COMPLEX NOUN PHRASE

Noun phrases play an important role in the construction of a sentence. Basic noun
phrases can be pronouns, numerals or head nouns with different determiners while
complex ones include pre-modification, head noun and post-modification

Complex noun phrase

Pre-modification Head noun Post-modification

Ex: All the 12 students learning English

1/Head noun

Like in the basic noun phrase, the head of noun, first of all, is the central element and
core component of the complex noun phrase. It may be count or mass noun It may be
count or mass noun which dictates concord and (for the most part) other kinds of
congruence with the rest of the sentence outside the noun phrase. This is
exemplified in:

The only girl in this class is hardworking.

All of the beautiful girls in my class are kind.

Also, when the genitive is as pre-modification, the head nouns can be omitted:

We met at the dentist’s last week.

2/ Pre-modification

The second component of a complex noun phrase is pre-modification, also

called pre-modifiers, including modifiers that stand before the head noun. Pre-
modifiers can be closed-system and/or open-class items. Closed-system pre-
modifiers are discussed in the structure of the basic noun phrases above. These
items are optional in the complex noun phrases. Meanwhile, open-class pre-
modifiers come after the closed-system ones and precede the head noun as in:

All these young beautiful girls

Determiner adj as pre-modifier head

2.1. Adjective as pre-modifier

Pre-modifying adjectives can be those denoting general description (beautiful,

intelligent, good, ...); age (young, old, ...); size (big, small, ); shape (square,
round, ); colour (red, blue, ); material (silk, metal, ); resemblance to a material
(‘silken’ in silken hair, ‘cat-like’, ); and provenance or style (British, Parisian, ),
purpose. These adjectives can be both attribute and complement.

Pre- modifying adjectives must be arranged in order: opinion, size, age, shape,
color, origin, material, purpose and noun

Ex: a huge round metal bowl

2.2. Participles as pre-modifier

Apart from pre-modifying adjectives, the head nouns of the complex noun
phrases can be pre-modified by participles. Pre-modifying participles refer to
either permanent or contemporary characteristics

Firstly, it is “ing”participle which refers to permanent characteristics. For

example: an interesting book (= a book that interests readers)

“ing” participle refers to permanent characteristic

Or “ing”participle refers to temporary characteristics. For instance:

The approaching train(=the train which is approaching)

“ing”participle refers to temporary characteristic

In addition, it is ed participle. There are two kinds of “ed”participle. They are

passive and non-passive. For example:

Passive: the broken vase(= the vase that was broken)

Non-passive: a retired teacher(=a teacher who has retired)

2.3. “s” genitives as pre-modifier

The head noun can also be pre-modified by genitives

Ex: these qualified doctors’ salaries, these doctors’ high salaries,

Group genitives : the teacher of English’s salary, an hour and a half’s

discussion,

Or other nouns as in the city council, a love story

2.4. Adverbials as pre-modifier

Standing before noun to modify it

Ex: The children are playing nearly house

I visited his far-away hometown

2.5. Noun as pre- modifier

Ex: I bought a new computer game

“ A children book” means a book for children

In these cases, the noun pre-modifier is closely connected to the headnoun that
the two can almost be considered one word.

This illustrates that when nouns pre-modify other nouns they always come next
to the head noun; nothing else can come between them.

2.6. Sentence as pre-modifier

Ex: I gave him “ I don’t know” answer

I got angry with his I-don’t-care attitude

Everyone hates “ I’m the best attiude”

2.7. Multiple premodification

Finally there are various classes of pre-modification, both closed-system and
open-class. Therefore, when the complex noun phrases consist of different
classes of pre-modifiers, they may be placed in a relevant order. The acceptable
order of pre-modifiers in a complex noun phrase is as follows:

pre-determiner, determiner, post-determiner, Ordinal, Cardinal/quantifier

general, age, size/shape, colour, participle, provenance, material
purpose, denominal, head noun

