Noun Slots and Nominals

Many of us were taught that a noun is the name of a person, place, or thing, perhaps with the addition of "state of being." As a rough generalization, this works all right, but it doesn't cover all nouns, as in He got the hit or She scored a run. Words like hit and run are sometimes nouns and sometimes verbs, and they don't change their meaning that much between one use and another.

What, then, is a noun? A noun is a word that is used like a noun rather than like some other kind of word. The sentence functions of subject and object are usually filled by nouns or noun phrases (phrases headed by a noun). We can think of a noun as a single word that can fill nominal slots like these:

(The) __________ is/are here.

(The)___________ is/are good.

I like (the) ______________.

Sentences like this used to be called frames, but I haven't seen that term used much. Anyway, they are much more reliable ways of defining nouns than a meaning-based definition.

Unfortunately, not every nominal that can fill such slots is a noun. They can be filled by clauses, infinitive phrases, and participial (gerund) phrases, as in the following examples: That you came is good or To check documentation is good or I like walking the dog. The last two sentences are phrases that include nouns, but they are not noun phrases because the "head" of the phrase is not a noun but a verb (check) or participle (walking).

That's not all. Adjectives can serve as nominal adjectives--that is, as heads of noun phrases, in which case they are normally proceed by the definite article the. How can we test that they are really still adjectives? They still be modified by intensifying adverbs like very, which can't modify real nouns--The (very) best are here or I like the (very) best. One can also often think of them as adjectives modifying an implicit noun (one/ones). A similar test can be used to separate gerunds (present participles filling nominal slots) from true nouns. Gerunds can take adverbials of manner--e.g., I like walking (rapidly) and nouns can't, and gerunds of transitive verbs can take objects.

In the following sentences, are the subjects nouns, noun phrases, nominal adjectives, gerunds, or some other kind of nominal?

The quarterback is a loser.

Passes keep getting dropped.

Throwing downfield requires more time in the pocket.

George lost money on the Vikings.

The stupid enjoy such bets.

Calling cards are common.

The worst are full of passionate conviction.

Adjective Slots

The usual place to find adjectives is just in front of nouns. An adjective frame might look like this: The ___________ thing is this. Notice that the comes first. Adjectives occupy a different slot from determiners like the. We can have more than one adjective in a slot, and we can often switch them around and still have a sentence make sense, but we can't switch them with determiners, so sentence (3) below is marked with an asterisk, indicating that it is not grammatical:

(1) The tall handsome man attracted Beatrice

(2) The handsome tall man attracted Beatrice

(3) *Tall the handsome man attracted Beatrice.

It is not just that it sounds a bit awkward--it sounds like it isn't English at all.

We'll go into adjectives a bit more later, but let's note that these adjectival slots, too, can sometimes be occupied by non-adjectives--i.e., participles (The running man attracted Beatrice), and of course, by adjective phrases (The very handsome man attracted Beatrice). Nouns can also serve the adjectival function of modifying the head noun of a noun phrase--The government man attracted Beatrice. When one has both noun modifiers (as such nouns are called) and adjectives in a noun phrase, the noun modifiers almost always placed closer to the noun, and the same is usually true of participial modifiers, though this again we'll have to look at later. To make matters more complicated the noun modifiers may themselves be noun phrases.

Some adjectives which look like participles, however, seem to have lost contact with the verbal roots. They resist manner adverbials. One test for such cases is to take the other main adjective slot:

This thing is very exciting.

Ask oneself whether this conveys a progressive meaning. Can one make a progressive on top of it, showing that be is a main verb here?

This thing is being very exciting.

These tests suggest that we take exciting as an adjective in most sentences.

Do the subject noun phrases in the following include adjectives, adjective phrases, participles, or noun modifiers?

The summer day grows long.

The green grass turns brown.

The floating clouds drift by.

The very silly sheep crowd together.

The sleeping shepherd wakes.

Rosy dawn is breaking.

Billowing storm clouds threaten.

The depressing moment passes.

Love songs are sung.

Beautiful nymphs dance on the lawn.

