Two word noun phrases

1. What is a Noun Phrase?

A noun phrase is a group of words that work together to name and describe a person, place, thing, or idea. When we look at the structure of writing, we treat a noun phrase the same way we treat a common noun.

Like all nouns, a noun phrase can be a subject, object, or complement.

2. Examples of Noun Phrases

Example 1

The quick, brown fox jumped over the lazy dog

This noun phrase is the subject of the sentence. In other words, this sentence is about ‘the quick, brown fox.’ But, instead of just saying ‘fox,’ the rest of the noun phrase works to describe it.

Example 2

I think there’s a good pop song in pretty much anything -Kesha, pop singer

Here, the four words ‘a good pop song’ work together as a noun phrase. Instead of just saying “song,” Kesha sees “a good pop song” in anything. The phrase acts as a complement to the subject pronoun ‘there’. It is a complement because it is giving more information about the subject.

Example 3

The end of the season is hard for some athletes

The noun phrase is acting as the subject in this example.  The five words in the noun phrase work together to name a period of time that is hard for athletes.

3. Parts of a Noun Phrase

A noun phrase has two parts: a noun, and any modifiers connected to that noun. Most often, these modifiers will be adjectives, articles, and prepositional phrases. The modifiers may also be determiners.

a. Noun

A noun is a person, place, thing, or idea. All noun phrases will have core noun, with modifiers connected to it.

Example

The pirate buried his treasure on an island for retirement

The four nouns in this sentence are a person, thing, place and idea, respectively.

b. Modifier – Article

There are only three articles in modern English: a, an, the. An article is always connected to a noun, and so when one is used it is always part of a noun phrase.

Example 1

The river is deeper after it rains

In this example, the noun phrase contains a noun (‘river’) and an article (‘the’). The noun phrase ‘the river’ is the subject of the sentence.

Example 2

An enormous tree stands on the riverbank

This noun phrase begins with the article ‘an’. The article is attached to the noun ‘tree’. In between these two words is the adjective ‘enormous’. The article and the adjective are both modifiers describing the noun in the noun phrase ‘an enormous tree’.

c. Modifier – Adjective

An adjective is a word that describes nouns or pronouns.

Example 1

The young puppy chased its tail

The adjective ‘young’ is describing ‘puppy’. The two words combine to make a noun phrase, which is the subject of the sentence.

Example 2

Many people want to live quiet, peaceful lives

This noun phrase has two adjectives: ‘quiet’ and ‘peaceful’. Each adjective modifies the noun ‘lives’. They describe what kind of lives people want.

d. Modifier – Prepositional Phrase

A prepositional phrase is a group of words that begins with a preposition and ends with an object. They add details, such as where something is or when an event occurred.

Example 1

The box in the attic is full of memories

This noun phrase includes the prepositional phrase ‘in the attic’. It is giving us a detail about the noun ‘box’ – where it is located. The noun phrase in this example is the subject of the sentence.

Example 2

My little brother always feared monsters in the closet

The prepositional phrase ‘in the closet’ modifies (describes) the noun ‘monster’. The noun and prepositional phrase combine to make the noun phrase ‘monsters in the closet’.

e. Determiner

 A determiner is a word that clarifies a noun. It is used to differentiate between similar nouns. Determiners answer questions such as ‘Which one?’, ‘Whose?’, ‘How many?”, or ‘How much?’

Example 1

Those people are so friendly!

The determiner ‘those’ tells us which people are friendly. The noun phrase ‘those people’ is the subject of the sentence.

Example 2

Max gave a biscuit to your dog

In this sentence ‘your’ is clarifying to which dog Max gave a biscuit to.  The noun phrase ‘your dog’ is the indirect object of the sentence (see part 4 for more on indirect objects).

Example 3

All children should have access to a free education

The noun ‘children’ is modified by the determiner ‘all’. The determiner ‘all’ answers the question ‘How many children?’ The noun phrase ‘all children’ is the subject of the sentence.

4. Types of Noun Phrase

a. Noun Phrase as a Subject

A subject is a noun that the sentence is about.

