The Noun

Phrase

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The Noun Phrase

Summary
Traditionally course books and teacher training courses have concentrated on the verb
phrase and treated the noun phrase as a poor relation, even though ‘a simple count of
errors in the writing produced by intermediate students often reveals a higher proportion of
noun-phrase-related errors than errors in the verb system’. (Thornbury 1997)

In this input we will be looking at various aspects of the noun phrase through an analysis of
authentic texts, learners’ written work and published materials. There is also some
suggested reading.

We recommend you work through the different subsections separately rather than trying to
cover all the information and tasks in one go.

Objectives
By the end of the input you will:

Feel more confident about terminology.

Have deepened your analysis of nouns, determiners (including articles), adjectives and
compound nouns.

Know where to do further research on the noun phrase.

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Contents

1. Introduction

2. Nouns

2.1. Analysis of Noun Categories

2.2. Countability

3. Determiners

3.1. Analysis of Determiners

4. Article

5. Adjectives

6. Compound nouns

7. More Complex Noun Phrases

Reading

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1. Introduction
First of all a definition of the noun phrase:

A group of words with a noun or a pronoun as the main part. The noun phrase may
consist of only one word (for example ‘Gina’ in ‘Gina arrived yesterday’) or it may be
long and complex (for example, all the words before ‘must’ in: ‘The students who
enrolled late and who have not yet filled in their cards must do so by Friday’).

Longman Dictionary of Teaching and Applied Linguistics (Richards, Platt &

Platt, 1992)

In terms of form, we can add that a noun phrase can be made up of the following elements.

Determiner Pre-modifier Head (noun / Post-modifier

pronoun)

Your holiday photos of Australia…

More than 10 - people who spoke to me…

The cute one with the black tail…

Note that these are all noun phrases, not full independent sentences. Each is followed by a
verb and complement. For example, the first one could continue ‘…were the best I’ve ever
seen’.

There is some useful basic revision of word classes / phrases and simple sentence structure
in the tasks in Unit 11 (Word classes and phrases) and Unit 12 (Sentence Structure: the
simple sentence) in About Language (Thornbury, 1997). Alternatively, look at Rules,
Patterns and Words (Willis, 2003), Sections 2.1 and 2.4

2. Nouns
In this section we will be beginning with a classification task. If you are doing the Module
One exam, this is similar to how you will be required to analyse language in the exam. We
will then be focussing in more detail on one aspect of nouns that often causes learners
difficulty, namely countability.

2.1 Analysis of Noun Categories

In this extract from the social programme of a language school, consider the nouns, noun
phrases and pronouns in bold.

Example

(1) rubbing shoulders: noun phrase, the object of the verb ‘fancied’ and post-modified by
the prepositional phrase ‘with the rich and famous’. rubbing: the gerund form of the verb
‘rub,’ acting as a noun; shoulders: plural countable common noun.

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Visit to Madame Tussaud’s

Ever fancied rubbing shoulders (1) with the rich and famous (2)? Well, get
down to Madame Tussaud’s! (3) Whether you fancy playing super agents
with 007, measuring up to svelte Naomi Campbell or puckering up to heart
throb (4) Brad Pitt, this is the place to be. Anyone who’s (5) anyone (6)
from sports to the media, (7) politics (8) to punishment (in the chilling
Chamber of Horrors) is here; you (9) can even travel back in time (10) on
the spectacular Spirit of London ride. Madame Tussaud’s offers unique up-
close-and-personal access to the hottest celebrities. And you can gossip
about them (11) to your heart’s content (12) – they won’t answer back!
It’s (13) important to book early as this is a very popular trip.

Meet: 2.30pm

Place: Reception

Tickets: £12.00

Suggested Answers
2. The rich and famous: adjectives functioning as nouns prefaced by ‘the’ and being used as
generalisations instead of ‘rich / famous people.’ Part of a prepositional phrase ‘with the
rich and famous’ post-modifying ‘rubbing shoulders’.

3. Madame Tussaud’s: proper noun with the possessive ‘s’, presumably a shortened
version of Madame Tussaud’s Waxworks Museum; part of a prepositional phrase (‘to
Madame Tussaud’s’).

4. Heart throb: a compound noun made up of a noun (‘heart’) pre-modifying a noun from
verb (‘throb’), and, therefore, acting like an adjective. The pre-modifying noun cannot,
however, be used as a typical adjective, e.g. we cannot say ‘the throb is heart’ (cf ‘the
red car’/‘the car is red’). Object of ‘puckering up to’.

