English Noun Phrases: A Comprehensive Guide
English Noun Phrases: A Comprehensive Guide
Package Nouns
Package nouns function to group together a range of entities and are followed by of-phrases.
Collective Nouns
Collective nouns refer to groups of people, animals, and things. They are normal nouns varying in number and definiteness. Of-collectives precede “of + plural noun”:
- Bunch of (people, roses)
- Crowd of (people)
- Flock of (birds, sheep)
- Gang of (bandits)
- Group of (people, animals)
- Set of (conditions)
- Herd of (cows)
- Swarm of (bees)
- Pack of (things)
- Troop of (people)
Note: Bunch, gang, and pack often have a negative connotation.
Unit Nouns
Unit nouns are used to divide a mass into individual pieces:
- A bit of (fun, food, luck)
- A chuck of (food)
- A grain of (dust, salt)
- An item of (clothing)
- A slice of (bread)
- A lump of (coal)
Some unit nouns can combine with a wide range of nouns: piece of paper, sheet of paper.
Quantifying Nouns
Quantifying nouns refer to quantities specified in a following of-phrase containing a plural or uncountable noun:
- Basket of (eggs, fruits)
- Box of (chocolates)
- Cup of (tea)
- Heap of (ashes, leaves)
- Pile of (rubbish, bills)
- Pint, gallon, quart, liter, foot, inch, yard, meter, ounce, pound, gram, kilo, ton of
- Hundreds of, thousands of, millions of, dozens of
- Handful of (roses)
- Pair of (glasses, socks)
- Couple of (hands)
Species nouns refer to type rather than quantity: sort of, kind of, type of
Demonstrative Determiners
Demonstrative determiners (this, that, these, those) convey definite meaning and specify whether the referent is singular or plural and its proximity to the speaker. They can indicate spatial or emotional distance (That dress is lovely), time reference (Should I put these drinks in there?), anaphoric reference (He gave several conferences; these conferences), or cataphoric reference (Those items which cause difficulty).
Introductory this/these: We went to this restaurant and there was this guy.
The Genitive Case
The genitive case survives from Old English. Its form affects pronunciation and spelling:
- Pronunciation: /ɪz/ (Charles’s), /s/ (cat’s), /z/ (boys’)
- Spelling: Normal: with an ‘s’ (boy-boy’s); Plural regular nouns ending in ‘s’ (girls-girls’); Plural irregular nouns ending in ‘s’ (women-women’s); Proper names ending in ‘-s’ have both forms.
Genitives as Determiners
Specifying genitives fill the determiner slot in a noun phrase (the girl’s face). The genitive acts as the head of the genitive phrase.
Genitives as Modifiers
Classifying genitives (what kind of X) are equivalent to an adjective or noun modifier. Examples: His hair felt like a bird’s nest; The children’s department of the store; Indoor women’s tennis tournament.
Genitives of Time and Measure
Genitives specify time (this week’s issue, a midsummer night’s dream), monetary value (fifty pound’s worth), distance (in a week’s time), and duration (a month’s holiday).
Independent Genitives
Independent genitives stand alone as noun phrases. These include elliptic genitives (This isn’t my handwriting. It’s Mary’s) and conventional genitives (people’s homes, I bought at Corte Ingles’s).
Double Genitives
Double genitives consist of an independent genitive or possessive pronoun in an of-phrase (This was a good idea of yours; This guy is a very good friend of ours).
Semantic Types of Nouns Taking the Genitive
Nouns taking the genitive include personal nouns, collective nouns, and place nouns.
The Choice Between Genitive and Of-Phrases
The choice depends on the semantic class of the nouns (personal, especially proper nouns, favor the genitive) and the meaning relation between the two nouns (possessive, attributive, subjective, origin, place).
The Formation of Derived Nouns
Derivation: Affixation
Prefixes (anti-, auto-, bi-, bio-, counter-, dis-, ex-, in-, inter-, mini-) do not normally alter the word class of the base word. Suffixes (-age, -al, -an, -ence, -ant, -ty, -ee, -er, -ese, -ess, -ful, -ician, -ment, -ity, -tion) change both the meaning and word class, often creating abstract nouns. Nominalization is the creation of abstract nouns from verbs or adjectives through derivation (noun/verb/adjective + suffix = new noun).
Examples: business, education, partnership
Conversion (Zero Derivation)
Conversion involves changing a word’s class without adding affixes, often from verb or adjective to noun (professional (adj) – professional (n) – professionals; talk (v) – the talk of the town (n)).
Compounding
Compounding involves combining words with different spellings (separate, hyphenated, or single word). Examples include noun+noun (bathroom), noun+verb (moonwalk), noun+verb+er (songwriter), noun+verb-ing (skydiving), verb+noun (playboy), self+noun (self-motivation), adjective+noun (highlight), and verb+particle (crackdown).