UNIT 5: NOUN PHRASE.

1. TYPES OF DEPENDENT IN THE NP

DEPENDENTS in the structure of the NP are of three main types:
1. Determiners : the news, a pear, some cheese, two new films, no reason. Normally an obligatory element in
NPs with certain types of singular noun as head: The door is open VS *Door is open, or I bought a book VS *I
bought book.
2. Complements : the loss of blood, a ban on smoking, the fact that she’s alive. VERBAL NOUNS (like loss, which
could be equated with losing blood) inherit the grammatical properties of the verb, and so if the verb requires a
complement also does the verbal noun. Complements need to be licensed by the head noun. His loss of blood VS
He was loosing blood. Nouns like fact, knowledge or suggestion can be accompanied by that subordinate clauses
(that she’s alive) but nouns like boy, madness, or inquiry cannot.
3. Modifiers : a Young man, a friend from Bostom, people who complained. They are the default type of
dependent, lacking the above special features. There is no limit to the number of modifiers that can occur in an
NP.

2. NOUN PHRASE
In terms of category combinations, the noun phrase can be expanded in many different ways.
Expansions of NP
NP N Dogs
DET N The dogs
DET A N The large dogs
DET AP N The loudly barking dogs
DET N PP The dog in the yard
DET A N PP The ferocious dog behind the fence
DET AP N PP The wildly yapping dog on the sofa
Pron He
Name Goldy
The noun (N) is the only obligatory element in the first 7 expansions and serves as the head; the other elements are
all optional. The adjective (A) or adjective phrase (AP) precedes the N and the prepositional phrase (PP) follows N;
both serve as modifiers of the noun (pre/post modifiers of N), expressing a quality of the noun, answering the question
“which dogs?”. DET stands for determiners, a set of grammatical words that serve the function of specifier of N (a
one-way dependency), making more precise or definite the phrase that follows.
2.1. REPRESENTING NPs :
In clause structure, we have recognized a unit intermediate between the clause and the verb, namely the verb phrase.
In the same way we recognize a unit intermediate between the noun phrase and the noun, which we call a NOMINAL
(NOM). NOM is a level of NP-structure intermediate between the phrasal (NP) level and the lexical (N) level.
BASIC BRANCHING NPS
NPs consisting of just a pronoun or just a name (proper noun) are said
to be non-branching. All other NPs have branching representations.
DET always has NOM as its sister. DET determines NOM. “large” is a
modifier of the head noun. All modifiers fall under NOM. How should
sequences of more than one AP within NOM be represented? [12] a
red car [13] a new red car. We need two NOMs. NOM is a recursive
category, that is, NOM can have NOM as an immediate constituent.
Every modifier must be immediately dominated by a NOM.
THE FRIENDLY HEAD PRINCIPLE (FHP): Within NOM, the head of a modifying phrase wants to be as close as possible
to the head noun.
 DETERMINERS (DET)
DETERMINERS are a fixed set of “grammatical” words which give information relating to definiteness and
indefiniteness and information about quantity and proportion. DET includes quite a diverse set of grammatical
words: demonstratives (DEM), articles (ART), wh-words (WH-), possessives (POSS), and quantifiers (Q).

 EMPTY DETERMINER
The determiner position may not always be filled by an actual word: 1. Essays must be
word-processed; 2. Smoke gets in your eyes. Although these NPs contain just one word,
they should still be analysed as having a DET + NOM. The reasons for this EMPTY
DETERMINER analysis are:
1. Both of these NPs could take a determiner (the/some smoke, the/your essays).
2. The empty determiner affects the interpretation of the NP. It gives the NP an
indefinite and/or more general interpretation. The subject of 2 is clearly indefinite,
as compared with the definite NP the/that smoke.
There are just two types of noun that can take the empty determiner: plural count nouns and mass count nouns.
POSSESSIVE NP
POSS includes both possessive adjectives such as my and possessive nouns such as John’s. It may
even include an entire noun phrase, as in that angry man’s (dog), where the –‘s inflection is being
attached to the end of the noun phrase that angry man. A possessive NP can itself be determined
by another possessive NP, as in [Link]’s brother’s behaviour.
PRE-DETERMINERS
PRE-DETERMINERS co-occur with and precede
determiners, so they cannot be determiners themselves.
They seem to determine a full NP:
3. All the men / All men
4. Both those trampolines / Both men
5. Half Jim’s money
The majority of determiners and all pre-determiners are capable of functioning as if they were pronouns: 6. I’ve always
wanted those; 7. Some fell on stay ground; 8. John’s are turning blue; 9. All is ruined. Among the determiners that
cannot function as pronouns, there are some that correspond to forms that can. For ex, the quantifier no cannot
function as a pronoun (*I want to) but it corresponds to none, which can (I want none). And with the possessives one
finds the following alternations:
 Determiner: my, your, her, his, our, their
 Pronoun : mine, yours, hers, his, ours, theirs
It’s predictable that pre-determiners, which predetermine full NP, should be able to co-occur with pronouns: 10. All
mine are at the cleaners.
PRE-MODIFIERS
 The most obvious pre-modifiers within NOM are APs. Others are:
 Quantifying adjectives (QA): many, much, few, little. Are they Determiners or Adjectives? Like adjectives,
- they co-occur with and follow determiners (those many books, the little butter that I have, some few
successes). The determiner may be empty, Ø many books, Ø much garlic.
 - they may occur in the VP, functioning as subject-predicates: His mistakes were many, It wasn’t much, It was
little enough.
- they are gradable: very many books, too much garlic, so few ideas.
Numerals should also be treated as quantifying adjectives, since they follow DET (the one mistake), including
empty DET (Ø one mistake). QAs are head of AP. APs with a QA as head always precede other APs in NOM.