5. Who: relative pronoun referring to a person, in this case ‘Anyone’, and introducing a
relative / adjectival defining clause.

6. Anyone: pronoun complement of ‘‘s’ (‘is’) and part of fixed expression ‘Anyone who’s
anyone,’ meaning anyone important. The whole phrase is in subject position.

7. The media: collective noun with ‘the’ can take either a singular or a plural verb; part of a
prepositional phrase (‘to the media’).

8. Politics: abstract uncountable noun plural in form but taking a singular verb part of
ellipted prepositional phrase (from politics).

9. You: pronoun, subject of the modal verb ‘can’. Here it refers not to the second person
singular or plural but means ‘anyone’ or ‘people’.

10. Time: uncountable noun, part of the prepositional phrase ‘in time’.

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11. Them: object pronoun, 3rd person plural; refers anaphorically to ‘celebrities’; part of a
prepositional phrase, ‘about them’.

12. Heart’s content: a compound noun made up of a possessive noun, ‘heart’s’, pre-
modifying another noun, ‘content’, and part of a semi-fixed phrase ‘to (+ possessive
adjective or noun, e.g. John’s) heart’s content’.

13. It’s: an ‘empty’ or ‘dummy’ pronoun, which does not replace a noun or refer to another
noun in the text and has no intrinsic meaning.

2.2 Countability
Think of some common problems your learners have with countable and uncountable
nouns. Think of some examples of where something is uncountable in English but countable
in a language you know, or vice versa.

Here is a list of suggestions.

1. Learners use uncountable nouns as if they were countable e.g. ‘some informations’, ‘a
furniture’.

2. The equivalent in L1 may be countable, e.g. ‘hairs’.

3. Some uncountables are illogical, e.g. ‘time’, ‘money’.

4. Some things can be viewed as countable in one context and not in another e.g. ‘a beer’,
‘beer’.

5. Remembering which determiners can be used where e.g. ‘many’, ‘much’, ‘few’, ‘little’,
‘a’, ‘zero article’, ‘the’, ‘each’, etc.

6. Use of ‘some’ and ‘any’ (see following section).

7. Use with ‘there is’ and ‘there are’, e.g. ‘there’s some rice’, a singular verb with
uncountables etc.

3. Determiners
In this section we will be looking at determiners and focusing in particular on the issue of
‘some’ and ‘any.’ In Section 4 we will concentrate on another set of determiners that are
difficult for learners: the articles.

3.1 Analysis of Determiners

What is the function of determiners, i.e. what do they do and can you list ten determiners
e.g. ‘a’ / ‘an’, ‘many’? Determiners can be divided into two groups. Those in Group A below
help to identify things, to say which one/s the speaker is talking about, to indicate whether
they are known to the listener or not, to show whether they are general or specific.

Those in Group B are mostly ‘quantifiers’ and say how much or how many of something we
are talking about. Learners sometimes have problems remembering which of these can be
used only with countable nouns, which only uncountable and which with both. Look at the
list again. Could you give your learners a clear answer to this question?

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Group A

Articles: a/an, the

Possessive adjectives: my, your, his, her, its, our, your, their, one’s, whose

Demonstratives: this, that, these, those

Group B

One, two, three; other

Some, any, no

Much, many, more, most; (a) little, less, least; a few, fewer, fewest, enough; several

All, both, half, neither

Each, every, either

What, whatever, which, whichever

3.2 Some and Any

The treatment of ‘some’ and ‘any’ demonstrates perfectly the tension between the
descriptive and pedagogic grammars. In the following task you will be looking at different
analyses of the (pedagogical) ‘rules’ regarding ‘some’ and ‘any’ and thinking about how you
focus on them with classes.

Task 5: Reading and Reflection (30 – 40mins)

1. Look in the nearest elementary course book you can find. Exactly what rules are
taught about ‘some’ and ‘any’?

2. What do you tell your elementary learners about ‘some’ and ‘any?’ Do they seem to
have any problems with the ‘rules’ you give them?

3. Optional additional task: Read the section on ‘Some and Any’ in Chapter 4 of The
English Verb (Lewis, 1986). Do you find Lewis’ argument persuasive enough to
make you change the way you teach ‘some’ and ‘any’ to elementary classes?

