Search results for 'tag:English grammar tag:Noun phrases' matching tags 'English grammar' and 'Noun phrases'

'For example, although it is true to say that the noun group is the structure we choose for "the things" we want to talk about, it is not the only one.'

Peaceblinkfriend — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 09:35:18 GMT

For example, although it is true to say that the noun group is the structure we choose for the things we want to talk about, it is not the only one. Sometimes we want to talk about an event or an idea that is not easy to express in a noun group. Instead we can use a clause as the subject of another clause. e.g All I want is a holiday. (Quoted from the introduction of Collins COBUILD English Grammar )

I don't quite understand what it means by 'the things we want to talk about'. What is being referred to by 'the things'? For all it's worth, according to the glossary included in the grammar, a noun group is a group of words which acts as the subject, complement, or object of a clause, or as the object of a preposition. Also called nominal group or noun phrase.

Thank you

PBF

Re: adjective phrases

Velimir — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:09:33 GMT

Hello Anonymous,

In your sentences there is no adjective phrases.A phrase is a name used in the english grammar to label a group of words which acts as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence,which means that you need at least two words to label some part of the sentence a phrase. Words,phrases and clauses are three building blocks of speech and proper distinction between these elements is an essential step and the starting point in every analysis.
Adjective phrase consists of the head of the phrase,i.e adjective, and various pre-modifying and postmodifying elements.For example,

It is too hot for this time of the year.

In this sentence the whole phrase "too hot for this time of the year" is an adjective phrase which functions as a subject complement. We could say this same in a brief manner :

It is hot.

but we felt like we wanted:

1. to accentuate the meaning of hot by premodifying the head "hot" with the intensifying adverb "too"

2. and also to specify that we refer our assertion to some particular part of the year

Therefore,you get adjective phrases when you're trying to convey more information about what you mean or feel about the matter in question.

The first sentence you've quoted for example should be analysed like:

1. Carnivores are eaters of meat.

Carnivores - plural form of noun ,acts as the subject of the sentence

are - linking verb

Eaters of meat - noun phrase ,acts as a subject complement

The other two sentences follow the same syntactic pattern : subject -> linking verb -> subject complement

Best regards

Re: gerund or verbal noun

CalifJim — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:25:23 GMT

All of your examples are gerunds if we stick to modern terminology.

Forget about the terminology verbal noun. It's total garbage!

It has many different definitions, depending on the author and when the grammar book was written.
_____________

The modern definition is given at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbal_noun

A verbal noun is a noun formed directly as an inflexion of a verb or a verb stem, sharing at least in part its constructions. This term is applied especially to gerunds, and sometimes also to [bare] infinitives and supines [i.e., full infinitives].

That is, there are three types of verbal noun: gerunds, bare infinitives, and full infinitives.

So anything that is a gerund is also a verbal noun, because a gerund is one of the types of verbal nouns.
____________

The modern definition is echoed at

http://www.ielanguages.com/english.html

Gerunds: [Like participles,] Gerunds are also formed by adding -ing to the verb, but they function as a verbal noun [as opposed to the participle, which is a verbal adjective] and are normally preceded by articles or demonstratives. The singing was excellent.
___________

A completely different definition is found here:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O29-VERBALNOUN.html

VERBAL NOUN. A category of noncountable abstract noun derived from a verb, in English by adding the suffix -ing. Like the verb from which it derives, it refers to an action or state: writing in The writing has taken too long; hearing in His hearing is defective. Verbal nouns are frequently combined with the preposition of and a noun phrase that corresponds to the subject or object in a clause: The grumbling of his neighbours met with no response (compare His neighbours grumbled); His acting of Hamlet won our admiration (compare He acted Hamlet). Verbal nouns contrast with deverbal nouns, that is, other kinds of nouns derived from verbs, such as attempt, destruction, and including nouns ending in -ing that do not have verbal force: building in The building was empty. They also contrast with the gerund, which also ends in -ing, but is syntactically a verb.

Note the last (underlined) sentence. By this definition only usages like The neighbors were acting like fools are considered gerunds -- not all the other examples that preceded -- examples that we would all agree are gerunds in current terminology.
_____________

The next definition is more than 100 years old, and I've seen it quoted on this site. Note that it is classified (see the URL) under "Classic Literature". It is useful only as a historic document -- not as a guide to modern English and modern syntactic analysis.

http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/wmbaskervill/bl-wmbaskervill-grammar-parts-nouns.htm

An English Grammar

1896

by W. M. Baskervill & J. W. Sewell

273. It [the gerund] differs from the participle in being always used as a noun: it never belongs to or limits a noun.

It differs from the verbal noun in having the property of governing a noun (which the verbal noun has not) and of expressing action (the verbal noun merely names an action, Sec. II).

[Sec. II. is actually Sec. 11, where nouns are discussed. The discussion of verbal nouns is within a category called Abstract Nouns, so in Section 11 verbal nouns are called by their more specific name: Verbal Abstract Nouns.]

