A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

.-: Nouns and noun phrases

I Introductory survey 82

2 Number and countability 85

3 Determiners and determinatives 90

4 Complements 93

5 Internal modifiers 95

6 External modifiers 97

7 The fused-head construction 97

8 Pronouns 100

9 Genitive case 108

1 Introductory survey

Distinctive properties of prototypical noun phrases

(a) Function. The main functions in which NPs occur are these four:

[ I ] In clause structure:

SUBJECT

OBJECT

PREDICATIVE COMPLEMENT

ii In PP structure:

COMPLEMENT

A student helped us.

They elected a student.

She is a student.

We were talking [to a student].

(b) Form. A typical NP consists of a noun serving as head word and (possibly)

various accompanying dependents.

Distinctive properties of prototypical nouns

(a) Inflection. Nouns typically inflect for number (singular or plural) and case
(plain or genitive):

[2]

PLAIN CASE

GENITIVE

SINGULAR

student

student's

PLURAL
students
students'
(b) Function. Nouns can normally fill the head position in phrases with any of the
four functions listed in [I].

82