4. Optional additional task: Now read the section on ‘Some’ and ‘Any’ in Unit 5 of
Grammar for English Language Teachers (Parrott, 2000). Parrott here makes a
distinction between stressed and unstressed ‘some’ and categorises the uses of
‘some’ and ‘any’ differently from Lewis. Do you find this analysis helpful? Will it
change your teaching of this area in any way?

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4. Articles
The most problematic types of determiners for many learners to use accurately are articles.
We can see this clearly in much of our learners’ written work, where one of the most
common areas of difficulty is article use, misuse, or omission. The ability to identify and
comment on learners’ errors will inform your ability to anticipate problems and identify
viable solutions more appropriately in your day-to-day teaching.

Here are some quotes from teachers about teaching articles which cover some of the basic
problems. Which ones do you agree with?

‘I don’t’.

‘The thing I think is very difficult about the article is that on the one hand it’s extremely
complex and yet on the other it’s all-pervasive. It’s there in every text and utterance –
mistakes are constant’.

‘There are so many rules… I recently gave my advanced students a grammar lesson on
overall uses of the articles but I can’t honestly say it helped’.

‘I tried to sort it out for a class and afterwards they were so conscious of it they seemed
to make even more mistakes – maybe it’s one of those things that is best just acquired. I
reckon they, the rules, are probably un-teachable’.

‘I wait till the problem arises then tackle it by taking in a couple of exercises and drawing
out the rules by analysing the answers. They seem to understand, and they can analyse
quite well, but it doesn’t seem to help them actually use it’.

‘I try not to overload with too many rules – I don’t think it helps at any level – just the
basic general and specific rule, then I try to tag on others as they arise. Learning them in
isolation doesn’t help at all’.

‘It’s not only that other languages use articles very differently, sometimes entirely the
opposite use, like in Italian for abstract nouns, but some don’t have any at all. It’s a real
problem for Japanese and Arabic students for example’.

‘The indefinite article ‘a’ is very hard to hear in spoken English and it’s not that
important for getting your message across, so first of all they don’t hear it and then
there’s no great need for them to use it to communicate’.

Consolidation
Look at the following examples of learners’ errors in written work. In each case, identify and
comment briefly on each error.

1. Fumiko, elementary, writing in her journal:

Sunday: I had very wonderful weekend. On Saturday, I went to Cambridge. It is very

peaceful, so I wanted to stay there. Architecture is very beautiful.

Monday: I came to London because I want speak English. But I’m not happy. Weather is
very bad. Food is not delicious. I miss Japanese food, boyfriend and my parents.

2. Roberto, pre-intermediate, writing about his interests:

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I like very much the music, and go to cinema, Bruce Willis films and the action films.

3. Shisuka, First Certificate, writing an invitation:

How are you? How are you spending your summer holiday?

I am going to spend two weeks at the countryside with two friends and book the house
which has four bedrooms. The cost of house is £160 per week. It is quite cheap, isn’t it?
Moreover, each room is big and comfortable.

4. Stefan, intermediate, writing about his last holiday:

We went to United States. We took children with us and we stayed in Los Angeles and
then we went to Florida.

Commentary
Here is a brief comment on each error, followed by a few teaching suggestions. A/R = an
awareness raising activity, P = a production activity.

Fumiko

1. ‘A very wonderful weekend’. F is not using the indefinite article before a singular
countable noun, probably because she wouldn’t use it in Japanese.

A/R: I would write out two accounts of my weekend, one with no articles in front of this
type of noun and one correct. E.g. ‘I had good weekend. On Saturday, I went to see
friend and we went shopping. I bought T-shirt…etc.’ I would get students in pairs to
decide which account was in correct English and to tell me why. I would then
highlight the rule on the board. In future lessons I would always write singular
countable nouns up with their appropriate article e.g. ‘a classroom, a student, a
lesson, the sun, the world’, to get the class used to the idea that most of the time
nouns have to have an article in front of them.

P: I would take away the good version and ask the students to put in all the missing
articles in the poor version. I would then get them to correct each other’s next
homework for this error.

2. ‘The architecture is very beautiful.’ (also the weather, the food). F is not telling the
reader that she is talking about specific architecture in Cambridge.

A/R: At this very low level, I would probably write her paragraph on the board (with her
permission; after all, it’s a journal) and expand out her sentence, by asking her ‘All
architecture or only in Cambridge?’ and write on the board ‘The architecture (in
Cambridge)’ and show her we need ‘the’ here. I would then ask the class to decide if
we need ‘the’ anywhere else. Hopefully they will identify ‘the weather (in London)’
and ‘the food (in London)’ as being the same idea.

