ENG1100 Introduction to English Grammar
Johan Elsness 2003 II
http://folk.uio.no/elsness/
Nouns and noun phrases
The morphology of the noun:
Most nouns may take the plural ending:
book – books
child – children
Many nouns, especially those with animate reference, take the genitive ending:
Joan – Joan’s
boy – boy’s
summer – summer’s
The structure of the noun phrase:
Noun phrases may get quite complex, especially in the postmodifying structure.
Determiner Premodifier
Head
Postmodifier
a
man
who never pulled his punches
an
impressive
picture
from 1949
a
quite irresistible
argument
that he used to resort to
the
best possible
plan
somebody
the
1997
nice
election
money
enough
which I very much wanted to see but
never got round to actually seeing
that
much talked about
film
some
more
wine
anybody
with normal intelligence
Determiner Premodifier
Head
Apposition
the
fact
that she wasn’t interested
decision
to go it alone
her
unpleasant
Collective nouns
These can occur with plural syntactic features even when singular in terms of morphology
(mostly in British English). They display both singular and plural semantic features: group
as a unit – that is the unit reading – vs. focus on the individual members of the group – that is
the distributive reading.
1 The audience is enjoying itself.
2 The audience are enjoying themselves. (BrE)
3 Her family comes from Wales.
4 Her family are very nice. (BrE)
5 The committee has decided to meet again tomorrow.
6 The committee have decided to meet again tomorrow. (BrE)
7 The committee consists of nine members.
8 *The committee consist of nine members.
9 The Cabinet, which never makes up its mind in a hurry, has postponed its final decision.
10 The Cabinet, who never make up their minds in a hurry, have postponed their final
decision. (BrE)
11 Five crew are reported missing after the accident. (BrE)
12 She's in charge of about fifteen staff. (BrE)
Proper nouns
Typical features:

Initial capitalisation

No plural form

No articles

Unique reference

No intrinsic meaning (no sense)
Mary
McCulloch
Norway
But:
13 He's a new Hitler.
14 They own two genuine Munchs.
15 There's a quisling waiting in every country.
16 The Hague is in the Netherlands.
17 The Crimea used to be a favoured holiday resort among Russian leaders.
18 We're having tea at the Savoy.
19 They get their drinking water from the Thames.
20 The United States/The United Nations is sending troops.
Countability
Countable nouns have both singular and plural forms. Uncountable nouns lack number
contrast; they tend to denote substances or abstracts.
21 one book:several books
22 much information
(Singular) uncountables (mass nouns)
23 I need some advice.
24 He gave me three pieces of advice.
25 He gave me lots of useful advice.
26 Here is the news.
27 These two pieces/items of news are not very encouraging.
28 Do you have any news items, information of coming events or photographs that you would
like to be considered for publication?
29 The money is gone, although I know it was here last night.
30 This water is not for drinking.
31 Statistics is a scientific discipline.
32 Considering the size of the plot, there's simply too much house on it.
33 I don’t have much knowledge of her background.
Note:
34 A sound knowledge of French is essential for the job.
Plural-only nouns (plural uncountables)
35 They were granted £10,000 damages.
36 The police want to question him.
37 These waters are difficult to navigate.
38 She bought her new jeans at the sales.
Note:
39 He goes out in all weathers.
Zero plurals
40 There followed a series of minor disasters.
41 There have been two separate series of these television shows.
42 They caught two salmon and several trout.
43 Three sheep were grazing peacefully in the back garden.
Apposition
44 the Prime Minister, Mr. Blair
45 Despite the fact that he was broke he decided to take a long holiday.
46 the city of Rome