Ex: All the last ten good young tall maths students

Half the other ten famous best-sold novels

3. Post-modification

The third important component of a complex noun phrase is post-modification,

called post-modifiers, comprising all the items placed after the head. These
post-modifiers are mainly realized by prepositional phrases, finite clauses (or
relative clauses), nonfinite clauses, adjective phrases, noun phrases or adverbial
phrases:

  determiner head post-modifiers  

with yellow covers
(1) a book  
(prepositional phrase)
who told you the secret (finite
(2) the man  
clause)
speaking English fluently
(3) the girl  
(nonfinite clause)
(4) a shelf full of books (adjective phrase)  
(5) the opera "Carmen" (noun phrase)  
(6) the road back (adverbial phrase)  

In the example (1) ‘with yellow covers’ is a prepositional phrase post-modifying

the head ‘book’. Apart from ‘with’, there is a wide range of prepositions that
can be used

Ex:  the road to London, the house beyond the church, a child of  five, etc.,

Or the complex prepositions,

Ex: a house on the top of the hill, action in case of emergency,

And those having participle forms as in problems concerning the environment.
The commonest preposition in the noun phrase post-modification ‘of’ has a
close correspondence to ‘have’ sentences:

The ship has a funnel. ----- the funnel of the ship

The table has four legs. ----- the four legs of the table

However, some are relatable to ‘be’ sentences:

London is a city. ----- the city of London

The news was the team’s victory ------ the news of the team’s victory

Also, the ‘of’ phrase can be used to express the subject or object relation:

The bus arrived ----- the arrival of the bus

Someone imprisoned the murderer ----- the imprisonment of the murderer

In the example (2), the post-modifier is a relative or finite clause which can be
restrictive or non-restrictive. There are a number of relative clauses beginning
with relative pronouns: ‘who’, ‘whom’, ‘whose’, ‘that’ (personal); ‘which’,
‘that’, ‘what’ (non-personal); ‘when’, a preposition plus ‘which’ (time);
‘where’, a preposition plus ‘which’ (place); and ‘why’, ‘for which’ (reason).
While restrictive modification means that the head noun can be viewed as a
member of a class which can be linguistically identified only through the
modification that has been supplied, the non-restrictive one means that the head
noun can be viewed as unique or as a member of a class that has been
independently identified and any modification given to the head is additional
information, as exemplified in:

who is standing is my
  The woman  
outside neighbour.
    restrictive    
That is my who is standing
     
neighbour, outside.
    Non-restrictive    

In addition, post-modifier is a finite clause which can be appositive clauses.

There are three features of appositive clauses. Firstly, that is not an element in
the structure. Secondly, head noun must be abstract noun. Finally, it expresses
the contain of the head noun. For example:

The fact that he is not on the land of alive people makes her depressed

Or: The Belief that God does exist gives her strength to go on

The example (3) illustrates the post-modifier as a non-finite clause, present

participle clause. The non-finite can be “ing” participle clauses or “ed”participle
clauses. For example:

serviced in the
  The only car is mine.  
garage
past participle
       
clause

Or: The girl smiling beautifully is my roomate

“ing” participle clause

I never love people not having kind heart

“ ing” participle clause

In addition, post-modifiers can be to-infinitive clauses:

The next to was from

   
flight arrive London.
The to stay for summer should be
   
place holidays pleasant.

As is seen in the example (4), adjective phrases can be post-modifiers of the

head noun in the complex noun phrases. The adjective phrases can usually be
regarded as a reduced relative clause. Complex indefinite pronouns ending in –
body, -one, -thing, and –where can be modified only post-positively

Ex: Anyone (who is) intelligent can do it.

The men (who were) present were his supporters.

In the example (5), the phrase explicitly encodes the information that “Carmen
is an opera”. For this reason, ‘ Carmen’ is traditionally said to be in apposition
to ‘the opera’.
Another minor type of post-modification illustrated in the example (6) is
adverbial modification. Similarly, in the following examples, the adverbial
phrases post-modify the head noun: the way ahead, the direction back, the hall
downstairs. Unlike pre-modifiers, their no grammatical limit to the number of
post-modifiers occurring in a noun phrase, considerations of style and
comprehensibility will normally keep them to one or two. Where we have more
than one, the relative order tends to depend on the related properties of length
and class, with shorter modifiers preceding longer ones, prepositional phrases
preceding clauses:

who I was talking about

  A man from Britain  
last night
prepositional
    relative clause  
phrase