P: Get learners to give their opinions about the food, the weather, the transport, the
architecture etc. in London.

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Roberto

3. ‘I like music very much… and action films’. R is using ‘the’ in front of abstract and
plural nouns when making generalisations, probably as a direct translation from L1.
In English we use the zero article here.

A/R: I would write on the board:

I like very much the music

I like the music very much

I like music very much

I like very much music

Then ask learners in pairs to say which one/s are correct. From this we would highlight the
rule of no article before an abstract noun when we are talking about things in general. We
could also simultaneously correct the word order problem. I could offer further practice by
getting them to listen to me talking about what I like and dislike and get them to make notes
and then reconstruct what I said. Here I would also include plural nouns ‘I like cats’ and
gerunds for naturalness.

P: Students talk to each other about their likes, dislikes, interests, with a partner. A
third student is the grammar expert and stops them if they make a mistake with
articles.

4. ‘Going to the cinema.’ R doesn’t know that there’s a set of entertainment words
where we tend to use ‘the’ as a fixed lexical phrase.

A/R: Whilst I was telling them about my likes (see above) I would include fixed
expressions like ‘the cinema / theatre / ballet’ and highlight these afterwards.

P: Get them to ask each other in a drill. ‘Do you like the opera?’ etc.

Shisuka

5. ‘A house / the house.’ She is getting muddled with articles and needs to remember
the rule about singular countable noun ‘a,’ changes to ‘the’ when the reader knows
which house she is talking about (anaphoric reference).

A/R: Take any text, either a story or a good model of this text and underline all the
anaphoric uses of ‘the’. Get the learners to draw arrows to show what they are
referring back to.

P: A text reconstruction activity where students have to reconstruct a correct version.

E.g. students have:

I / like / book / house / with / four / bedrooms. / house / be / near / Oxford.

This could also be done as a dictogloss (grammar dictation). Learners in groups work on
reconstructing it and have to pay close attention to article use. This student is also having
trouble with the determiner ‘each’. What does she not know?

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Stefan

6. ‘The United States.’ S doesn’t know the rule that before countries which are groups
of islands or states, we use ‘the’.

A/R: For the more general problems with place names: Use some cut-up authentic or
semi-authentic travel information about a city / cities and get students to underline
examples of countries, parks, stations, bridges, shopping streets, etc. and note
whether we use an article with them or not.

P: There is a useful idea in Cutting Edge Upper Intermediate where learners have to
correct quiz questions, putting articles in if necessary, and then have to ask the
other team. Points are given for correct questions and answers.

E.g: Macys’, most famous department store in New York, is:

a) Opposite Statue of Liberty

b) Opposite Central Park

c) Opposite Brooklyn Bridge

d) None of these

7. ‘The children.’ This is a tricky use, because Stefan wants to refer not to all children
but to children he and the reader know about, i.e. his children.

A/R: Use a text with lots of this type of reference. Something about one’s home is good,
because you can include ‘the children, the garden, the bathroom,’ etc and ask
students in pairs to underline all the ’the’s’ and say why they are being used.

P: Do one of the FCE type exercises where you have to cross out any extra words in
each line. This can be used to practise lots of different rules of articles at the same
time.

e.g: ‘We took the children to the park the yesterday afternoon and we had a fun. We
left the house at about 3 o’clock.’

Many linguists have attempted to pinpoint the core meanings of articles, and descriptions
have included such oppositions as general/particular, singular/plural, definite/indefinite.

5. Adjectives
In this section we are going to start by defining adjectives and asking you to review how you
deal with them in class. You will then be working through a series of tasks which include
thinking back over your own experience of teaching adjectives, attempting to answer
questions from a new teacher, and doing some reading. As a result, by the end of the section
you should feel more knowledgeable about adjectives and more confident about focussing
on them in class. You should also feel more ready to tackle any part of the exam where you
are required to display this kind of linguistic knowledge.

What is an Adjective?
At school we might have learnt that an adjective is ‘a word that describes a person, place or
thing.’ That seems fine for ‘a great guy, the local shops, state-of-the-art graphics,’ but

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doesn’t seem to cover ‘extraordinary creativity’ or ‘general run-down ness,’ or ‘unacceptable

behaviour,’ unless we describe these nouns as ‘things’. Here are two workable definitions:

‘A word that describes the thing, quality, state or action which a noun refers to’
(Richards, Platt & Platt, 1992)

‘Adjectives provide more information about the qualities of something described in a

noun, a noun phrase, or clause’ (Parrott, 2000)

Consolidation
Look at these three examples of adjective use.

