ‘me’, ‘we’/ ‘us’, ‘he’/ ‘him’, ‘she’/
‘her’, ‘they’/ ‘them’; ‘you’ and ‘it’ are exceptional in showing no distinction. Subjective personal
pronouns function as subject and sometimes as subject complement while objective personal pronouns
as object, prepositional complement and sometimes as subject complement. These can be illustrated by:
He is happy.
I saw him at the station.
Like personal pronouns, other types of pronouns including reflexive, possessive, relative,
demonstrative, interrogative, universal, assertive, non-assertive and negative pronouns are all basic noun
phrases.
Reflexive pronouns include ‘myself’, ‘yourself’, ‘himself’, ‘herself’, ‘itself’, ‘ourselves’,
‘yourselves’ and ‘themselves’.
He hurt himself yesterday.
Possessive pronouns are ‘mine’, ‘ours’, ‘yours’, etc.
 This book is mine.
Relative pronouns: ‘who’, ‘whom’, ‘that’, ‘which’, etc.
The book, which is on the table, is mine.
Demonstrative pronouns fall in two groups. One is “near” reference with ‘this’ and ‘these’; and
the other “distant” reference with ‘that’ and ‘those’.
This is my friend.
Interrogative pronouns: ‘who’, ‘whom’, ‘what’, etc.
Who did you go with?
Universal pronouns: ‘each’, ‘all’, and ‘every’ series: ‘everyone’, ‘everything’, etc.
Everyone has his own ambitions.
Partitive pronouns, parallel to the universal ones, consist of assertive pronouns including the
‘some’ group (‘some’, ‘someone’, ‘something’, etc.); non-assertive with the ‘any’ series (‘any’,
‘anyone’, ‘anything’, etc.); and negative with the ‘no’ series (‘none’, ‘no-one’, ‘nothing’, etc.)
Nobody has come yet.
Apart from pronouns, numerals including cardinal numbers (‘one’, ‘two’, etc.) and ordinal
numbers (‘first’, ‘second’, etc.) can form basic noun phrases, as in:
Two is better than one.
1.2 Basic Noun Phrases with Determiners
Not only can basic noun phrases consist of pronouns or numerals, but they can also comprise a
head noun with determiners or determiners modified by pre-determiners and/or post-determiners. The
head noun of a noun phrase is the central element and decisive factor in performing the syntactic
functions of the whole noun phrase. It can be singular count noun such as ‘book’, plural noun ‘books’ or
mass noun like ‘ink’.
Determiners can be indefinite article ‘a’ and ‘an’; definite article ‘the’; or zero article as in the
noun phrase ‘books’. The use of articles is not the only possibility for determining nouns, but we can use
such words as ‘no’, ‘what’, ‘this’, ‘some’, ‘every’, ‘each’ and ‘either’ before the head noun like ‘book’.
These words, also called determiners, forming a set of closed-system, are mutually exclusive with each
other, i.e. there cannot be more than one occurring before the head. Both ‘a the book’ and ‘a some book’
are ungrammatical. Determiners are in a “choice relation”, that is they occur one instead of another. In
this respect, they are unlike ‘all’, ‘many’, ‘nice’, which are in a “chain relation”, occurring one after
another as in:
All the many nice pictures are collected.
The articles are central to the class of determiners in that they have no function independent of
the noun they precede. Other determiners like ‘some’ are also independent pronouns:
 A: I want the money.
B: Here is the. (ungrammatical)
B: Here is some. (grammatical)
With regard to the co-occurrence of determiners with the noun classes singular count (‘book’),
plural count (‘books’), and mass noun (‘ink’), there are six classes of determiners:
(1)
The Possessive (‘my’, ‘your’, 'his’, etc.)
Genitive (‘my father’s’, ‘Anne’s’, etc.)
book
No
Whose
+ books
Which (ever)
What (ever)
ink
Some (stressed)
Any (stressed)
(2)
Zero article
books
Some (unstressed)
+
Any (unstressed)
ink
enough
(3)
book
This
+
that
ink
(4)
These
+ books
Those
(5)
A (n)
every
each + book
either
neither
