Now that you have become familiar with the basic structure of noun phrases and can see whole phrases in the various syntactic roles in sentences, it is time to return to the analysis of noun phrases to see complications that may arise.

Activity 8.5: Noun Phrases

Exercise A: First separate the subject from the predicate then find the verb. Mark any sentences that you think are ungrammatical with an asterisk.

Click to place a line between subject and predicate. A correctly placed line will be black, errors will be red. Then select just the verb to change it to green. Click on the question mark button to assess your answers.

Click between the line number and the sentence to insert an asterisk in front of nongrammatical sentences. Click on the "Grammar" button to check your selection of nongrammatical sentences.

Look at the sentences you marked as ungrammatical. What is wrong with them? Fill in the text box below with your answer, then click on the "Usual Answer" button.

What is the difference between a and one? Between some water and two bottles of water? Fill in the text box below with your answer, then click on the "Usual Answer" button.

Exercise B : Draw a line to separate the subjects from the predicates in these sentences.

Click to place a line between subject and predicate. A correctly placed line will be black, errors will be red.

Compare the meanings of these subject NPs in each pair of sentences; are they the same or different?

Fill in the text box below with your answer, then click on the "Usual Answer" button.

How does the structure help show the different meanings?  Use the table below to analyze the following noun phrases by placing each word in the proper cell of the table.

Exercise C: Drag each word from NP column on the left into the correct category.

This last exercise should highlight some of the issues that arise and distinguish noncount nouns from count nouns in the ways they are structured in sentences. One of the key distinctions is in which quantifiers can be used. Since noncount nouns can’t be counted, there is no way to quantify them unless we consider some other measure than simple numerical count. We do this in the real world by putting noncount materials into a container and counting the number of containers (liters, bottles, cups, etc.) or we find a thing that is countable and compare the noncount item to it (pounds, kilos, etc.), and finally, we also consider the shape of the noncountable substance and count the number of shapes (slice, piece, etc.) made up of that substance.

Another key issue is when we use a quantifying phrase, we need to consider where the head of the subject is. In standard language, we should consider the head to be outside of a prepositional phrase, but in grammatical language, native speakers often make the verb agree with the object of the preposition. In some cases, it is even standard to do this. When providing theoretical descriptions, some grammar books talk about predeterminers, determiners, and post determiners. Such discussions aren’t good beginning places for pedagogical purposes in my mind, however. The more systematic a description can be, the easier it will be to learn. Further discussions of the structure of quantifiers in noun phrases will come later with the discussion of pronouns.

Determiners