Possessive Nouns and the Genitive Case

Although regular noun modifiers come after adjectives, possessive nouns come before them--e.g., George's red hat. Possessive nouns, like possessive pronouns (his red hat), occupy the determiner slot, as we can see from the impossibility of noun phrases like *the George's red hat or *the his red hat or *the red his hat. This can get complicated, though, since the determiner slot can be occupied by a possessive noun phrase, which may itself has a determiner and/or an adjective--in a noun phrase like The silly man's red hat both the the and the silly apply to man rather than hat.

What we usually call the "possessive" is the last survival of in modern English of the "case" system of its ancestors. A case is an inflection of a noun to indicate its relationship to other words in a sentence. We call it the "possessive" case because that is one of its most frequent functions, but it has others, and linguists more often call it the genitive. The genitive inflection for man is man's, for men is men's, for father is father's, and for fathers is fathers'. Although the spelling rules differ, the pronunciation rules for this -s ending are the same as for the third person singular of regular verbs.

A dependent genitive is part of a noun phrase (George's book). An independent genitive stands on its own (That book is George's). Where the genitive applies to more of the noun phrase than the noun it is attached to, it is called a group genitive--e.g., the head of the firm's speech.

The general progress of English as a language has been to reduce its use of inflections. Since the middle ages, English speakers have increasingly used prepositional phrases beginning with of to express the genitive relationships. Where both are used (that book of George's) it is called a double genitive. The inflected genitive is usually, but not always (my school, the front of the house) replaceable with an of-clause. It can often be paraphrased by the verb have.

Genitives can be subjective or objective, depending on their noun's place in the underlying sentence (George's book vs. George's murder). Here are some uses of the genitive:

1) possessive genitive

2) subjective genitive the boy's application

3) objective genitive the criminal's release

4) genitive of origin my lecture

5) descriptive genitive women's college

6) genitive of measure ten day's absence

7) genitive of attribute the party's policy, the victim's courage

8) partitive genitive the baby's eyes, the earth's surface

Try to think of additional examples of each of these uses.

Pronouns and Determiners

It is no surprise that personal pronouns can occupy the determiner slot. Pronouns and determiners are closely related word classes. Outside of the articles a, an, and the, which are determiners only, most of the words which can occupy the central determiner slot are pronouns of one sort or another. [We are putting aside for the moment the predeterminers and postdeterminers which can come before or after that slot.]

Pronouns and determiners are closed word-classes--i.e., ones which have a limited number of members and rarely admit new members. Pronouns come in several main varieties.

There are three kinds of primary pronouns, which are inflected for person, gender, and number: personal (I), possessive (my), and reflexive (myself).

There are five kinds of wh-pronouns and determiners: interrogative (what, whose) pronouns and determiners, the exclamative what determiner (what a day!), relative pronouns (which and whose can also be determiners), nominal relatives (which and what can also be determiners) which introduce nominal clauses, and wh-conditional pronouns and determiners (ending in ever) which introduce conditional clauses.

There are five kinds of indefinite pronouns: assertive like someone (some can be a determiner), non-assertive like anyone (any and either can be determiners), negative like no one (no is only a determiner and neither can be), and universal like everyone (with all, both, and each as also determiners and every as only a determiner), plus a bunch of quantifiers like much, many, few, a little, a bit of.

The demonstrative pronouns this, that, these, those can also function as determiners.

The genitives of the reciprocal pronouns like each other can function as determiners.

What kind of pronouns are found in the following noun sentences

A pale moon rises.

I love this island earth.

What a mess!

Whose mess is this?

The long day ends.

My time of day is here.

Know thyself!

Someone is following me.

Any house will do.

Those bill collectors came again.

Special purpose pronouns

Some pronouns have special uses. One functions as a generic pronoun (one's, oneself), as a number, and as a substitute for an indefinite noun phrase (plural some) or the head of a repeated noun phrase.

In addition to their primary use, reflexive pronouns (myself, etc.) can be used for emphasis in apposition to nouns--e.g., The king himself said so.

Like other personal pronouns, it can substitute for noun phrases, but it can also substitute for the whole or part of a clause or sentence. The anticipatory it stands in for extraposed clauses in constructions like It is clear that this is so and He made it clear that this is so. The cleft it serves as the subject of a sentence rearranged for focus--e.g., It was then that I understood what was asked of me. It also appears as a dummy subject or object of sentences with no real subject--it is raining, it's ten o'clock, I'm taking it easy.

