Page 12 - DENG103_English - I

Unit 1: Functional Grammar: Phrase, Clause

Noun phrase (NP) with a noun as head (e.g. the black cat, a cat on the mat) Notes

The Noun Phrase

Recognize a noun phrase when you see one.
A noun phrase includes a noun—a person, place, or thing—and the modifiers which distinguish
it.
You can find the noun dog in a sentence, for example, but you don’t know which canine the
writer means until you consider the entire noun phrase: that dog, Aunt Audrey’s dog, the dog
on the sofa, the neighbor’s dog that chases our cat, the dog digging in the new flower bed.
Modifiers can come before or after the noun. Ones that come before might include articles,
possessive nouns, possessive pronouns, adjectives, and/or participles.
Articles: a dog, the dog
Possessive nouns: Aunt Audrey’s dog, the neighbor’s dog, the police officer’s dog
Possessive pronouns: Our dog, her dog, their dog

Adjectives: That dog, the big dog, the spotted dog
Participles: The drooling dog, the barking dog, the well trained dog
Modifiers that come after the noun might include prepositional phrases, adjective clauses,
participle phrases, and/or infinitives.
Prepositional phrases: A dog on the loose, the dog in the front seat, the dog behind the fence
Adjective clauses: The dog that chases cats, the dog that looks lost, the dog that won the
championship

Participle phrases: The dog whining for a treat, the dog clipped at the grooming salon, the dog
walked daily
Infinitives: The dog to catch, the dog to train, the dog to adopt

Less frequently, a noun phrase will have a pronoun as its base—a word like we, everybody,
etc.—and the modifiers which distinguish it. Read these examples:
We who were green with envy

We = subject pronoun; who were green with envy = modifier.
Someone intelligent
Someone = indefinite pronoun; intelligent = modifier.
No one important

No one = indefinite pronoun; important = modifier.
Verb phrase (VP) with a verb as head (e.g. eat cheese, jump up and down)

Verb Phrases

Phrases can also be classified by the “head” of the phrase, which is the key word in the phrase.
Here are the types and example:
Prepositional phrase: in the car, behind the tree
Noun phrases: the purple cow, a funny clown

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