Nouns (N) and Noun Phrases (NP)

This chapter discusses nouns and noun phrases. Semantically, nouns are words that name things: people, places, animals, objects, ideas, or qualities. Nouns tell who or what . Nouns are also defined by four contrastive categories: proper/common; singular/plural; mass/count; and generic/specific. Common nouns can always be preceded by the determiner the , making it a good device for identifying nouns and noun phrases. Common count nouns can always be identified by whether they can be pluralized (form). Non-White Mainstream English varieties may drop the plural - s following a word identifying the amount as plural (e.g. fifty cent ) or add it to regularize words (e.g. deers , childrens ). A noun functions as the head of a noun phrase; a noun phrase may also include adjectival modifiers of the noun and a determiner phrase that specifies the noun. A noun phrase in turn may function as the subject of a sentence or dependent clause or as the complement of a verb or preposition. In these functions, a complete noun phrase can always be identified by replacement with a third-person pronoun, such as it , they , or them . A noun-phrase-in-form may function adjectivally (as a modifier of a noun) or adverbially (e.g. naming periods of time).