I’ve had a really tiring day. In fact, I’m exhausted.

The plot was absolutely atrocious and the acting very, very bad.

A dark blue denim jacket

1. Identify the features of adjectives that are being focused on.

2. Identify at least three problems that learners are likely to experience with these
features, both in general for all learners and specifically for those in your context. Think
about meaning, form and phonology.

Suggested Answers
I’ve had a really tiring day. In fact, I’m exhausted.

1. Participles being used as adjectives / the contrast between the ‘–ed’ and ‘–ing’ forms of
the adjective

2. Problems include:

the difficulty of distinguishing which one to use when, particularly the ‘–ed’ form causes
problems.

there may be no such distinction in L1.

the actual lexical meaning of each word may be unknown and the distinctions between
words may be unclear e.g. ‘excited’, ‘nervous’.

the pronunciation is likely to be difficult, particularly the word stress e.g. ‘interested’,
‘fascinated’ and the pronunciation of the ‘–ed’ ending, e.g. ‘bored’, ‘interested’.

The plot was absolutely atrocious and the acting very, very bad.

1. Ungradable ‘extreme’ adjectives and three intensifiers which can/cannot be used with
gradable and/or ungradable adjectives (‘very’, ‘really’, ‘absolutely’).

2. Problems include:

the meaning of the new words, especially the meaning of ‘terrific’ as a positive word.

the collocations of the intensifiers, particularly stopping learners using ‘very’ with an
ungradable adjective.

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the pronunciation of the ungradable adjectives, particularly in terms of word stress, e.g.
terrific, astonished.

the stress and intonation on e.g. ‘really’ / ‘absolutely boiling’.

at later levels, the collocations, e.g. ‘completely astonished’, but not ‘completely
completely boiling’.

A dark blue denim jacket

1. Focus on adjectives to describe clothes. Adjective word order.

2. Problems might include:

Ss becoming over-concerned and conscious about whether they are getting the word
order correct.

Ss actually remembering the order, especially when speaking.

Ss making adjectives plural to agree with nouns e.g. ‘suedes shoes’.

Ss using ‘and’ e.g. ‘purple and scruffy shoes’.

Ss putting adjectives after the noun e.g. ‘trousers blue’

the pronunciation of some words, e.g. ‘suede’, ‘corduroy’, ‘mauve’.

Consolidation
You have agreed to mentor a newly-qualified teacher. She comes to you with a series of
questions about adjectives. Consider how you would answer her questions.

1. Some books say that two syllable adjectives take ‘-er’ and some say three syllable
adjectives. Which is right? And which is correct, ‘politer’ or ‘more polite?

2. Why can’t we say ‘very wonderful?’

3. If you have to use adverbs to describe verbs, why do we say, ‘You look good’?

4. A student in my class asked me how you know when to use ‘un-’ or something else in
front of a negative adjective. For example, how do you know if it’s ‘unreliable’ or ‘non-
reliable’?

5. When we say something like ‘he was disappointed’, is that a passive or an adjective?

6. Maria wrote in her homework ‘She looked at the asleep children.’ Why is this wrong?
You can say: ‘he looked at the noisy children or the frightened children’.

7. I don’t understand how ‘quite’ works, because it seems to be different for something
‘quite good,’ and ‘quite excellent’.

8. What’s a compound adjective? Is it the same thing as a multiword adjective?

9. Stefan wrote ‘he had a very broken leg’ and I corrected it and he wants to know what
the rule is for when you can use ‘very’.

10. What would you say if someone asked you ‘What’s the opposite of ‘dry’?’?

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Commentary
1. Some 2 syllable adjectives take ‘–er’ and ‘–est’, especially adjectives ending in an
unstressed vowel or /əl/ or /ər/. E.g ‘simple, narrow, clever, quiet.’ With many two
syllable adjectives, e.g. ‘common, polite’ you can either use ‘–er’/‘-est’ or ‘more’/‘most’.
Adjectives of 3 or more syllables take ‘more’/‘most’.

2. ‘Wonderful’ is an ungradable adjective, showing an extreme quality, like ‘furious’,

‘exhausted’, ‘freezing’ and we can only use intensifiers which emphasise their extreme
nature ‘absolutely, utterly, completely, depending on collocation’. Other ungradable
adjectives have absolute qualities e.g. ‘correct, female, dead,’ etc. and therefore cannot
be intensified. They are sometimes referred to as ‘extreme’ adjectives.