Existential there (e.g., There is a fly in my soup) is probably best treated as a pronoun. It is not really the same as the locative adverb there, and it functions like a pronoun in yes-no questions (Is there a fly in your soup?) and tag questions (There's a fly in my soup, isn't there?) What would have been the main verb may appear as a present participle following the notional subject (There's a fly swimming in my soup). In standard English, the notional subject (fly, flies) is the one with which the verb agrees--in non-standard English, there sometimes takes a singular verb anyway (There was some flies in my soup)

Can you come up with additional illustrations of these various uses?

Postdeterminers: Numbers

There are a bunch of words which are sometimes treated by handbooks as adjectives but which are probably best treated as postdeterminers, words which come in the determiner slot but after central determiners like the. One such group are numbers. They generally precede adjectives in a noun phrase, and they can rarely be found in the other adjective slot: The thing is _________.

The numbers need to be divided into two kinds, the cardinal numbers (one, two, three, etc) and the ordinal numbers (first, second, third, etc). Both kind of numbers can occupy the head slot in a noun phrase, but they also appear as modifiers. Where both cardinal and ordinal numbers appear in the same noun phrase, the ordinal normally comes first, as in example (1) below:

(1) The first ten black dogs

(2) ?The ten first black dogs

We can see that these numbers are not like adjectives by seeing how awkward and unacceptable the following sounds:

(3) *The black first ten dogs

We can think of these as the ordinal and cardinal slots, but there are non-number words which can occupy them. Cardinal slots can be occupied by words which convey approximate numbers--several, many, few. Ordinal slots can be occupied by words which also convey position in a sequence--next, last, final.

Identify cardinal and ordinal slots in the following sentences:

The ten mad statesmen are walking in the forest.

The first mad statesman picked a flower.

Several mad statesmen were eating bananas.

My last girlfriend had an overbite.

The next one had no teeth at all.

A few mad statesmen chased my girlfriend.

Many mad statesmen are actually good fellows.

My last seven girlfriends preferred mad statesmen to me.

Two tall men came into view.

The men took the next three chairs.

Postdeterminers: Superlatives and Comparatives

Another possible candidate for postdeterminer slot status would be words used for phrasal comparatives and superlatives--more, most, fewer, less, least.

When these words modify adjectives, they are operating like adverbs and are part of the adjective phrase in the adjective slot--e.g., in the most beautiful girl in the world, the word most modifies beautiful rather than modifying girl directly. Occasionally they seem to be occupying nominal slots. But what about phrases like The most trouble?

My dictionary says that most in that sentence is an adjective. But it is certainly not interchangeable with other adjectives--we can't say *The big most trouble. And we can't use it in the other adjective frame--we can't say *The trouble is most. In other words, when modifying a noun, the words used to form superlatives and comparative words behave more like postdeterminers.

We can, moreover, say that these words follow the numbers, and that they can follow either an ordinal or a cardinal number but not both, with ordinals being much more rare.

Identify such words in the following sentences and say whether they are being used as nominals, adverbs or postdeterminers:

The most obvious notion is this one.

The least you can do is this.

More mad statesmen invade this exercise.

Fewer doctors floss.

The less we know, the better.

My ten most favorite songs are these.

Some less fortunate individuals will lose.

More doctors chew gum.

George is a more solitary individual.

George also has less brains.

Predeterminers

A final group of determiners can come in a slot in front of central determiners like the. The most common are both, all, and half. Others include multipliers (like twice, double, ten times), other fractions (one-tenth), and the exclamative what.

Such and many can also appear before a or an, but they are very hard to classify, since they can co-occur with predeterminers (all such people) and with each other (many such people).

Finally, some linguists would include all of, both of, and half of, and similar expressions as predeterminers. [Fractions and the words we've identified as postdeterminers can also head such expressions.] The most usual traditional explanation of such expressions is to identify all is all of, say, as a pronoun which takes a partitive genitive of phrase. An argument for identifying all of as a predeterminer instead is that the verb in sentences (1) and (2) agrees with the noun head of the noun phrase following the of:

(1) All of the children are good-looking.

(2) All of the furniture is good-looking.

If one prefers to think of all in those sentences as a pronoun, however, one can simply say that it varies in number with the noun it is standing for--children in one case and furniture in the other.