Example

Very few giant pandas remain in the wild

This sentence is clearly about the small number of wild Pandas, and so ‘very few giant pandas’ is the subject of the sentence.

b. Noun Phrase as a Complement

A compliment re-states or gives more information about a noun. It always follows a state-of-being verb (is, are, am, will be, was, were).

Example

A sailor’s best friend is a wide, open sea

The noun phrase ‘a wide, open sea’ gives us more information about the sailor’s best friend, the sea. Therefore it acts as a complement to the noun phrase ‘best friend’.

c. Noun Phrase as a Direct Object

A direct object is the noun or pronoun that receives the action of a verb.

Example

Grandma cooked a meal for ten people, even though there were only four of us

The verb in this sentence is ‘cooked’, and the object that is being cooked is ‘a meal.’ The rest of the phrase ‘for ten people’ creates a noun phrase that acts as a direct object.

d. Noun Phrase as an Indirect Object

An indirect object receives the direct object.

Example

Trudy gave her hungry, crying baby a bottle

The noun phrase answers the question, “Who did Trudy give the bottle to?” The phrase ‘her hungry, crying baby’ is the indirect object because it receives the bottle (‘a bottle’ is the direct object because it is receiving the action ‘gave’).

5. How to Write Noun Phrase

A noun phrase centers on a noun. But, that noun may be described by adding modifiers, and adding modifiers to a noun creates a noun phrase. You will quickly note that many nouns have articles (a, an, the) attached to them.

Example:

1. Cats sleep a lot. (no noun phrase)
2. The cat (article + noun)
3. The fluffy, long-haired cat (article +adjectives + noun)
4. The cat on top of the stool is sleeping. (article + noun + prepositional phrase)
5. Most big cats hunt at night. (determiner + adjective + noun)

In this sentence, the head noun is ‘book‘. The premodifier (modifier that comes before the noun) is the article ‘the‘. ‘With a blue spine‘ is the postmodifier (modifier that comes after the head noun).

The head noun here is ‘tree’. ‘The tall‘ are premodifiers, whereas ‘with oranges‘ is the postmodifier. How do we know that ‘tree‘ is the main noun? Because the noun ‘oranges‘ does not introduce an idea but rather defines what kind of tree it is.

If the sentence still makes sense after replacing the phrase with a pronoun (like in the above example), you can be confident that it is a noun phrase. This might not work in all cases, but it is useful as a general rule.

Premodifiers come before a noun and are usually made up of determiners, adjectives, and nouns.

Determiners

Determiners will usually come first in a noun phrase (e.g. ‘the pink skirt‘). Determiners include:

• Articles, e.g. a / an, the

• Demonstrative, e.g. this, that, these, those

• Possessive determiners, e.g. my, your, his, her,

• Quantifiers, e.g. some, any, all, enough, no, every

• Numerals, e.g. one, two, three

The determiner, in this case, is the demonstrative ‘this’, which makes it clear exactly which book is a history book.

This expanded noun phrase contains the main noun ‘business’ and three premodifiers. The possessive determiner ‘my’ and the adjectives ‘interesting’ and ‘profitable’ act as its premodifiers.

In this sentence, the subject is now ‘he’, and the ‘yellow tennis ball’ has become the object.

What is a noun phrase?

Noun phrases are groups of two or more words within a sentence that function grammatically as nouns. They consist of a noun and other words that modify the noun. Some grammarians also consider a single-word noun to be a noun phrase, while more traditional grammars hold that a phrase must be made up of two or more words. In this guide, we define a phrase as being made up of more than one word.

Noun phrases can also have pronouns as their structural base, which we will examine later in this section.

Identifying noun phrases

Noun phrases allow groups of words to function as a noun in the sentence. In this way, nouns can be elaborated upon or modified to add further depth to the sentence without losing their structural role.

The following sentence contains a basic, single-word noun, without any modifiers:

• “Whales swim.”

In this sentence, the word “whales” functions alone as the noun. Because there are no modifiers to create a noun phrase, the reader receives no additional information about “whales.”

The following sentence contains a noun phrase with modifiers:

• “He brought the shovel with the blue handle.”

