Identifying noun phrases

Some examples of noun phrases are underlined in the sentences below. The head noun appears in
bold.

The election-year politics are annoying for many people.

Almost every sentence contains at least one noun phrase.

"Those five beautiful shiny Arkansas Black apples sitting on the chair" is a noun phrase of
which apples is the head. To test, a single pronoun can replace the whole noun phrase, as in
"They are delicious".
Current economic weakness may be a result of high energy prices.

Noun phrases can be identified by the possibility of pronoun substitution, as is illustrated in the
examples below.

a. This sentence contains two noun phrases.

b. It contains them.
a. The subject noun phrase that is present in this sentence is long.
b. It is long.
a. Noun phrases can be embedded in other noun phrases.
b. They can be embedded in them.

A string of words that can be replaced by a single pronoun without rendering the sentence
grammatically unacceptable is a noun phrase. As to whether the string must contain at least two
words, see the following section.

Status of single words as phrases

Traditionally, a phrase is understood to contain two or more words. The traditional progression in
the size of syntactic units is word < phrase < clause, and in this approach a single word (such as a
noun or pronoun) would not be referred to as a phrase. However, many modern schools of syntax
especially those that have been influenced by X-bar theory make no such restriction.[2] Here many
single words are judged to be phrases based on a desire for theory-internal consistency. A phrase is
deemed to be a word or a combination of words that appears in a set syntactic position, for instance
in subject position or object position.

On this understanding of phrases, the nouns and pronouns in bold in the following sentences are
noun phrases (rather than just nouns and pronouns):

He saw someone.
Milk is good.
They spoke about corruption.
The words in bold are called phrases since they appear in the syntactic positions where multiple-
word phrases (i.e. traditional phrases) can appear. This practice takes the constellation to be
primitive rather than the words themselves. The word he, for instance, functions as a pronoun, but
within the sentence it also functions as a noun phrase. The phrase structure grammars of the
Chomskyan tradition (government and binding theory and the minimalist program) are primary
examples of theories that apply this understanding of phrases. Other grammars, for instance
dependency grammars, are likely to reject this approach to phrases, since they take the words
themselves to be primitive. For them, phrases must contain two or more words.

Components of noun phrases

A typical noun phrase consists of a noun (the head of the phrase) together with zero or more
dependents of various types. (These dependents, since they modify a noun, are called adnominal.)
The chief types of these dependents are:

determiners, such as the, this, my, some, Jane's

attributive adjectives, such as large, beautiful, sweeter
adjective phrases and participial phrases, such as extremely large, hard as nails, made of
wood, sitting on the step
noun adjuncts, such as college in the noun phrase a college student
nouns in certain oblique cases, in languages which have them, such as German des Mannes
("of the man"; genitive form)
prepositional phrases, such as in the drawing room, of his aunt
adnominal adverbs and adverbials, such as (over) there in the noun phrase the man (over)
there
relative clauses, such as which we noticed
other clauses serving as complements to the noun, such as that God exists in the noun
phrase the belief that God exists
infinitive phrases, such as to sing well and to beat in the noun phrases a desire to sing well
and the man to beat

The allowability, form and position of these elements depend on the syntax of the language in
question. In English, determiners, adjectives (and some adjective phrases) and noun modifiers
precede the head noun, whereas the heavier units phrases and clauses generally follow it. This is
part of a strong tendency in English to place heavier constituents to the right, making English more
of a head-initial language. Head-final languages (e.g. Japanese and Turkish) are more likely to place
all modifiers before the head noun. Other languages, such as French, often place even single-word
adjectives after the noun.

Noun phrases can take different forms than that described above, for example when the head is a
pronoun rather than a noun, or when elements are linked with a coordinating conjunction such as
and, or, but. For more information about the structure of noun phrases in English, see English
grammar Noun phrases.

Syntactic function

Noun phrases typically bear argument functions.[3] That is, the syntactic functions that they fulfill are
those of the arguments of the main clause predicate, particularly those of subject, object and
predicative expression. They also function as arguments in such constructs as participial phrases and
prepositional phrases. For example:
 For us the news is a concern. - the news is the subject argument
Have you heard the news? - the news is the object argument
That is the news. - the news is the predicative expression following the copula is
They are talking about the news. - the news is the argument in the prepositional phrase
about the news
The man reading the news is very tall. - the news is the object argument in the participial
phrase reading the news

Sometimes a noun phrase can also function as an adjunct of the main clause predicate, thus taking
on an adverbial function, e.g.

Most days I read the newspaper.

She has been studying all night.

Noun phrases with and without determiners

In some languages, including English, noun phrases are required to be "completed" with a
determiner in many contexts, and thus a distinction is made in syntactic analysis between phrases
that have received their required determiner (such as the big house), and those in which the
determiner is lacking (such as big house).

The situation is complicated by the fact that in some contexts a noun phrase may nonetheless be
used without a determiner (as in I like big houses); in this case the phrase may be described as
having a "null determiner". (Situations in which this is possible depend on the rules of the language
in question; for English, see English articles.)

In the original X-bar theory, the two respective types of entity are called noun phrase (NP) and N-bar
(N, N). Thus in the sentence Here is the big house, both house and big house are N-bars, while the
big house is a noun phrase. In the sentence I like big houses, both houses and big houses are N-bars,
but big houses also functions as a noun phrase (in this case without an explicit determiner).

