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Noun & Verb Phrases & Grammatical Functions
Noun & Verb Phrases & Grammatical Functions
headword/ head
modifiers
Example:
the
the
beautiful
beautiful
girl
girl who is standing by the window
A NP can be rather complex, containing other noun phrases, or it can consist of just one word (a noun) if the word can occur without any modifier.
Examples:
Children often build castles on the beach. Children who are very creative often build castles on the beach.
Dani wanted to take a make-up test. Dani wanted to take a difficult test which she missed the day before.
a difficult
test
premodifier
postmodifier
Singular form (with determiner) & plural form (with & without determiner) He drove his car downtown. The cars have been stolen. Cars are expensive in Japan. (except when the singular N represent the whole group/species/type)
-
Westerners eat bread with every meal. Holland bakery serves several breads. We need some food for lunch. The food court sells Asian foods.
Many words may be mass nouns in one context and count nouns in a different context:
Westerners eat bread with every meal. Holland Bakery serves many breads.
Modifiers
Proper Nouns
names of particular/unique persons, places, and things included in noun subclass because they appear in noun positions behaving like count noun with few restrictions, i.e.
December is a month for skiing. We talked about Nico. The inside of Gedung Kesenian Jakarta is hot.
However, a determiner is used with proper nouns when such nouns are restrictively modified, such as:
The December in which she married was very cold. It was a December to remember. The Nico I met had bird-nest-like hair.
Proper nouns which are always plural are normally accompanied by the, occasionally by different determiner.
The Appalachians are an old mountain chain. I like your Bahamas since they are beautiful. We are going to visit the Hebrides.
The Museum of Fine Art has a new exhibition. The Atlantic Ocean is rough in winter. We stayed at the Goldiana.
Several Goldianas have been built in the capitals of provinces. There are two Atlantic Oceans in the Northern Hemisphere, the warm one of the tropics and the cold one toward the Pole.
VERB PHRASES
a verb and all the words and word groups that belong with the verb and cluster around it.
headword/ head
Example:
arrived soon arrived
arrived
arrived was waiting may have been taken
late
just as the plane landed at the door by the boy
built
built seemed
a hut
his son a hut gloomy and dirty
became
Verbs taking complements in ing and to- are called catenatives because they can co-occur in chain. - He wanted to stop trying to postpone working.
Grammatical Function
functional elements
Grammatical Meaning That which performs the action of a verb, is described or identified, or about which an assertion is made.
Label of Function
Verb
Grammatical Meaning
That which asserts an action or state
Label of Function Grammatical Meaning Subjective That which follows be or Complement verb like become and identifies or describes the subject. e.g. My mom is a housewife. You look happy.
Label of Function
Direct Object
Grammatical Meaning
That which undergoes the action of the verb.
Label of Function
Grammatical Meaning
Indirect Object
Grammatical Meaning That which completes the direct object and describes or identifies it.
e.g. We consider him important. The students elected him class captain.
Label of Function
Object of Preposition
Grammatical Meaning
That which is related to another word by a preposition.
Identifying Subjects