 Participle phrases (PartP) : Non-finite forms of verbs (progressive, perfect and passive participles), Vpart, may
also appear as pre-modifiers.
PROGRESSIVE PERFECT OR PASSIVE
The leering manager A faded dream
The sleeping guard The departed nymphs
Sliced cake
A forgotten valley
In this position, the perfect and passive participles can only be distinguished by appealing to meaning. Since these
forms are verbal rather than adjectival, they are not gradable: *the very leering manager, *rather sliced cake. But
they can be modified by general adverbs, as in the rapidly congealing gravy. No es adj, sino un nuevo sintagma.
 Noun-noun compounds/pre-modification: Nouns themselves may act as pre-modifiers of nouns. Exs are chess
piece, traffic light, roof maintenance, carbon trader, computer game. In a sequence of modifiers that includes a
noun modifier, noun modifiers always appear last. They can’t be separated by the head noun: some expensive roof
maintenance VS *some roof expensive maintenance. Noun-noun compounds are not treated as phrasal, but as N.
POST-MODIFIERS
Two of the categories that follow the head noun within NOM are:
 Prepositional phrases :
This could go on indefinitely, as in an expedition to
the pub in the village at the foot of the mountain.
Whereas an expedition to the pub for more cherry
brandy does not have the same structure for more
cherry brandy is not modifying pub.

When NOM includes both a pre-modifying AP and

a post-modifying PP there are two possibilities.

 Certain types of Adjective Phrase. POST MODIFYING ADJECTIVES: A few adjectives (including present, absent,
responsible and visible) can pre-modify or post-modify the head noun in NOM. As post-modifiers, APs occupy the
same position in the structure of NOM as PPs. A difference in meaning associated with this difference of position
of the AP.
1A) the responsible men → the men are responsible people (that’s their nature)
1B) the men responsible → they are responsible for sth (they indicate temporary features)
2A) the present members → they are current members
2B) the members present → they were present at some event
When an AP appears in the post-modifying position, it feels as if sth has elided from
the AP. The elided element functions as complement of the adjective. In the APs
responsible for the success, happy in his job, nervous of exams, devoid of hope the
complement is explicit. When in an NP, a modifying AP includes a complement, it
always post-modifies the head noun: the chef responsible for the sauces VS *the
responsible for the sauces chef; a stuntman happy in his job VS *a happy in his job
stuntman.
 NOUN COMPLEMENTATION BY PP
Consider the parallelism between: Larry’s neat
summary of the argument (Noun Phrase) and Larry
neatly summarized the argument (Sentence). In the
sentence, the argument is the DO of the verb
summarized. As a complement, it combines with
summarized (V) to form a VP, and that VP is modified
by neatly. It’s reasonable to expect the structural
configuration of the NP to parallel that of the sentence.
In both phrase markers the complement is sister to the head.
NOM AND THE PRO-FORM ONE
“Do so” replaces /is a replacement test for VPs and only VPs, not just V. Given the parallelism between VP and NOM
in the previous phrase-markers, the test for NOM in NP involves the pronoun “one”, which only ever replaces the
intermediate category NOM (never a full NP and never just N).
- Larry’s neat summary of the argument and [this one], too.
→ one = NOM2
- Larry’s neat summary of the argument and [Bill’s clumsy one].
→ one = NOM1
- * Larry’s summary of the argument and [Bill’s one of the conclusion].
→ *one = N
SIDE-EFFECTS
Bill hired those sad clowns and you hired these ones (ones= sad clowns) as expected, but For heaven’s
sake, fire the sad clowns and hire some happy ones! (is ones replacing just the N clowns,
contradicting our hypothesis?). Certainly clowns is a noun, but because it is replaceable by ones it
must also be a NOM as well as an N. So, the phrase-marker needs to be adjusted. There is an extra
non-branching NOM node.
WHEN IS THE EXTRA NOM REQUIRED? Consider the contrast between the NOMs “sad clowns” and “summary of the
argument”, in which clowns is a NOM as well as a N, but “summary” is just N. The answer lies in the different ways in
which sad and of the argument relate to their respective head. Sad is a sister of NOM, whereas of the argument is a
sister of N.
COMPLEMENTS VS ADJUNCTS/MODIFIERS
A sister of N in an NP functions COMPLEMENT in the NP and a sister of NOM functions as an ADJUNCT in NP. If an
expression can co-occur with the pro-NOM one, it must be a sister of NOM-functioning as an adjunct.