NOUN PHRASES

A noun phrase is either a single noun or pronoun or any group of words containing a noun or a pronoun that function together as a noun or pronoun, as the subject or object of a verb.

For example, ‘they’, ‘books’, and ‘the books’ are noun phrases, but ‘book’ is just a noun, as you can see in these sentences (in which the noun phrases are all in bold)

Example 1:

Shaggy: Do you like books?

Bean    : Yes, I like them.

Shaggy: Do you like books over there?

Bean    : Yes, they are nice.

Shaggy: Do you like the book I brought yesterday?

Bean    : Yes, I like it.  (Note: ‘It’ refers to ‘the book’, not ‘book’

Noun phrases normally consist of a head noun, which is optionally modified ("pre-modified" If the modifier is placed before the noun; "post modified" if the modifier is placed after the noun). Possible modifiers include:

*           Determiners: articles (the, a), demonstratives (this, that), numerals (two, five, etc.), possessives (my, their, etc.), and quantifiers (some, many, etc.). In English, determiners are usually placed before the noun;

*           Adjectives (the red ball); or

*           Complements, in the form of a prepositional phrase (such as: the student of physics), or a That-clause (the claim that the earth is round);

*           Modifiers; pre-modifiers if placed before the noun and usually either as nouns (the university student) or adjectives (the beautiful lady), or post-modifiers if placed after the noun. A post modifier may be either a prepositional phrase (the man with long hair) or a relative clause (the house where i live). The difference between modifiers and complements is that complements complete the meaning of the noun; complements are necessary, whereas modifiers are optional because they just give additional information about the noun.