(6)
much + ink
In addition to the determiners mentioned before, there are a large number of other closed-system
items that occur before the head of noun phrases. These items, referred to as closed-system pre-
modified, form three classes (pre-determiners, ordinals and quantifiers) which have been set up on the
basis of the positions that they can have in relation to determiners and to each other.
 The first class of the closed-system pre-modifiers, pre-determiners, is unique in occurring before
the determiners. They are: (1) ‘all’, ‘both’ and ‘half’; (2) the multipliers ‘double’, ‘twice’, ‘three times’,
etc. and fractions ‘one-third’, ‘two-fifths’, etc. and (3) ‘such’ and ‘what’ (exclamative). Like
determiners, pre-determiners are mutually exclusive. Therefore, ‘all’, ‘both’ and ‘half’ have restriction
on their co-occurrence with determiners and head nouns. The illustrations are as follows:
 All
All + The, my, etc. + singular count noun
The, my, etc.
All + These, those + plural noun
Zero article
The, my, etc.
All + This, that +
Zero article
All my life
All the books
All this paper
 Both
The, my, etc.
Half + + singular count noun
A, this, that
The, my, etc.
Half + + plural noun
These, those
The, my, etc.
Half + + mass noun
This, that
Half an hour
These pre-determiners can occur only before articles or demonstratives, but none of them can
occur with such quantitative determiners as ‘every’, ‘either’, ‘each’, ‘some’, ‘any’, ‘no’ and ‘enough’.
However, ‘all’, ‘both’ and ‘half’ have ‘of’-construction which are optional with nouns and obligatory
with personal pronouns:
All (of) the students  = All of them
All (of) my time   = All of it
With a quantifier following, the ‘of’-construction is preferred
All of the ten students
All of the many girls
‘All’, ‘both’ and ‘half’ can be basic noun phrases:
All/Both/ Half were allowed to go out.
Apart from ‘all’, ‘both’ and ‘half’, the multipliers such as ‘double’, ‘twice’, ‘three times’, etc.
can occur before determiners to denote a number, an amount, etc.:
Double their papers
Twice his strength
Three times this amount
‘Once’, ‘twice’, etc. can occur with determiners ‘a’, ‘every’, ‘each’, and ‘per’ (less commonly) to
form “distributive” expressions with a temporal noun as head:
Once a  day
 every
Twice
each
Three times
per
Preceding the determiners can also be the fractions ‘one-third’, ‘two-fourths’, etc. which can
have the alternative ‘of’-construction, e.g.:
One-third the time
One-third of the time
‘Such’ and exclamation ‘what’ can occur only with indefinite articles and zero one, e.g.:
What/Such a nuisance.
What/Such fine singing.
The second class of closed-system pre-modifiers is ordinals which include the ordinal numbers
(‘first’, ‘second’, etc.) as well as ‘(an) other’, ‘next’, and ‘last’. These words are post-determiners, that is
they must follow determiners in the noun phrase structure, but they precede quantifiers and adjectives as
modifier.
The first (cold) months
determiner post-determiner (ordinal) modifier noun
Cardinal numbers and quantifiers belong to the third class of closed-system pre-modifiers. They
are mutually exclusive, following determiners but preceding adjectives as modifier. Cardinal numbers
are ‘one’ (with singular count nouns) and ‘two’, ‘three’, etc. (with plural nouns), e.g.:
One good reason
All (of) the three brothers
Closed-system quantifiers are ‘many’ (with the comparatives ‘more’ and ‘most’), ‘few’ (‘fewer’,
‘fewest’), ‘little’ (‘less’, ‘least’) and ‘several’ as in:
Several interesting books
All her many good ideas
A basic noun phrase may contain various determiners, more concretely, pre-determiners,
determiners and post-determiners which are in a fixed order:
pre-determiners determiners post-determiner Head noun
    ordinal cardinal/quantifier  
Half my   salary