3. With copula verbs, i.e. ‘be’, ‘look’, ‘taste’, ‘smell’, ‘sound’, ‘feel’, ‘seem’, ‘appear’,
‘become’ and ‘get’ we use an adjective not an adverb.

4. You do not. There are tendencies, which can be taught, but there are exceptions.

The tendencies are:

‘ir-’ + adjectives beginning with ‘r’

‘il-’ + adjectives beginning with ‘l’

‘im-’ + adjectives beginning with ‘p’ or ‘m’

5. It may have started life as a passive form, but would generally be described as a
participle being used as an adjective. This type of adjective, formed by the present or
past participle can be used before nouns (‘a boring lesson’), after copula verbs (‘he
looked annoyed’) and after nouns (‘the men arrested were mostly from…’) where it is a
reduced relative clause (‘the men who were arrested’) and is much favoured in
newspaper articles where compactness and drama are valued.

6. To answer this you need to know the following:

We can use most adjectives before nouns e.g. ‘a good meal’; ‘a lucky chance’
(attributively)

We can use adjectives after some verbs e.g. ‘The meal looks good’; ‘it was a lucky
chance’ (predicatively).

Most adjectives can be used in both positions; however, there are a few adjectives
that we can’t use before nouns e.g. ‘The dog’s asleep’ but not ‘The asleep dog’,
‘Tony felt afraid’, not ‘The afraid boy.’

7. A ‘down toner’ such as ‘quite’ is only used with gradable adjectives, e.g. ‘quite nice,
good, interesting.’ When it is used with an ungradable adjective its meaning changes and
it means ‘absolutely’ e.g. ‘quite brilliant’, ‘exhausted’, ‘wonderful’. The stress and
intonation also change.

8. Yes, it is the same thing. It is an adjective made up of two parts, one of which is often a
participle, e.g.:

‘Badly-behaved’, ‘oddly-phrased’, ‘well-known’, ‘smooth-running’ (adverb +

participle, usually with a hyphen).

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‘Computer-mad’, ‘housebound’, home-made’ (noun + adjective / participle, usually

with a hyphen but not always).

‘Broken-down’, ‘torn-up’, ‘worn-out’ (coming from a multi-word verb).

9. In the same way that you cannot use ‘very’ for extreme adjectives, there is another kind
of adjective that is ungradable because it is absolute, e.g. ‘dead’, ‘alive’, ‘broken’,
‘glazed’ etc.

10. I would say: ‘It depends in what context.’ Adjectives do not exist in isolation. The
opposite of ‘dry’ could be ‘rainy’ ‘wet’ or ‘sweet’.

6. Compound Nouns
These are noun phrases which typically combine two items to create a specific meaning that
stands alone e.g. ‘the bus station’ has a more precise meaning than ‘the station’.

Often a compound noun is a type of the second item:

e.g. ‘apple juice’ is a type of juice

‘a tee-shirt’ is a type of shirt

‘a football coach’ is a type of coach

In terms of form, the second item is usually a noun. The first item is often a noun too, but
can also be an adjective or a verb/form of a verb:

e.g. Next to the coffee shop was a playground where a blackbird was sitting on the climbing
frame.

‘coffee shop’ = noun + noun

‘playground’ = verb + noun

‘blackbird’ = adjective + noun

‘climbing frame’ = gerund of verb ‘climb’ + noun

Spelling and punctuation of compound nouns is somewhat random and can evolve as the
item becomes more commonly used e.g. ‘an e-mail’ has become ‘an email’, and ‘leg-room’
‘legroom’ etc.

Compound nouns can be:

spelt as one word e.g. ‘whiteboard’, ‘website’, ‘cartwheel’ etc.

hyphenated e.g. ‘pen-friend’, ‘bar-top’, ‘lamp-post’ etc.

two separate word e.g. ‘French windows’, ‘corner shop’, ‘steam iron’ etc.

a combination when there are more than two items e.g. ‘a further education college’, ‘a
waste-paper basket’ etc.

As a very general rule of thumb, the shorter and more established a compound noun is, the
more likely it is to be spelt as one word. However, indicative of how there are no set rules,
‘mail box’, ‘mail-box’ and ‘mailbox’ are all acceptable. It is often a case of personal choice.

