The Noun Phrase (or noun group) in English
Two simple "rules" govern the use of the noun group in English.
1) The essential parts of a noun group
Unless a noun is used in a generalising sense (see articles), a noun group consists or at least the following elements: a determiner and a noun.
A determiner is one of the following: an article (the, a, an, some, any), a quantifier (no, few, a few, many, etc.), a possessive (my, your, whose, the man's, etc.), a demonstrative (this, that, these, those), a numeral (one, two, three etc.) or a question word (which, whose, how many, etc.).
Except in some very rare cases, a noun can only be preceded by ONE determiner:
Examples: the man, some women, a few dogs, your horse, the man's horse* , that car, whose money, how many bottles?
(In this example, the man's horse* there appear to be two determiners before horse, but in fact there is only one: the determiner before horse is the man, and the article the is the determiner of the word man.)
2) Other parts of a noun group.
A noun group can also contain one or more modifiers; a modifier is an adjective, an adjectival phrase, a secondary noun, a prepositional phrase or a relative clause.
The principal noun in a noun group is called the head noun.
- Adjectives are placed before the head noun: as in the Great Gatsby
(Click here for ► How to place adjectives in the right order) - Adjective phrases usually come before the head noun: as in:
a black-and-white striped vest
a rather tight-fitting dress - Secondary nouns behave exactly like adjectives, and come before the head noun:
a beer glass, the police inspector, a London bus - Prepositional phrases and relative clauses follow the head noun, as in:
the students in our class or the girl who gave me her phone-number.
The nice old-fashioned police inspector with white hair, who was drinking his beer, was Mr. Morse.
3 Some common exceptions
Sometimes an adjective or an adjectival phrase will follow the noun, or appear to do so. There are three cases that need to be noted:
There's been an outbreak of flu, but there are only fifteen people concerned
After the fight, the police arrested the men involved.
Oh look ! there is only one chocolate left !!
We can't go yet !! There are still three people missing.
There was a crowd bigger than last year.
To place noun groups correctly in a sentence, see Word order in English .
3 Some common exceptions
Sometimes an adjective or an adjectival phrase will follow the noun, or appear to do so. There are three cases that need to be noted:
- A very few adjectives always follow the noun: concerned (in the sense of "being talked about"), and involved (in the sense of "participating", or "being present") are the two common ones.
- Other participial adjectives (such as left, remaining, missing) appear to be used as adjectives that follow the noun; in reality, they are elliptical forms of a relative clause that has become reduced to a single word.
- Adjectives follow the noun when the adjectives themselves are post-modified (defined) by a following phrase.
There's been an outbreak of flu, but there are only fifteen people concerned
After the fight, the police arrested the men involved.
Oh look ! there is only one chocolate left !!
We can't go yet !! There are still three people missing.
There was a crowd bigger than last year.
To place noun groups correctly in a sentence, see Word order in English .
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