Language itself is a complex system and it is dependent to us culturally, socially and personally. Learning a language involves many things such as pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar… The aim of this study is to discuss the noun phrases in English and Vietnamese and their influence in teaching and learning English in Vietnamese situation. I hope that this paper will provide as much information as possible on English and Vietnamese noun phrases. It also attempts to state the similarities and differences in noun phrases of the two languages.
I pay attention to the analysis of he heads, the pre and post modifications, their positions and functions of English and Vietnamese noun phrases. Finally, there are some teaching implications made for those who are going to be English teachers. Noun Phrases In English By tortoise_samaras Definition of Noun phrases: What is a noun phrase? According to Wisped, “In grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase, or nominal group (abbreviated NP) is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like word (nominal) optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives. Like all phrases, we can analyze the English noun phrase’s components onto both functional ones and formal ones. From a functional point of view, the noun phrase has four major components, occurring in a fixed order: Pre modification, which comprises all the modifying or describing constituents before the head, other than the determiners; the head, around which the other constituents cluster; and post modification, those which comprise all the modifying constituents placed after the head.
Noun phrases in English In English grammar, a noun phrase has three components: 0 Pre modification 0 The head 0 Post modification 0 Pre modification: consists of all the words placed before the head. These words are usually determiners, adjectives and nouns. 0 Predetermines: The predetermines occur before other determiners (as you can probably guess from their name). They includes multipliers (double, twice, four/flee times … .); fractional expressions (one-third, three-quarters, etc. ; the words both, half, and all; and intensifiers such as quite, rather, and such. The multipliers precede plural count and mass nouns and occur with singular count nouns denoting number or amount: 0 This van holds three times the passengers as that sports car. 0 My wife is making double my / twice my salary. This time we added five times the amount of water. In fractional expressions, we have a similar construction, but here it can be replaced with “of” construction. 0 Charlie finished in one-fourth of the time his brother took. Two-fifths of the respondents reported that half the medication was sufficient. The intensifiers occur in this construction primarily in casual speech and writing and are more common in British English than they are in American English. The intensifier “what” is often found in stylistic fragments: “We visited my brother in his dorm room. What a mess! ” 0 This room is rather a mess, isn’t it? The ticket-holders made quite a fuss when they couldn’t get in. 0 What an idiot he turned out to be. 0 Our vacation was such a grand experience.
Example Determiner Adjective phrase Noun Head That sophisticated city woman That sophisticated city woman Many honest down-and-out small-town businessmen Many honest down-and-out small-town businessmen 0 Determiners are said to “mark” nouns. That is to say that a noun will follow a determiner. Some categories of determiners are limited (there are only three articles, a handful of possessive pronouns, etc. ), but the possessive nouns are as limitless as nouns themselves. This limited nature of most determiner categories, however, explains why determiners are grouped apart from adjectives even though both serve a modifying function.
We can imagine that the language will never tire of inventing new adjectives; the determiners (except for those possessive nouns), on the other hand, are well established, and this class of words is not going to grow in number. These categories of determiners are as follows: the articles (an, a, the ? see below; possessive nouns Coke’s, the priest’s, my mother’s); possessive pronouns, (his, your, heir, whose, etc. ); numbers (one, two, etc. ); indefinite pronouns (few, more, each, every, either, all, both, some, any, etc. ); and demonstrative pronouns.
The demonstratives (this, that, these, those, such) are discussed in the section on Demonstrative Pronouns. Notice that the possessive nouns differ from the other determiners in that they, themselves, are often accompanied by other determiners: “my mother’s rug,” “the priests’ collar,” “a dog’s life. ” Determiners are used in front of nouns to indicate whether you are referring to something specific or something of a particular type. Determiners are different to pronouns in that a determiner is always followed by a noun. Therefore personal pronouns (l, you, he, etc. And possessive pronouns (mine, yours, his, etc. ) cannot be determiners. The definite and indefinite articles a/an/the are all determiners. We use a specific determiner when people know exactly which thing(s) or person/people you are talking about. The specific determiners are: the definite article : the demonstratives : this, that, these, those possessives : my, your, his, her, its, our, their For example: “The dog barked at the boy. ” “These apples are rotten. ” Their bus was late. ” You use general determiners to talk about people or things without saying exactly who or what they are.
The general determiners are: the indefinite articles : a, an a few a little another any both each either enough every few fewer less little many more most much neither other several some “A man sat under an umbrella. ” “Have you got any English books that I could have? ” “There is enough food to feed everyone. ” 0 Post determiners: Post-determiners, as their name suggests, come after regular determiners in a Noun Phrase . They come before nouns but follow regular determiners in a Noun Phrase . Cardinal numbers like one, two, three, four, etc… ND ordinal numbers like first, second, third, etc… Are post-determiners . Examples: The first three apples The first six boys Please note ordinals always come before cardinals general ordinals like last, next other, another etc are also post-determiners . The important thing for an English learner to note is the order of various determiners in a pre-modification structure . The first three boys The next four days Another interesting case If there is an adjective in the Noun Phrase it immediately precedes the noun, but follows post-determiners .
The first three famous novels The last six happiest days Quantifiers like “many, few, several, much, little etc” are post-determiners and they precede nouns in a Noun Phrase. 0 The head: The word “noun phrase” means that a noun is the central element of a noun phrase. That word is called “the head”. It may be mass or count noun. Beside that, the head of the noun phrase can be a pronoun. Without a noun or a pronoun, it can not be called “noun phrase”. There are some kinds of pronouns functioning as heads: personal pronoun, indefinite pronoun, possessive pronoun, and demonstrative pronoun.
Type Examples Personal l/ me, he/ him Possessive Mine, hers Reflexive Myself, themselves Demonstrative This, those Indefinite Someone, no one Interrogative Who, that Relative Which, that a. She in she is my teacher. B. Someone in someone at the meeting. C. His in his is expensive. D. That in that will affect his life. 0 Post modification: contains words in the noun phrase that follow the head. These words usually consist of prepositional phrases, infinite clauses, and relative clauses.
Thus: Example Post modification Category The talkative man in the center of the room in the center of the room prepositional phrase All the women walking on the bike path walking on the bike path non-finite clause The house that I purchased for my third husband that I purchased for my third husband restrictive relative clause The house, which my partner and I bought a month after we met which my partner and I bought a month after we met non-restrictive relative clause 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), infinite clauses, adjective phrases, noun phrases or adverbial phrases: determiner head post modification category book with yellow covers 2 the man who told you the secret finite clause 3 speaking English fluently infinite clause 4 shelf full of books adjective phrase 5 opera “Carmen” noun phrase 6 road back adverbial phrase Here are some more examples: Some examples of the Noun phrase in English function prettification pacifications lions young x information age of the children badly needed time with the family (f) this conclusion to the story all my children new mystery books which we recently enjoyed such as marvelous data bank filled with information O) better person than I FORMS Pronoun Participle Prepositional phrase Article Relative clause Quantifiers Adjective phrase pronoun Infinite clause Complementation Noun phrases in Vietnamese In Vietnamese, noun phrases also have 3 components which are: 0 Pre modification However, the elements in each component have a little difference from the components of English noun phrases.