All the first   books

All her many questions

As mentioned above, basic noun phrases consist of only one component such as pronouns,
numerals or of two components including determiners and the head nouns.
2. Complex Noun Phrases
Complex noun phrases contain three components: pre-modification, head noun and post-
modification. We are to deal with these components in turn.
2.1 Head Noun
Like in the basic noun phrase, the head noun, first of all, is the central element and core
component of the complex noun phrase. It may be count or mass noun which dictates concord and (for
the most part) other kinds of congruence with the rest of the sentence outside the noun phrase. This is
exemplified in:
The only girl in this class is  hardworking.
All of the beautiful girls in my class are kind.
Also, when the genitive is as pre-modification, the head nouns can be omitted:
We met at the dentist’s last week.
2.2 Pre-modification
The second component of a complex noun phrase is pre-modification, also called pre-modifiers,
including modifiers that stand before the head noun. Pre-modifiers can be closed-system and/or open-
class items. Closed-system pre-modifiers are discussed in the structure of the basic noun phrases above.
These items are optional in the complex noun phrases. Meanwhile, open-class pre-modifiers come after
the closed-system ones and precede the head noun as in:
All these young beautiful girls
 determiner adjective as pre-modifier head

Pre-modifying adjectives can be those denoting general description (‘beautiful’, intelligent’,

‘good’, etc.); age (‘young’, ‘old’, etc.); size (‘big’, ‘small’, etc.); shape (‘square’, ‘round’, etc.); colour
(‘red’, ‘blue’, etc.); material (‘silk’, ‘metal’, etc.); resemblance to a material (‘silken’ in silken hair, ‘cat-
like’, etc.); and provenance or style (‘British’, ‘Parisian’, etc.). These adjectives can be both attribute
and complement.
In addition, pre-modifying adjectives can be intensifying ones which have a heightening effect
on the noun they modify or the reverse, a lowering effect, e.g.: ‘real’ (a real hero), ‘definite’ (a definite
loss), ‘complete’ (a complete fool) and ‘close’ (a close friend). These adjectives are generally attributive
only.
Restrictive adjectives, another class of pre-modifying adjectives, restrict the reference of the
noun exclusively, particularly or chiefly, e.g.: ‘certain’ (a certain person), ‘exact’ (the exact answer),
‘only’ (the only occasion) and ‘very’ (the very man). Like intensifying adjectives, the restrictive ones
are attributive only.
However, there are a number of adjectives which cannot pre-modify the head, but can be
predicative such as: ‘faint’, ‘ill’, ‘well’, ‘able’, ‘afraid’, etc. Not only are the head nouns pre-modified
but pre-modifying adjectives can also be, especially when they are the first items after the determiner. In
this case, it can be pre-modified in the same way as it can be in the predicative position. This is
illustrated by:
His really quite unbelievably happy family
  Head 
With indefinite determiners, some intensifiers such as ‘so’ are differently used. ‘So’ is replaced
by ‘such’, which precedes the determiner or else ‘so’ plus adjective would be placed before the
determiner, e.g.:
Such a beautiful girl
So beautiful a girl
Apart from pre-modifying adjectives, the head nouns of the complex noun phrases can be pre-
modified by particles, either present or past, e.g.: an approaching man (present participle), the badly
injured dog (past participle), etc.
The head noun can also be pre-modified by genitives, e.g. these qualified doctors’ salaries, these
doctors’ high salaries, etc.; group genitives as in the teacher of English’s salary, an hour and a half’s
discussion, etc.; or other nouns as in the city council, a love story, etc.
Another class of pre-modifiers is the type of denomical adjective often meaning “consisting of”,
“involving”, or “relating to”. These items must come next before the head and can be preceded by a
wide range of pre-modifying items, e.g.: the pleasant social life, a city political problem, etc.
 Finally there are various classes of pre-modification, both closed-system and open-class.
Therefore, when the complex noun phrases consist of different classes of pre-modifiers, they may be
placed in a relevant order. The acceptable order of pre-modifiers in a complex noun phrase is as follows:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
    3' 3"                    
all the Last ten good young tall         maths   students
  the               London     social life
all their     nice new   black   Spanish leather     shoes
  some       old     interlocking Chinese       designs
  the   two         interlocking         rings
half the Other ten famous       best-sold         novels
legend:
1. pre-determiner, 2. determiner, 3. post-determiner, 3'. Ordinal, 3". Cardinal/quantifier
4. general, 5. age, 6. size/shape, 7. colour, 8. participle, 9. provenance, 10. material
11. purpose, 12. denominal, 13. head noun
2.3 Post-modification
The third important component of a complex noun phrase is post-modification, called post-
modifiers, comprising all the items placed after the head. These post-modifiers are mainly realized by
prepositional phrases, finite clauses (or relative clauses), nonfinite clauses, adjective phrases, noun
phrases or adverbial phrases:
determiner head post-modifiers 
with yellow covers (prepositional
(1) a book  
phrase)
who told you the secret (finite
(2) the man  
clause)
speaking English
(3) the girl  
fluently (nonfinite clause)
(4) a shelf full of books (adjective phrase)  
(5) the opera "Carmen" (noun phrase)  
(6) the road back (adverbial phrase)