In this sentence, “the shovel with the blue handle” is a noun phrase. It collectively acts as a noun while providing modifying words for the head noun, “shovel.” The modifiers are “the” and “with the blue handle.”

Here are some other examples of sentences with noun phrases marked in italics (the primary nouns being modified are underlined):

• “The tall mountain was very large.”
• “The highway at rush hour can be frantic.”
• “The oranges that fell from the orange tree are delicious.”

A good way to test whether or not a phrase is a noun phrase is to replace the phrase with a pronoun and see if the sentence is still grammatically correct. For example, in all three examples provided above, the noun phrase can be successfully replaced with a pronoun:

• “It was very large.”
• “It can be frantic.”
• “They are delicious.”

Noun phrases of varying length

Noun phrases can be as short as two words, or they can be longer and have many words; the number of words in a phrase does not affect its status as a noun phrase, so long as it functions as a noun in the sentence. For example, the following sentences contain one very short noun phrase, and one very long noun phrase:

• “The man sat down.”
• “The forty-five year old man with brown hair and a black shirt sat down.”

Despite their difference in length, both phrases in italics function as nouns.

Noun phrases within noun phrases

You may have noticed that many of the sentences above contain multiple noun phrases. It is very common for a smaller noun phrase to occur within a larger one, acting as part of the modifying information. For instance, the second sentence above actually has three noun phrases, two of which are contained within the longer one. Let’s look at the sentence again, this time underlining each noun being modified and putting the smaller phrases in bold.

• “The forty-five year old man with brown hair and a black shirt sat down.”

Here are some more examples of sentences with noun phrases inside of other noun phrases:

• “They passed an orange bus driven by a jolly old man wearing a lady’s wig on the highway.”
• “Please hand me the book with the torn cover.”

Modifiers

Position of modifiers

Sometimes the words that modify the noun come before the noun in the phrase, and sometimes they come after. For example, in the following sentence, the modifiers come before the noun:

• “Dogs often like to chase high-flying Frisbees.”

In this next sentence, the modifiers come after the noun:

• “Trucks with red stripes and large wheels came riding into town.”

The position of modifiers in a noun phrase depends on what type of modifier is being used to describe the noun.

Types of modifiers

There are many different types of modifiers that can be used in noun phrases to modify the noun in the phrase. Among these modifiers are adjectives, articles, participles, possessive nouns, possessive pronouns, determiners, relative clauses, infinitives, participle phrases, prepositional phrases, and compound nouns*.

Adjectives, articles, participles, possessive nouns, determiners, possessive pronouns, and compound nouns tend to appear before the noun in a noun phrase. Relative clauses, infinitives, participle phrases, prepositional phrases, and compound phrases tend to appear after the noun in noun phrases.

(*Modifiers are usually considered to be adjectives, adverbs, or other grammatical elements that function as one or the other. For the sake of conciseness in this section, however, we’ll be including items that are not usually classed as modifiers—such as articles and determiners—but still serve to give more meaning to the noun in a noun phrase.)

Here are examples of each type of modifier in a sentence with a noun phrase:

Adjectives

Adjectives modify the noun by expressing a certain quality of the noun:

• “Bright stars shine in the sky.”
• “Big cities are loud.”

Articles

Articles modify the noun by revealing if the noun is definite or indefinite:

• “The dog went to the park.”
• “A boy ate an apple.”

Determiners

Determiners are words that reveal the amount of a noun in a sentence:

• “There are five bananas.”
• “Several iguanas were on the tree.”

Participles

Participles can be used to directly modify the noun by showing a past or present action that the noun is or was involved in doing:

• “The galloping gazelle jumped high.
• “Boiled water is very hot.”

Possessive Nouns

Possessive nouns modify the noun by explaining that the noun belongs to someone, something, or some group:

• “The mail man’s truck was parked.”
• “The woman’s purse was blue.”

Possessive Determiners

Possessive determiners also indicate possession. However, they indicate possession by using a pronoun instead of a noun:

• “His wife brought him his forgotten briefcase.”
• “Her shoe was untied.”