II. The VERBAL ABSTRACT NOUNS Originate in verbs, as their name implies. They may beâ

(1) Of the same form as the simple verb. The verb, by altering its function, is used as a noun; as in the expressions, "a long run" "a bold move," "a brisk walk "
[These are called deverbal nouns in modern terminology -- or 'zero-related nominals' or just 'nouns'.]

(2) Derived from verbs by changing the ending or adding a suffix: motion from move, speech from speak, theft from thieve, action from act, service from serve.
[These,too, are called deverbal nouns nowadays -- or just 'nouns'.]

(3) Derived from verbs by adding -ing to the simple verb. It must be remembered that these words are free from any verbal function They cannot govern a word, and they cannot express action, but are merely names of actions. They are only the husks of verbs, and are to be rigidly distinguished from gerunds (Secs. 272, 273). [These are nouns that end in -ing. They have acquired fixed meanings as nouns, referring to something more concrete than the action of the underlying verb.]

To avoid difficulty, study carefully these examples:

The best thoughts and sayings of the Greeks; the moon caused fearful forebodings; in the beginning of his life; he spread his blessings over the land; the great Puritan awakening; our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; a wedding or a festival; the rude drawings of the book; masterpieces of the Socratic reasoning; the teachings of the High Spirit; those opinions and feelings; there is time for such reasonings; the well-being of her subjects; her longing for their favor; feelings which their original meaning will by no means justify; the main bearings of this matter.
______________

It is debatable whether anything whatsoever is to be gained in the study of modern English by resurrecting these older definitions.

CJ

Re: "and" and comma

Lovek323 — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 12:06:34 GMT

Question 1
Although the question has already been answered, I should like to comment on why arise is the correct choice. The subject of the clause should any difference arise is difference, which is singular and third person. One of the fundamental principles of English grammar is that the subject and verb must agree in number and person. Thus, as the subject is third person singular, the verb must also be third person singular. (A more thorough explanation would discuss number and person.)

For all verbs except to be, number and person only affect the present tense. The -s ending is used for the third person singular and the uninflected (unchanged) form is used for the rest:

My neighbours annoy me.
My dog annoys me.

The uninflected form annoy is used when the subject is a plural noun phrase ("my neighbours" above) or one of the pronouns I, we, you (sg. or pl.), or they. The -s ending is appended when the subject is a singular noun phrase or one of the third person singular personal pronouns (he, she, or it).

Question 2
As has already been pointed out, neither of the proposed sentences was correct. A sufficient response has been given as to the reason behind the choice of a semi colon, even if it was unnecessarily cerebral (just kidding).

Re: I don't like going / to go.

Goodman — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 18:02:25 GMT

Teo wrote:

1. I don't like to go.

2. I don't like going.

According to Ho's Complete English Grammar (Page 111), #1 implies that I don't like to go (so I will not go) while #2 implies that I don't like going (but I will still go).

Do you agree?

Hi Teo,

I donât like (spicy foods)/ (being in crowded places). âSpicy foodsâ is a noun and âbeing in crowded placesâ is a noun phrase. Nonetheless they are both nouns.

I donât like (to eat spicy foods)/ (to be in crowded places). Both are infinitives.

It depends on how we want to express our thoughts, we can use either one within the confines of grammar.
To me, I donât like to go out with them = I donât like going out with them.

A good book on grammar

Blanche Fleur — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 19:44:29 GMT

I have desperately been looking for a good book on grammar. I don not mean the practical grammar in use, but a book on grammar as an element of the linguistic system. It should contain topics like:

syntactic units
syntactic relations
syntactic functions
verb phrases
morphological categories
noun phrase
etc.

I have gotten many book recommendations on this topic, but I have not been satisfied, because I do not know which one is the best. Some of the recommendations are:

Sidney Greenbaum: An Introduction to English Grammar, Longman
S. Greenbaum / R. Quirk: A Student's Grammar of the English Language, Longman

I am absolutely not sure which one I should buy and which one I should leave in the book store. Maybe you could help me with this question.

Thank you beforehand

Re: adjective phrase

paco2004 — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 21:27:06 GMT

Hello Iglika

I'm sorry I could not give you definite answers. Frankly speaking, I myself do not know much about generative grammar. But please remind there is a possibility your teacher uses grammatical terms in his/her own way. As far as I know, "modifier" is a term used by traditional grammarians. On the other hand "specifier" is a term used by Chomskians. "Head" is also a term used by Chomskians in constituent analyses, but some traditional grammarians use it to mean a core noun in a noun phrase. So I think your teacher might teach you his/her own theory of English grammar, mixing Chomsky's theory and traditional grammar theories.

paco

Re: the first

paco2004 — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 18:59:46 GMT

Diamondrg wrote:
Can someone explain why "having viewed" is wrong and whether "viewing" and "to have viewed" are correct?

The question you are raising may relate to the problem to what extent we can use nonfinite clauses as a post modifier for nouns. This problem is, however, one of the subjects least discussed in most of English grammar books. Quirk's CGEL gives us a comment as follows.

