190 likes | 777 Views
Lecture 4 Noun and Noun Phrase. Introduction: as has been pointed out, the noun phrase is a phrase with a noun as its head. It is the noun head that determines the way the noun phrase is organized. 4.1 Classification of nouns and function of noun phrases.
E N D
Lecture 4 Noun and Noun Phrase • Introduction: as has been pointed out, the noun phrase is a phrase with a noun as its head. It is the noun head that determines the way the noun phrase is organized.
4.1 Classification of nouns and function of noun phrases • 1. Classification of nouns Nouns can be classified according to “word formation” “lexical meaning” “grammatical form”
According to word formation, nouns can be divided into (1) simple noun“man, chair, land, faith, bus”(2) compound noun“armchair, motherland, seaside”(3) derivative noun“arrangement, ability, happiness, socialism”
According to lexical meaning, nouns fall into two major categories:(1) proper noun a particular person, place, thing spelt with a capital initial letter ,eg: Anderson, China, USA,(2) common noun a name common to a class of people, thing or abstract ideas,eg:
Common nouns can be further classified into: (1) individual noun (2) collective noun (3) material noun (4) abstract noun
According to grammatical form, nouns can be divided into two classes: count nouns/countable nouns non-count nouns/uncountable nouns
2. Function of noun phrases • The noun phrase can function as all the elements in a sentence except the predicate verb:
4.2 Number forms of nouns • Number is a grammatical distinction which determines whether a noun or determiner is singular or plural. 1) Regular and irregular plural 2) Number forms of the collective, material, abstract and proper noun (a) Number forms of the collective noun (b) Number forms of the material noun (c) Number forms of the abstract noun (d) Number forms of the proper noun
4.3 Partitives • Partitives, also called unit nouns, are commonly used to denote a whole or the quantity of an undifferentiated mass. Both count and noncount nouns can enter partitive constructions.
General partitives eg. piece, bit, article, item • Partitives related to the shape of things eg. a cake of soap a bar of chocolate • Partitives related to volume eg. a bottle of ink two bowls of rice
Partitives related to the state of action eg. a fit of anger/ laughter/ fever a flash of hope/ light • Partitives denoting pairs, groups, flocks, etc eg. a pair of shoes/ scissors/ trousers a flock of birds/ chicken/ sheep
Assignment Exercise in the Textbook