In the example (1) ‘with yellow covers’ is a prepositional phrase post-modifying the head ‘book’.
Apart from ‘with’, there is a wide range of prepositions that can be used, e.g.: the road to London, the
house beyond the church, a child of five, etc., including the complex prepositions, e.g. a house on the
top of the hill, action in case of emergency, etc. and those having participle forms as in problems
concerning the environment. The commonest preposition in the noun phrase post-modification ‘of’ has a
close correspondence to ‘have’ sentences:
The ship has a funnel. ----- the funnel of the ship
The table has four legs. ----- the four legs of the table
However, some are relatable to ‘be’ sentences:
London is a city. ----- the city of London
The news was the team’s victory ------ the news of the team’s victory
Also, the ‘of’ phrase can be used to express the subject or object relation:
 The bus arrived ----- the arrival of the bus
Someone imprisoned the murderer ----- the imprisonment of the murderer
In the example (2), the post-modifier is a relative or finite clause which can be restrictive or non-
restrictive. There are a number of relative clauses beginning with relative pronouns: ‘who’, ‘whom’,
‘whose’, ‘that’ (personal); ‘which’, ‘that’, ‘what’ (non-personal); ‘when’, a preposition plus ‘which’
(time); ‘where’, a preposition plus ‘which’ (place); and ‘why’, ‘for which’ (reason). While restrictive
relative clauses help to define the head noun, the non-restrictive ones give additional information to it, as
exemplified in:
The woman who is standing outside is my neighbour.
  restrictive   
  That is my neighbour, who is standing outside.    
    Non-restrictive  
The example (3) illustrates the post-modifier as a non-finite clause, present participle clause. The
non-finite can be past participle clauses.
The only car serviced in the garage is mine.
  past participle clause 

In addition, post-modifiers can be to-infinitive clauses:

The next flight to arrive was from London.  
The place to stay for summer holidays should be pleasant.
   
