Identifying Noun Phrases
Some examples of noun phrases are underlined in the sentences below. The head noun appears in bold.
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- The election year politics are annoying for many people.
- Almost every sentence contains at least one noun phrase.
- Current economic weakness may be a result of high energy prices.
Noun phrases can be identified by the possibility of pronoun substitution, as is illustrated in the examples below.
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- a. This sentence contains two noun phrases.
- b. It contains them.
- a. The subject noun phrase that is present in this sentence is long.
- b. It is long.
- a. Noun phrases can be embedded in other noun phrases.
- b. They can be embedded in them.
A string of words that can be replaced by a single pronoun without rendering the sentence grammatically unacceptable is a noun phrase. As to whether the string must contain at least two words, see the following section.
Read more about this topic: Noun Phrase
Famous quotes containing the words identifying, noun and/or phrases:
“And the serial continues:
Pain, expiation, delight, more pain,
A frieze that lengthens continually, in the lucky way
Friezes do, and no plot is produced,
Nothing you could hang an identifying question on.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“It will be proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The Americans ... have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on an amusing and animated conversation without giving a moment’s reflection to what they are saying and so leave their minds free to consider the more important matters of big business and fornication.”
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)