UNIT 9
MODIFYING NOUN PHRASES
Adjectives and Participles
Focus 1: Overview of Word order in
Noun Phrases
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What’s a noun phrase?
A determiner and a noun, plus its modifiers.
So then what’s a determiner?
Determiners can be articles (a, an, the), demonstratives
(this, that, these, those), possessives (my, your…),
quantifiers (some, many…)
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What’s a modifier?
Modifiers include adjectives, participles, nouns, prepositional
phrases, participle phrases and relative clauses
Order for Categories of Modifiers
Determiner
Intensifiers
Adjectives
and
Participles
Noun
Modifier
Noun
Modifying
Phrase
The/a/an
Really
Old/new
Stone
Wall
Next to the
river
Some/no
Very
Interesting
University
Campus
River
My/your
Slightly
Well-known
described
Each/every
These/those
In the
brochure
Focus 2-Order of Descriptive
Adjectives
Evaluation/opin
ion
Appearance
Age
Color
Origin
Good
Size/measureme
nt (big)
Old
Red
Geographical
(French)
Interesting
Shape (round)
Antique
Purple striped
Material
(vegetable)
Intelligent
Condition
(broken)
New
Bright blue
wooden
Put these words in the right order to make the sentence correct:
1. broken, dish, an, ceramic, ugly, white
2. Car, a, little, funny, metal
3. rubber, blue, a, ball, pretty, new
1. An ugly broken white ceramic dish.
2. A funny little metal car.
3. A pretty new blue rubber ball.
Focus 3-Particple modifiers
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Participles can be used like descriptive adjectives to
describe nouns too.
Verb
Present participle
Past participle
Study
Studying
Studied
Forget
Forgetting
Forgotten
Interest
Interesting
Interested
Just add –ing for present participle and –ed for past participle but don’t forget
about irregulars!
Focus 4-Meaning of Participles
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That movie was boring. We were bored.
It was an interesting novel, but I wasn’t interested in
the story.
We we’re excited to see the movie. I hope the
movie is exciting!
What is the difference between these sentences?
We use present participles (verb +ing) to describe
the agent, or the doer in the sentence. We use the
past participle to describe receivers.
Adding information to Participles
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Often when we add a noun or an adverb to a participle
we use hyphens.
 Some foot-tapping music (noun+present participle)
 A fast-moving train (adverb+present participle)
Adjective-noun + past participle combinations describe
physical characteristics
 A blue-eyed baby
 A short-legged dog
We don’t always use hyphens, especially with –ly adverbs
 A deeply depressed individual
 A manmade lake
Focus 6-Modifiers that Follow Noun
Phrases
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Participial phrases can be used to modify a noun phrase
and can come before or after the noun and changes the
meaning.
 It comes after the noun to give more information about
the particular noun we are talking about.
 The man speaking to John told him some shocking
information.
 It comes before the noun if it has already been
identified and the participle describes more about it.
 Speaking to the man, John found out some shocking
information.