Compound Nouns

Compound nouns are created by modifying the head noun with a noun adjunct (a word that works together with the noun to give it a different meaning). (There are different kinds of adjuncts, which are covered in another section).

Compound nouns can either be one word, two words, or two words joined by a hyphen. In every case, the noun adjunct adds to or changes the meaning of the head noun. The following sentences show an example of each type of compound noun:

• “He ran to the doghouse.”
• “The bus station was busy.”
• “His ex-wife called him yesterday.”

Relative Clauses

Relative clauses (also known as adjective clauses) express a quality of the noun just like adjectives do. However, adjective clauses contain a subject and a verb:

• “The car that drove up the street turned left.”
• “The light that was left on was very bright.”

Infinitives

Infinitives modify the noun by providing a verb phrase that helps elaborate on and provide clarification of the noun:

• “He was the person to contact if you wanted pastries.”
• “She was the one to ask.”

Participle Phrases

Participle phrases modify the noun by providing a group of words with a present or past participle that works like an adjective to modify the noun:

• “The man waving his hand for a taxi was being ignored.”
• “The geese flying overhead formed a V shape.”

Prepositional Phrases

Prepositional phrases are used in noun phrases to provide unique, distinguishing, or specifying information about the noun being modified:

• “The train at the station had twenty-seven cars.”
• “The snow on the field was white.”
• “A cat with white whiskers just walked by.”

Noun Phrases with Pronoun Bases

Although noun phrases primarily have nouns as the base word that is being modified, sometimes these base words can also be pronouns. For example, the following sentences have pronoun base words as opposed to noun base words:

• “He who walks by the bay at night may see the moon.”
• “Someone new slowly approached the group.”

Nouns phrases as subjects, objects, and complements

Noun phrases can be used in sentences as a subject, object, or complement. The individual sentence will determine how the noun phrase is used. Here are some examples of noun phrases being used as subjects, objects, and complements.

Subject

The subject of a sentence is the noun or noun phrase that is doing the action of the verb:

• “The green bowling ball rolled down the lane.”

Object

Objects are the noun or noun phrase that receives the action of the verb. They are the things that something happens to, as opposed to the things causing the action:

• “He rolled the green bowling ball down the lane.”

Complement

Complements are words or phrases that are necessary to make the sentence’s subject or predicate complete. Subject complements are words that follow a linking verb and describe the subject of the sentence. Object complements are words that modify the direct or indirect object of the verb. Here are examples of both:

Subject Complement

• “He was a man who owned green bowling balls.” (The noun phrase follows the linking verb was and modifies the subject he.)

Object Complement

• “He painted the bowling ball a greenish color.” (The noun phrase follows and modifies the direct object bowling ball.)
• “The club elected the man their president.” (The noun phrase follows and modifies the direct object the man.)

Nouns: Compound Nouns, Noun Phrases

A compound noun usually consists of two parts: the first noun indicates what class of things the second one belongs to. The first noun is typically used in the singular form:

a street lamp

a dog food

a landing strip

However, there are several occasions when the first noun can be used in plural.

with the nouns that are always plural:

a clothes shop

a pyjamas party

a glasses rim

when we talk about an institution (a department, an industry):

a sales department

a road materials industry

a concrete components institution

Pay attention to the fact that the second noun becomes plural if we need to use the compound noun in plural:

door bells

garden statues

Types of compound nouns

There are situations when we can’t use the noun+noun structure. In this case, we need to use a noun + ‘s + noun:

when the first noun is the user of the second noun:

the wife’s car, a baby’s rocking horse, a child’s playpen, a girls’ room

when the item described by the second noun is produced by the object described by the first one:

goat’s cheese, cow’s milk, bird’s eggs

when we talk about body parts of people and animals:

a baby’s foot, a woman’s hand, a dog’s nose

Hyphens in compound nouns

A compound noun needs a hyphen when it consists of a verb and an adverb (to show that the adverb is linked with the compound rather than any other elements of the sentence): sign-off, shake-out, stake-out:

You are charged one dollar at the sign-up to check if your credit card can proceed with a transaction.

If a compound noun consists of a verb as the second element and is preceded by a noun consisting of more than one syllable, this compound noun is either hyphenated or presented as two words: cabinet-maker, boiler-maker, cauliflower grower, sheep farmer.