In some modern theories of syntax, however, what are called "noun phrases" above are no longer
considered to be headed by a noun, but by the determiner (which may be null), and they are thus
called determiner phrases (DP) instead of noun phrases. (In some accounts that take this approach,
the constituent lacking the determiner that called N-bar above may be referred to as a noun
phrase.)

This analysis of noun phrases is widely referred to as the DP hypothesis. It has been the preferred
analysis of noun phrases in the minimalist program from its start (since the early 1990s), though the
arguments in its favor tend to be theory-internal. By taking the determiner, a function word, to be
head over the noun, a structure is established that is analogous to the structure of the finite clause,
with a complementizer. Apart from the minimalist program, however, the DP hypothesis is rejected
by most other modern theories of syntax and grammar, in part because these theories lack the
relevant functional categories.[4] Dependency grammars, for instance, almost all assume the
traditional NP analysis of noun phrases.

For illustrations of different analyses of noun phrases depending on whether the DP hypothesis is
rejected or accepted, see the next section.

Tree representations of noun phrases

The representation of noun phrases using parse trees depends on the basic approach to syntactic
structure adopted. The layered trees of many phrase structure grammars grant noun phrases an
intricate structure that acknowledges a hierarchy of functional projections. Dependency grammars,
in contrast, since the basic architecture of dependency places a major limitation on the amount of
structure that the theory can assume, produce simple, relatively flat structures for noun phrases.

The representation also depends on whether the noun or the determiner is taken to be the head of
the phrase (see the discussion of the DP hypothesis in the previous section).

Below are some possible trees for the two noun phrases the big house and big houses (as in the
sentences Here is the big house and I like big houses).

1. Phrase-structure trees, first using the original X-bar theory, then using the modern DP approach:

NP NP | DP DP
/ \ | | / \ |
det N' N' | det NP NP
| / \ / \ | | / \ / \
the adj N' adj N' | the adj NP adj NP
| | | | | | | | |
big N big N | big N big N
| | | | |
house houses | house houses

2. Dependency trees, first using the traditional NP approach, then using the DP approach:

house houses | the (null)

/ / / | \ \
/ / big | house houses
the big | / /
| big big

The following trees represent a more complex phrase. For simplicity, only dependency-based trees
are given.[5]

The first tree is based on the traditional assumption that nouns, rather than determiners, are the
heads of phrases.
The head noun picture has the four dependents the, old, of Fred, and that I found in the drawer. The
tree shows how the lighter dependents appear as pre-dependents (preceding their head) and the
heavier ones as post-dependents (following their head).

The second tree assumes the DP hypothesis, namely that determiners rather than nouns serve as
phrase heads.

The determiner the is now depicted as the head of the entire phrase, thus making the phrase a
determiner phrase. Note that there is still a noun phrase present (old picture of Fred that I found in
the drawer) but this phrase is below the determiner.

Noun Phrases

Often a noun phrase is just a noun or a pronoun:

People like to have money.

I am tired.
It is getting late.

or a determiner and a noun :

Our friends have bought a house in the village.
Those houses are very expensive.

perhaps with an adjective:

Our closest friends have just bought a new house in the village.

Sometimes the noun phrase begins with a quantifier:

All those children go to school here.

Both of my younger brothers are married
Some people spend a lot of money.

Numbers:

Quantifiers come before determiners, but numbers come after determiners:

My four children go to school here. (All my children go to school here.)

Those two suitcases are mine. (Both those suitcases are mine)

So the noun phrase is built up in this way:

Noun: people; money

Determiner + noun: the village, a house, our friends; those houses
Quantifier + noun: some people; a lot of money
Determiner + adjective + noun: our closest friends; a new house.
Quantifier + determiner + noun: all those children;
Quantifier + determiner + adjective + noun: both of my younger brothers

The noun phrase can be quite complicated:

a loaf of nice fresh brown bread

the eight-year-old boy who attempted to rob a sweet shop with a pistol
that attractive young woman in the blue dress sitting over there in the corner

Some words and phrases come after the noun. These are called postmodifiers. A noun phrase can
be postmodified in several ways. Here are some examples:

with a prepositional phrase:

a man with a gun

the boy in the blue shirt
the house on the corner

with an ing phrase:

the man standing over there

the boy talking to Angela

with a relative clause:

the man we met yesterday
the house that Jack built
the woman who discovered radium
an eight-year-old boy who attempted to rob a sweet shop

with a that clause.

This is very common with reporting or summarising nouns like idea, fact, belief, suggestion:

Hes still very fit, in spite of the fact that hes over eighty.
She got the idea that people didnt like her.
There was a suggestion that the children should be sent home.

with a to-infinitive.
This is very common after indefinite pronouns and adverbs:

You should take something to read.

I need somewhere to sleep.
Ive got no decent shoes to wear.

There may be more than one postmodifier:

an eight-year old boy with a gun who tried to rob a sweet shop
that girl over there in a green dress drinking a coke

There are four complex noun phrases in this section:

The accident happened at around 3pm on Wednesday. A man climbing nearby who saw the accident
said It was the most amazing rescue I have ever seen. 42-year-old Joe Candler saw Miss Johnsons
fall along with his partner Fay Hamilton.

The rescue is the latest in a series of incidents on High Peak. In January last year two men walking on
the peak were killed in a fall when high winds blew them off the mountain.