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Because a compound noun has its own semantic meaning, it is treated as one lexical item. As
such, the elements within it cannot usually be separated e.g. ‘a municipal golf course’ not ‘a
golf municipal course’.

Consolidation
Which of the underlined noun phrases are compound nouns? What informs your decision?

a. I bought an armchair yesterday.

b. I bought a leather chair yesterday.

c. There’s a French teacher moving in next door. She teaches Maths apparently.

d. I like our new French teacher. I’m more confident about my trip to Paris now.

e. This is a very exclusive leisure centre.

f. It’s in the geographical centre of the town.

g. My sister has a greenhouse.

h. My sister has a green house.

Say the sentences out loud. Where is the stress in the noun phrases? What conclusions can
be drawn from this?

Commentary
The compound nouns are:

a. armchair: this is an established type of chair. The meaning relationship between the two
items here indicates a quality of the chair i.e. it has got arms.

d. French teacher: again this specifies the type of teacher she is, indicating what it is she
does i.e. she teaches French, not any other subject. Whether she actually is French or
not is not known nor essential to the compound.

e. leisure centre: both parts are crucial to the meaning. Here the meaning relationship
regards what the centre is used for i.e. for leisure activities.

g. greenhouse: this compound is so institutionalised that it has a clear meaning not

instantly obvious from the component parts. The adjective ‘green’ is not describing the
house but indicates what it houses i.e. greenery, plants, herbs etc.

The noun phrases in b. c. f. and h. are not compound nouns.

The adjectives are describing the chair, teacher, centre and house rather than indicating
solely what kind they are. So the first item is providing descriptive information about the
noun that follows. It is also possible to separate the two items with a further descriptive
word whereas in the compound nouns it is not as meaning of the whole item would be lost
or confused.

With the compound nouns, stress falls on the first item. This is a general tendency and can
be a way to work out whether the two items together can be considered as a compound. It
is not necessarily that the first item is unstressed in the other noun phrases, but there is
certainly either more or equal stress on the second item.

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For example, the difference between ‘My sister has a greenhouse’ and ‘My sister has a
green house’ is key in that it changes the meaning radically. While this is an exaggerated
example, it throws up an important implication for classroom practice. Not only do teachers
need to know where the stress is, learners do too.

Of course, there are grey areas. It can be reasonably argued that ‘a leather jacket’ is an
established type of jacket. It is difficult to truly decide which item gets more stress in the
utterance “I bought a leather jacket yesterday.” But perhaps because it is possible to say “I
bought a leather bomber jacket yesterday” it is not a compound.

The co-text can also shift sentence stress in a way that means the first item receives stress
even though it is not part of a compound noun. Consider the following:

‘It’s great we have a French teacher for Maths.’

A fair assumption is that this teacher does not teach French and Maths. So ‘French’ is the
nationality of the teacher rather than the subject taught. As such, it is not a compound noun.
But because the speaker is evidently enthusiastic about the nationality of the teacher,
‘French’ receives stress. There are other less common types of compound nouns that do not
follow the same forms as the examples above.

Less Common Compound Nouns

Identify the 10 compound nouns in this text.

My brother-in-law is very slight and has no muscles to speak of. But he can run like a
greyhound. Last year he entered a marathon and came second. Not bad for someone who’s
normally a hate figure working in health and safety. The incredible thing was that he was a
stand-by and only got to run when there were some drop-outs. At the end of the race, the
spectators were cheering and passers-by stopped to cheer too. He felt like a hero when he
got a guard of honour from us members of the family. Winners or runners-up should I say,
come in all shapes and sizes!

Which ones:

1. follow the pattern noun/adjective/verb + noun?

2. are formed from phrasal verbs?

3. are binomials?

4. are nouns joined by of, at or in?

Commentary
The 10 compound nouns are underlined.

My brother-in-law is very slight and has no muscles to speak of. But he can run like a
greyhound. Last year he entered a marathon and came second. Not bad for someone who’s
normally a hate figure working in health and safety. The incredible thing was that he was a
stand-by and only got to run when there were some drop-outs. At the end of the race, the
spectators were cheering and passers-by stopped to cheer too. He felt like a hero when he
got a guard of honour from us members of the family. Winners or runners-up should I say
come in all shapes and sizes!

