Introduction
This present essay intends to bring out solid
information about one of the best or interesting topic in Syntax, the branch of
linguistics. The interesting topic referred in this essay is noun phrase (NP). However,
to you understand very well noun phrase, first you should master what nouns and
phrases are. JULE (2006:74) Nouns are words used to refer to people (boy),
objects (chair), creatures(dog), places (school), qualities (roughness),
phenomena (earthquake) and abstract ideas (love) as if they were all ‘things’.
“A phrase is either an individual word or
(more often) a combination of words capable of performing a syntactic function.
The most important syntactic functions are the subject and the predicate” (TOKAR,
2012:9).
As we have introduced to you what give to you the
feeling about what will be about noun phrase, so before we give you an idea
about how noun phrases are we would like to say that to master noun phrases is
not easier but is possible. Furthermore, more you learn it more you master it as
well as less you learn less you master. Looking at this sentence (S), "the
girl chased the dog", noun phrase (NP) the
girl and a verb phrase (VP) chased
the dog (CRYSTAL 2010:100). So is more crucial to know that sentence has
two divisions, which are noun phrase (NP) and verb phrase (VP), but in this paper,
our focus is on noun phrase (NP).
Objective
At the end of this essay, you should be able to:
Ø
Define
noun phrase;
Ø
Know
constituents of noun phrase;
Ø
Represent
noun phrase in diagram;
Noun Phrase
A noun phrase (NP) is a phrase, which has a noun or
pronoun as its head, or which performs the same grammatical function as such a
phrase. Furthermore, the constituent composed of a noun and an article is
called a noun phrase (VALIN 2001:5).
FROMKIM (1993:125) says noun phrase may function as
the subject or as an object in a sentence. In addition to this, the same author
on p.130, states that the noun is the head of the noun phrase. As well as on p.138,
says that NPs always contain Nouns.
According to BURTON (1997:153) “Noun phrase (NP), in
the basic case, has just two immediate constituents: DET (determiner) and NOM
(nominal)”.
Example, a) This money. b) These cars.
DET always has NOM as its sister. Moreover, NOM
represents a level of NP-structure intermediate between the phrasal (NP) level
and the lexical (N) level. NOM is the (intermediate) head of NP, and N is the
head of NOM. Therefore, N is the ultimate head of NP (BURTON 1997:153).
Determiners are a fixed set of grammatical words which
give information related to definiteness and indefiniteness (roughly, whether
the thing referred to by the NP is familiar to both speaker and hearer or not)
and information about quantity and proportion. Furthermore, the basic
determiners are the articles (ART): the definite article (the) and the infinite
article (a) (Ibidem, p.154).
BURTON (1997:154) says there is a small set of words
which seem to perform the same function as the articles and which cannot appear
in the sequence with them within an NP. These are therefore determiners
themselves. They include:
Ø
Demonstratives
(DEM): this, that, these, those.
Ø
Certain
Quantifiers (Q): some, any, no, each, every, either and neither.
Ø
Possessives
(POSS): my, your, its, her, his, our, their, john’s.
Example. a) My books b) That woman
t
Two Types of NP that Don’t Accept a
Determiner
Ø
NPs
consisting of just a pronoun;
Ø
NPs
consisting of a proper noun (name).
The names of particular people, places and things are
proper nouns. They always begin with a capital letter (SARGEANT, 2007:8).
Any NPs consisting of a proper noun (name) like Max is
not analysed as having an unfilled determiner position because proper nouns do
not normally accept determiners anyway. Furthermore, lack of a determiner with
a proper noun does not indicate indefiniteness or generality. On the contrary,
proper nouns do not normally take determiners precisely because they are
inherently definite (Burton1997:156).
Example: Max
HANA (2011:4) “Pronouns
are words that stand for a noun or a whole noun phrase”. In order works,
Pronouns are words that are used in place of a noun or noun phrase.
Definite Pronouns are I, you, he, she, it, we, they,
me, him, her, us, them, this, that, those, these and indefinite pronouns are
some, any, several and so on. They do not depend on any determiner. As you know
that the function of pronouns is to replace NPs as a whole, including DET. This
is why pronouns do not accept a determiner (BURTON 1997:156).
Pronouns: He
Pre-determiners are all, both and half. They co-occur
with and precede determiners.
All the man
In addition, expressions like double, treble and so
forth are pre-determiners as well.
Pre-modifiers are placed between the determiner and
the head noun: adjectives, nouns, adverbs, participles, gerunds or whole
clauses. Adjective phrases (APs) are the commonest pre-modifiers of the noun
within the NOM constituent (BURTON 1997:160).
Quantifying adjectives (QA): much, many, few and
little.
Ø
They
co-occur with and follow determiners (those many books, the little butter that
I have, some few successes).
Ø
They may occur in the VP, functioning as
subject- predicative: his mistakes were many/few; it was little enough.
Ø
They
are gradable: very many books, too much garlic, so few ideas, very little tact,
where they are modified by DEG. In addition, numerals (the cardinal numerals
one, two, three…, and the ordinal numerals first, second, third…) should be
treated as quantifying adjectives within NOM, since they follow DET, including
unfilled DET.
Quantifying adjectives are head of AP. APs with QAs as
head always precede other APs in NOM.
Very many books
Phrase
Structure Rules for NPs
Ø NP
→ N; NP → D N; NP → A N; NP → D A N
What These Rules Say:
Ø
An
NP has to have a N in it.
Ø
An
NP can (but need not) also contain a D and/or an A
Ø
If there is a D, it has to precede the N and
any A
Ø
If
there is an A, it has to precede the N and follow any D.
Bibliographic Reference
YULE, G (2006), The
study of Language, new york: C.U.P, 2nd ed.
TOKAR, A (2012), Introduction
to English Morphology, vol 5, nr 4.
CRYSTAL, D,(2010), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, Cambridge: C.U.P, 3rd
ed.
SARGEANT, H,(2007) Basic Grammar for English Language Learners, New York:
S.E.P, 2nd ed.
FROMKIM,V and RODMAN, R, (1993) An Introduction to Language, Philadelphia: H.B.C.P, 8th
ed.
ROZAKIS, L, (2003), English Grammar for the Utterly Confused, New York:
McGraw-hill, 1st ed.
HANA, J, (2011), Intro
to Linguistics-Syntax 1
VALIN, JR, (2001), An Introduction to Syntax, New york: C.U.P, 1st ed.
