Noun Phrases

What is noun phrase?

•          A noun phrase is a word or group of words in a sentence that act like a noun. A word group with a noun or pronoun as its head. The noun head can be accompanied by modifiers, determiners (such as the, a, her), and /or complements.

•          A noun phrase (often abbreviated as NP) most commonly functions as a subject, object, or complement.

•          A noun phrase generally includes one or more modifying words, but allowance is usually made for single-word minimal noun phrases that are composed only of a noun or pronoun.

Example:

You could say “I met Joan.”

In this sentence the word Joan is a noun.

You could replace Joan with a group of words (a phrase) and say, “I met your sister.”

Your sister is a phrase (a group of words without a finite verb), and it functions as a noun in the sentence.

So we call it a noun phrase.

A noun phrase has a noun as its head. The modifiers may be:

Determiners: He carried the bags.

Possessives: She bought Mary’s bags.

Adjectives: The heavy bags are downstairs.

Prepositional phrases: The bridge over the river.

Clauses: The pub we went to.

The structure of Noun Phrase:

Noun Phrase: pre-modifiers + noun

Noun Phrase: noun + post-modifiers

Noun Phrase: pre-modifiers + noun + post-modifiers

Example:

•          Amel is Rima’s friend

•          Anita bought the pencil case.