In this case, you will need to check in your dictionary whether a hyphen is needed or not.

I think we need to hire a market-maker to trade our shares in order to launch the product.

Careless drivers are dangerous for all road users.

It’s a challenge for a dairy farmer not to run out of silage.

She’s a truly talented speech-maker.

You should hyphenate expressions in which each element has equal status, and expressions in which the elements rhyme: owner-driver, city-state, philosopher-king, hocus-pocus.

Most individual owner-operators never apply for a policy of insurance.

Some people treat medicine as a hocus-pocus.

A new bar-restaurant has started up at the corner.

If an adjective + noun compound acts as a modifier (used as an adjective), a hyphen is required: middle-class neighborhood, high-quality boots, fire-proof jacket.

We are currently working on building a future-proof PC.

She’s been diagnosed with a low-stage tumor.

You can make high-risk investments only if you are ready to lose your money at any moment.

If a participle + noun or noun + participle compound is used as an adjective, a hyphen is also required: a swimming-suit sale, an English-speaking friend.

There is a running-shoe sale at the mall.

It’s a rocking-chair cushion. I need it to reduce my back pain.

He is a trouble-making type.

Compound nouns that consist of a noun + participle (in any order) are to be hyphenated when they are used as an adjective: a garden-filled city, cutting-edge methods. In other cases, no hyphens are needed.

All drug-tested patients are required to stay in hospital until the results are provided.

All the patients admitted to hospital must be drug tested.

A compound noun that has three or more words may either be hyphenated or not: editor in chief, base on balls, give-and-take, good-for-nothing, know-it-all, justice of the peace, jack-of-all-trades, pick-me-up, stick-to-itiveness.

She is an I-will-never-call-you-back girl.

Your visit was a jack-in-the-box for me.

Every compound noun should either be memorized or checked with a dictionary.

A noun phrase is group of two or more words that function as a subject, an object, or a prepositional object in a sentence. The phrase is led by a noun and joined by one or more modifiers that can come before the noun or after it.

For example, if you write the man with all the belt buckles, the entire string is a noun phrase. Man is the primary noun and with all the belt buckles is a modifier. Together, the words describe one man. Because the entire construction identifies a particular individual, the full unit serves as a single noun.

Noun Phrases in Action

You’ll often hear noun phrases used as nouns in everyday grammar. That’s because many of us tend to think and speak descriptively. Which sentence could you see yourself using to identify someone while talking with another person in a store?

The man is paying in hundred-dollar bills.

The man with all the belt buckles is paying in hundred-dollar bills.

We might see and hear noun phrases just as often as we do simple nouns standing alone. More examples might be:

The cat on top of the counter is getting ready to jump.

The restaurant on the corner of the street serves great pancakes.

It felt good to find the owner of the missing dog.

Once you understand what noun phrases are and how they’re constructed, you can spot them with ease. Using them correctly in your writing and speech can become effortless too.

More Noun Phrase Details

As we mentioned, any words in a sentence that modify the noun can be part of the noun phrase. These words might also include articles (a, and, the), determiners (four, few), adjectives, participles, and pronouns.

Four girls have requested those roller skates.

His blue shirt is hanging on the towel bar. (Here, towel bar is not a noun phrase, but a compound noun.)

A book unwritten is a book unread by someone who might learn from it.

As you can see, a noun phrase can be formed by any number or combination of words. These examples further show a noun phrase being used as a subject, a direct object, and a predicate nominative.

Pop Quiz

Identify the noun phrase in each sentence below.

1. A pouring rain fell through the afternoon.

2. Should we test-drive the blue truck?

3. I’m in the mood for a steaming-hot cup of tea.

4. A towering mountain was looming in the distance.

5. A striking woman with jet-black hair sat next to me.

Pop Quiz Answers

1. A pouring rain fell through the afternoon.

2. Should we test-drive the blue truck?

3. I’m in the mood for a steaming-hot cup of tea.

4. A towering mountain was looming in the distance.

5. A striking woman with jet-black hair sat next to me.

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