As is seen in the example (4), adjective phrases can be post-modifiers of the head noun in the
complex noun phrases. The adjective phrases can usually be regarded as a reduced relative clause.
Complex indefinite pronouns ending in –body, -one, -thing, and –where can be modified only post-
positively, e.g.:
Anyone (who is) intelligent can do it.
The men (who were) present were his supporters.
In the example (5), the phrase explicitly encodes the information that “Carmen is an opera”. For
this reason, ‘ Carmen’ is traditionally said to be in apposition to ‘the opera’. Another minor type of post-
modification illustrated in the example (6) is adverbial modification. Similarly, in the following
examples, the adverbial phrases post-modify the head noun: the way ahead, the direction back, the hall
downstairs, etc. Unlike pre-modifiers, their no grammatical limit to the number of post-modifiers
occurring in a noun phrase, considerations of style and comprehensibility will normally keep them to
one or two. Where we have more than one, the relative order tends to depend on the related properties of
length and class, with shorter modifiers preceding longer ones, prepositional phrases preceding clauses:
A man from Britain who I was talking about last night
  prepositional phrase  relative clause
Question 2:
What is Concord in English Grammar?
Concord in English grammar refers to the agreement between the subject and the verb in the sentence.
However, there are many different ways to apply this rule. Here we look at the different types of
concord, with examples. We also offer some tips and resources to help you teach concord.
What is concord in English grammar?
Concord definition
Concord is the need for grammatical agreement between the different parts of speech in a
sentence. The word concord comes from the Latin word for agreement.
Concord is needed for our sentences to make sense. All the words in a sentence need to have the
correct relationships to each other, otherwise the sentence just won’t sound right.
While there are nine parts of speech that make up English grammar, only two are absolutely
necessary in a sentence: the verb and the subject. For this reason, concord in English is sometimes
referred to as subject-verb agreement.
Let’s take a look at the different types of concord in English grammar and examine how each
one works.
Types of concord in English grammar
There are several different types of concord in English grammar. Here are the ones you’re most
likely to come across, with examples to demonstrate how they operate.
Grammatical concord
Grammatical concord is the easiest type of subject-verb agreement to grasp, and it’s always the
one we learn first. Put simply, it means that if the sentence has a singular subject, it must also have a
singular verb. If the subject of the sentence is plural, the verb must be plural, too.
The subject of the sentence is the person, animal or thing doing the action. The subject might be
singular or plural. Let’s look at two sample sentences:
 The teacher speaks to the class.
 The teachers speak to the class.
In the first sentence, the subject (the teacher) is singular, so the sentence uses the singular verb
‘speaks’. In the second sentence, there’s more than one teacher, so the plural verb ‘speak’ is used.
Things get a little more complicated when we add an object to the sentence before the verb, as
this can sometimes be mistaken for the subject. We have to be careful when we’re looking at these kinds
of sentences. For example:
 The books in the cupboard are stacked neatly.
 The dog in the garden is running around.
 In the first example, the books are the subject, not the cupboard. Therefore we use the plural verb
‘are’. The subject in the second sentence is singular (‘the dog’), so in this case we use the singular verb
‘is’.
Grammatical concord with more than one subject
What happens if there are multiple subjects in a sentence? If there’s more than one subject, these
work together as a plural subject, so the verb is plural, like this:
 Jack and Ali were caught in the rain.
Because there are two subjects (Jack and Ali) we use the plural verb ‘were’ instead of the
singular ‘was’.
However, there are a couple of exceptions to this rule.
The first exception is when both subjects are the same person or thing. For example:
 The largest animal and loudest sea creature is the blue whale.
 The singer and songwriter is Harry Styles.
In both of these cases, the subjects are the same person or animal, so we use the singular verb ‘is’
in both sentences.
The other exception is when two things are always linked together in people’s minds, to the point
where, when spoken about together, we think of them as one thing. Here’s an example:
 Fish and chips is my favourite dinner.
We always think of fish and chips as one dish, even though they’re different things and can be
eaten separately. When we refer to them together, we use the singular verb ‘is’.
Proximity concord
Proximity refers to the closeness of two things. In the case of sentences, we often show
proximity between two subjects by using the correlating conjunctions ‘either / or’ or ‘neither / nor’.
If both subjects are singular, the verb takes the singular form, as in these examples:
 Either the Prime Minister or the Chancellor is attending the meeting.
 Neither Mary nor her mother eats meat.
But, what happens when one subject is singular and the other is plural? In these cases, the verb
takes the form of the subject nearest to it in the sentence, like this:
 Either the Prime Minister or other Government ministers are attending the meeting.
 Neither Mary nor her parents eat meat.
Both of these sentences put the plural subject closest to the verb, so the verb takes its plural form
in both cases. If we reversed these sentences, so the singular subject was second, the verb would take its
singular form (‘Neither Mary’s parents nor Mary eats meat’).
Notional concord
The idea of notional concord relates to collective nouns. We use these to refer to a group of people,
animals or things. Some examples include:
 class
 choir
 audience
 congregation
 team
 flock
When we’re using collective nouns, the verb takes its singular form if there is no action being taken
in the sentence. If there is action happening, the verb should be plural, as the people or animals in the
collective are all taking action as individuals, even if it’s the same action as each other. Let’s take a look
at two examples:
 The class has the best exam results in the school.
 The class are sitting at their desks.
In the first example, there is no action being taken - the sentence is simply stating a fact, so the verb
here is singular. In the second example, the children in the class are individually taking the action of
sitting at their desks, so we use the plural form of the verb.
Indefinite pronoun concord
Indefinite pronouns are pronouns that refer to things vaguely rather than specifically. They give
us ways to talk about people, things and quantities in abstract terms. Some examples of indefinite
pronouns are:
 anything / anyone / anybody
 something / someone / somebody
 everything / everyone / everybody
 nothing / no-one / nobody
When the subject of a sentence is an indefinite pronoun, we always use a singular verb. For
example:
 Everyone is coming to the party.
 Something has to be done about this.
 Is anybody there?
Measurement concord
We use all kinds of measurements in our speech and writing, so it’s important to know how to
make the verb agree with the measurement we’re describing. If we’re talking about measurements of
time, money, amount or distance, we always tend to use a singular verb, even if the measurement is
plural. Here are some examples:
 Two weeks is not long enough for our Christmas holiday.
 Three hundred dollars is too much to spend on a concert ticket.
So, whether we’re talking about hours, kilometres or teaspoons, we always use the singular form
of the verb.
However, things change when we’re talking about percentages or fractions. In these cases, the
verb takes the same form as the subject, like this:
 50% of the building is occupied.
 Half the students are boys.
In the first sentence, the subject (the building) is singular, so the verb is singular, too. In the
second case, the subject (the students) is plural, so the verb takes the plural form.
We should also mention comparative measurements here, such as ‘more than’ and ‘fewer than’.
If we’re using these expressions to talk about amounts of something, the verb needs to correlate with the
subject, whether it’s singular or plural. For example:
 More than one child is singing a solo in the concert.
 Fewer than ten days have been dry this month.
We can see here that the first example has a singular subject, so the verb is also singular. In the
second sentence, which has a plural subject, we use a plural verb.