1. ‘greyhound’ (adjective + noun); ‘hate figure’ (noun + noun)

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2. ‘stand-by’; ‘drop-outs’, ‘passers-by’, ‘runners-up’

3. ‘health and safety’; ‘shapes and sizes’

4. ‘brother-in-law’; ‘guard of honour’

The spelling of compound nouns can be somewhat arbitrary e.g. mail box, mail-box, mailbox
but notice with the compounds derived from phrasal verbs e.g. ‘He dropped out of the race’
= ‘He was a drop-out’; ‘She was passing by’ = ‘She was a passer-by’, the plural forms are
similarly random. The ‘-s’ morpheme can be at the end of the first item or the second. It is
not possible to have two ‘passer-bys’ nor is it possible to have two ‘drops-out’.

With the final category above, two plurals are possible e.g. ‘brothers-in-law’ and ‘brother-in-
laws’. The former is more likely in formal English, the latter more likely in informal spoken
English.

7. More Complex Noun Phrases

In this section so far, there has been focus on nouns, determiners which often form part of a
noun phrase, adjectives, which usually pre-modify nouns, and compound nouns.

These can be combined to form increasingly complex noun phrases:

Noun phrase Form

food an uncountable noun; also ‘the head’

the food determiner (definite article) + noun

the delicious food determiner + pre-modifying adjective +

noun

the delicious Vietnamese food determiner + adj + compound noun, which

is now ‘the head’ (formed of adjective +
noun)

So within a more complex noun phrase there can be two dependent elements before the
noun: a determiner and pre-modifiers. In the example above, the pre-modifier is an
adjective, ‘delicious’, but it can also be another noun as in ‘school food’, ‘breakfast food’ etc.

But a noun phrase can have more complexity when post-modifiers are used. At the
beginning of this section, this sentence was used as an example of a sentence containing a
complex noun phrase:

The students who enrolled late and who have not yet filled in their cards must do so by
Friday.

This noun phrase is broken down thus:

Determiner Noun (the Post-modifier

head)

The students who enrolled late and who have not yet filled in their cards

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The post-modifier here takes the form of two relative clauses. In this example, they are
defining relative clauses but it is also possible to post-modify with a non-defining relative
clause e.g. ‘The students, who enrolled late, had been sent the wrong information.’

The main types of post-modifier are (the noun phrase is underlined; post-modifiers in bold):

full relative clauses – these clauses are finite

e.g. The students who came every day did well in their exams.

Those students, to whom the teacher was very grateful, gave her a present.

participle clauses – the first example uses the present participle, the second the past
participle – these clauses are non-finite

e.g. The students taking the exam looked very nervous.

The ones affected by nerves weren’t as fluent as they usually were.

infinitive relative clauses – these less common clauses are non-finite

e.g. She was a teacher to admire.

They had a lot of work to do if they wanted to do well in the exam.

prepositional phrases

e.g. It’s good to practise with exam papers from previous years.

The students in the class got on really well together.

From these examples it should be clear what the function of a post-modifier is: it specifies
‘which person or thing or type of person or thing is being referred to’ (Carter & McCarthy,
2006; 323).

A key way of identifying a post-modifier: it is either a relative clause, providing essential or

extra information, or it can be paraphrased by a relative clause. So using some of the
examples above:

The students taking the exams = The students who were taking the exams

a teacher to admire = a teacher who was to be admired.

exam papers from previous years = exam papers which are from previous years

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Reading:
Although not essential to your Module 1 preparation, if you would like to explore this area
further we suggest the following:

Suggested Reading
Lewis, M. 1986 The English Verb LTP

Parrott, M. 2000 Grammar for English Language Teachers Cambridge University Press

Thornbury, S. 1997 About Language Cambridge University Press

Willis, D. 2003 Rules, Patterns and Words Cambridge University Press

Yule, G. 2007 (republished) Explaining English Grammar Oxford University Press

Additional Reading
Beaumont, M. & Gallaway, C. 1994 Articles of Faith: The Acquisition, Learning and Teaching
of ‘a’ and ‘the’, in Grammar and the Language Teacher (ed Bygate, M., Tonkyn, A. &
Williams, E.) Prentice Hall

Carter, R., Hughes, R. & McCarthy, M. 2000 Exploring Grammar in Context Cambridge
University Press

Carter, R. & McCarthy, M. 2006 Cambridge Grammar of English Cambridge University Press

Richards, J. & Schmidt, R. 2002 Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied
Linguistics Longman

Swan, M. 1995 Practical English Usage (2nd edition) Oxford University Press

Ur, P. 1988 Grammar Practice Activities Cambridge University

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