In the following sentences, identify the predeterminers, central determiners, and postdeterminers:

(1) You shall have all the pretty little horses.

(2) My dame has a lame, tame crane.

(3) My first ten lovers were better.

(4) I learned how to write a business letter.

(5) They played in the FedEx Florida Citrus Bowl.

(6) They gave me ten times the trouble.

(7) Both her friends told her so.

(8) Double the pleasure, double the fun.

(9) We have one-tenth the work force we used to.

(10) All that jazz is fun.

Determiners and Premodifiers

So far we have been talking about the slots filled in a noun phrase. But we can also distinguish among the items filling those slots in other ways. The pure determiners are concerned with reference. Other items which precede nouns in noun phrases are modifiers, "premodifiers" since they come before the noun modified. We have noted adjectives (and adjective phrases), noun modifiers (include noun phrases), possessives (which can also be noun phrases), and participles. We will eventually want to derive all such premodifying elements by transformations from embedded sentences and relative clauses:

the man [the man PRES be old] PRES be here

the man who is old PRES be here

the old man PRES be here

the old man is here

Adverbs generally follow the nouns they modify, but a handful can appear as premodifiers. A handful of place adverbs can appear in the noun modifier position--e.g., a downstairs apartment. A handful of intensifying adverbs like quite or almost can appear at the beginning of a noun phrase. The adverb then can appear in either position.

Very rarely, one will find prepositional phrases or verb phrases, both of them usually hyphenated in the adjective slot--a behind-the-scenes view or a do-it-yourself paradise.

Ignoring such rare occurences, in the following sentences identify premodifying elements in noun phrases as adjectives, noun modifiers, genitives, present participles, or past participles.

(1) The beloved old professor is here.

(2) George's tax proposal was presented.

(3) The very wise professor is here.

(4) It keeps me aware of coming events.

(5) The grammar professor is here.

(6) The silly man's hat was lost.

(7) The whining professor is here.

(8) The over-whelmed student is here.

(9) The charming, witty professor is here.

(10) The losing team will be sacrificed.

Postmodifier Slots; Restrictive vs. Relative

The most common modifying elements following the head nouns of noun phrases are probably prepositional phrases. Most of these are categorized as adjectival, serving the same kind of modifying function as adjectives--e.g., the man in the green hat. A few prepositional phrases are considered adverbials, those answering the questions where or when--e.g., the man in the closet. These can be derived from adverbials in underlying embedded sentences--the man [the man is in the closet] with copular verbs. Single-word adverbs can be found in postmodifier slots as well, but single-word adjectives are very rare, being pretty much confined to poetic uses and a few conventional ones (attorney general).

Also common postmodifiers are relative clauses (independent clauses headed by a relative pronoun like who, which, that, whose, whom or relative adverbs like when) and participial phrases, which can be derived from embedded sentences and relative clauses [the man [the man is running] ==> the man who is running ==> the man running]. These can be either restrictive (required to make the noun specific enough] or non-restrictive [supplying additional but not really necessary information.]

The order of postmodifier slots seems a bit less fixed than for premodifiers, but there are certainly tendencies affecting adverbial vs. adjectival and restrictive vs. non-restrictive. Make up some sentences for yourself, and see if you can decide what those tendencies are:

Postmodifiers: Comparative Constructions

If we divide up postmodifiers by structure types, we find that our list will include adverbs, adjectives (rare), noun phrases (usually adverbials), and prepositional phrases (adjectival and adverbial). Watch out for confusing postmodifying noun phrases with cases in which a head noun has a noun-modifier in front of it.

Another basic type is the comparative construction introduced by than. Such constructions will be preceded by a comparative adjective and/or determiner.

In the sentences below, identify the structure of the postmodifying elements.

(1) He credited his victory to the Man upstairs.

(2) Let's go someplace quiet and talk.

(3) The party last night was awesome.

(4) I had the time of my life.

(5) I had been here the night before.

(6) There were fewer girls there than I had hoped.

(7) There is a more important reason than that.

(8) She was wearing a dress with a slit in it.

(9) I couldn't find my way home.

(10) The tango is the dance of dances and, above all, a dance erotic.