The perfective aspect cannot usually be expressed in nonfinite clauses. Compare [1] and [2].
    [1]<OK>The man who has won the race is my brother.
    [2]< * > The man having who won the race is my brother.
However, in a structure with an indefinite noun phrase as head, as in [3], perfective aspect is more acceptable.
    [3]< ? > Any person or persons having witnessed the attack is under suspicion.

Here, we have to note that CGEL's authors do not say the use of "having witnessed" in [3] is grammatical but they rather suspect its grammatical validity by using the phrase of "more acceptable". But, regrettably, they didn't mention anything about reason why "having V-ed" is awkward as a post modifier of nouns. Personally I feel it could be reasoned by assuming that English nonfinite-clausal post modifications are basically the result of "whiz" deletion, ie, the omission of "who/which was/is/will be" from finite relative clauses "who/which was/is/will be adjective/ participle/ prepositional phrase/ adverb". If it is so, relative clauses in a form of "who has/have/had V-ed" could not be reduced to "having V-ed".

paco

Re: Is anything wrong with this sentence?

paco2004 — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 20:10:14 GMT

Hello guys

Thank you all again. I would like to appreciate above all CJ's nice explanation about appositive to-infinitives.

I misread the sentence in question because I didn't know we can use a to-infinitive noun phrase appositively. My big mistake was I parsed the sentence as:
                 Don't be afraid of [NP],
                 here, [NP] = the computer's capacity to be cleverer than you.
In most English NPs that take a structure of <a noun + to verb>, the noun is either the subject or the object of the verb. In the case of the sentence, the verb is "be", an obligatorily intransitive verb so that, I took, "computer's capacity" should be the subject of "be cleverer than you". It is why I misinterpret the NP as if it were "The computer's capacity is cleverer than you", which obviously makes no sense. It is the reason I asked repeatedly (and stupidly) "Why could we say 'a capacity is clever'?".

Now owing to CJ's explanation, I understand I should take the sentence as:
                 Don't be afraid of [NP1] [NP2],
                 here, [NP1]=the computer's capacity, and
                         [NP2]=(for the computer) to be cleverer than you.
It seems the NP1 and the NP2 here are almost independent and the NP1 works just as a paraphrase for the NP1. Actually "Don't be afraid of the computer's capacity" can stand as a complete sentence by itself. "Don't be afraid of 'for the computer to be cleverer than you'" also makes sense by itself, though the English grammar prohibits such use of an infinitival noun phrase and we have to say "Don't be afraid of the computer being cleverer than you" instead. So we might say the apposition were a bit redundant, though the NP2 could be taken as an concrete explanation for the abstract concept expressed by the NP1.

This is what I finally got through all the discussion here, and to me it was very useful. I would like to say again "Thank you all"

paco

Is there a grammar of spoken English?

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 05:56:42 GMT

Summarising: Three ways of looking at it. Extracts from the Geoffrey Leech article, " />English Grammar in Conversation.

View 1: Spoken English has no grammar at all: it is grammatically inchoate.

(That view) ...does not need to be taken seriously, although it is surprisingly persistent in the mind of the folk grammarian. It is inherited from the age-old tradition associating grammar with the written language, and it is bolstered by examples such as the following, which, like others which follow, is from the Longman spoken corpus:

No. Do you know erm you know where the erm go over to er go over erm where the fire station is not the one that white white

View 2: Spoken English does not have a special grammar: its grammar is just the same as the grammar of written English

Conversation makes use of entities such as prepositions, modals, noun phrases and relative clauses, just as written language does. So - assuming, as many would, that differences of frequency belong to the use of the grammar, rather than to the grammatical system itself - it is quite natural to think in terms of one English grammar, whose use in conversational performance can be contrasted with its use in various kinds of writing. In other words, conversational grammar is seen to be just a rather special implementation of the common grammar of English: a discovery which does not necessarily in any way diminish the interest of studying the grammar (i.e. the grammatical use) of spoken language.

View 3: Spoken English does have a special grammar - it has its own principles, rules and categories, which are different from those of the written language.

In handling spoken language, (David) Brazil argues for a totally different approach to grammar from the approach which has become familiar through conventional focus on the written language. He argues for a linear model moving dynamically through time, and puts aside the more traditional architectural model in terms of hierarchies of units. Although Carter and McCarthy do not take this thorough-going approach, they do throw the spotlight on grammatical features of spoken language which they feel have been largely neglected by standard grammars entrenched in the 'written tradition'. They argue that structures which are inherent to speech have not been properly studied until the advent of the spoken computer corpus, and are consequently absent from canonised written grammar familiar to learners of English throughout the world: structures such as the 'dislocated topic' of This little shop ... it's lovely or the 'wagging tail' of Oh I reckon they're lovely. I really do whippets. These tend to find their raison d'Ãªtre in the fact that conversation constructs itself in a dynamic fashion, giving the speaker only a small look-ahead window for planning what to say, and often inducing retrospective add-ons. Carter and McCarthy (1995) put forward a structural model for the clause in conversation, containing in addition to the core clause itself a pre-clause topic and a post-clause tail. With their refreshing emphasis on the dynamic modelling of grammar in action, Carter and McCarthy seem to be taking a line similar to Brazil's advocacy of a new grammar of speech.