More on Postmodifiers: Appositives and Relatives

Although most postmodifying noun phrases are adverbial, a few are appositives--as in He got in trouble with his wife, Anna. Such appositives are normally set off with commas. Instead of giving us an attribute of the noun phrase modified, they give us an equivalent for it--in the case above, Anna is his wife.

That-clauses can also serve as appositives for a limited number of nouns, in which case they look rather like relative clauses--e.g., He had this idea that money can buy anything. With similar nouns, one sometimes finds infinitive postmodifiers which are appositives--e.g., He gave me a chance to work.

In general, of course, when one sees that it is introducing a relative clause. All participial and most infinitive postmodifiers are also "relatives" in the sense of providing additional and supplemental information about the attributes of the noun modified, and most of them can be thought of as derived, like relative clauses, from embedded sentences.

[Just to make life complicated, these postmodifiers can also be extraposed--e.g., The man is here, calling for beer. We'll try to forget that for the moment.]

In the following sentences, identify the appositive noun phrases, the appositive that- clauses, the appositive vs. relative infinitives, and the relative clauses. Remember that the that of a relative clause can be deleted, leaving no introductory word to the clause.

(1) The professor frothing at the mouth is here.

(2) The student whose parents filed a lawsuit is here.

(3) The provost, John Ostheimer, gaves the awards.

(4) The professor, who had forgotten to shave that morning, stood up.

(5) A tendency to screw up is human.

(6) The vampire hidden in the bushes attacked Buffy.

(7) I had forgotten the fact that he went to Harvard Business School, too.

(8) Now is the month to plant grass.

(9) The hour when I was to leave had arrived.

(10) The ex-president is in trouble with his wife Hillary.

Noun Types: Proper Nouns and Common Nouns

Nouns which name specific things are called proper nouns and are distinguished from the everyday common nouns. Proper nouns are capitalized. If it is a multi-word name, all of the main words in it are capitalized--e.g. the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. In that example, the is not capitalized because it is not an official part of the name; when it is part of the name, it may be capitalized as well.

Proper nouns don't vary in number, and most of them are singular. However, most proper nouns can function as common nouns, in which case they can vary in number.

They usually retain their capitals when they are used as common nouns, but titles don't usually do so--e.g., if we are describing a specific act by a specific person, we might say the president said so, whereas if we are talking about the office and its holders in general we might say the presidents have usually been good politicians.

In the sentences below, identify the nouns which can or do function as proper nouns, and say which are being used as proper nouns in these sentences.

(1) They have a house by the Pacific.

(2) We get a lot of traffic here on a Sunday.

(3) Put not your trust in princes.

(4) He is a bush league Howard Stern.

(5) Tim McGraw sang that song real purty.

(6) He's a cross between a Russell Crowe and a Jim Carrey.

(7) He went to a high school full of Britneys.

(8) I'll see you Thursday.

(9) He's speaking at the Student Union tonight.

(10) We spent spring break in Cozumel.

Kinds of Nouns: Mass Nouns, Count Nouns, and Collective Nouns

We can distinguish in common nouns between those which are countable and those which are not.

Most common nouns are count nouns [aka countable]. They have singular and plural forms, and they can be used with determiners like many and few.

Mass nouns [aka non-count] take singular verbs and require much instead of many and less in place of few, a point of usage which users of Standard English often acquire rather late. Like plural count nouns, they can head a noun phrase without a determiner or premodifier. They are often simply too abstract to be countable--e.g., happiness--but some are simply hard to count--e.g., sugar--and some are simply mysterious--e.g., sofa is a count noun but furniture is a mass noun.

Sometimes, of course, we have to count mass nouns. We usually do so by using a partitive genitive of-phrase--e.g., an ounce of sugar, a piece of furniture. Many mass nouns can be used as count nouns and take plurals in special circumstances--e.g. bread is normally a mass noun (a slice of bread) but we can use a plural when talking about different varietys of bread (a choice of breads).

Mass nouns are not the same as collective nouns. The latter refer to a group and may, especially in U.S. usage, take singular verbs: The class is at night or the team is on the field. Collective nouns are still count nouns--we have no trouble talking about classes or teams.

Consider your own usage. How do you normally use the following nouns--as count nouns, mass nouns, or collective nouns?

(1) rice

(2) potato

(3) coffee

(4) nation

(5) jury

(6) water

(7) disgust

(8) ring

(9) bathtub

(10) news