 Welcome! In this short e-lecture, I will give a brief overview of the structure of the present-day English noun phrase. As you know, noun phrases typically function as subjects, as objects, or complements of sentences, and as modifiers in prepositional phrases. Here is an example. The young boy from London saw some of the German tourists when they bought the five remaining tickets. This is of course a complex sentence with two clauses. And in each clause, we have a subject-verb object structure where the subject has been underlined in blue. The verbs are marked red and the objects have been underlined by means of a green line. This sentence with its two clauses exhibits four noun phrases of different degrees of complexity. In fact, we could even postulate five noun phrases since the first noun phrase, the young boy from London, is a noun phrase which is post-modified by a prepositional phrase where the prepositional head is supplemented by the simple noun phrase London. All noun phrases have the same structure. They consist of a pre-modification part, a head noun which is here apples in its plural form, and a post-modification part. Central to the noun phrase is the head noun. The head may be supplemented by more or less complex pre-modification structures. Here are some examples. We could for example have a noun phrase which just consists of where the pre-modification part is just realized by means of a determiner. We could have an element which is referred to as a pre-determiner, some apples. We could have a combination of both, some of the apples. Or take this part, some of the extremely large apples where we have determiners and a so-called pre-modifier. Or we could simply have pre-modifier in this case an adjective large. Following the head noun, we can have several types of post-modification. Again, here are some examples. The apples from Jenny's garden. Here we have a prepositional phrase. The apples that you ate yesterday, well, this of course is a relative clause. And here we have a non-finite clause, the apples imported from Spain. As I said, common to all noun phrases is the presence of an obligatory head noun around which the components cluster. The head dictates congruence, for example, subject verb agreement with the rest of the sentence outside the noun phrase. Depending on grammatical and semantic properties, two aspects have to be discussed with regard to head nouns. Noun classes and noun features. Let's briefly look at them and let's start with noun classes. Using grammatical criteria, two general subclasses of nouns can be identified. Proper nouns, well, basically names such as John or the observer. And common nouns, which in turn can be subdivided into count nouns and non-count nouns such as person, a count noun versus beer, a non-count noun. The open class of head nouns, proper nouns and common nouns, is supplemented by the closed class of pronouns, which can, well, if you wish, deputize for whole noun phrases. As far as noun features are concerned, we can identify the following. There is, for example, the feature of number where we have the singular and plural form in present-day English. Or we can identify gender, personal versus non-personal gender. And, of course, case where in present-day English we have the genitive case and the common or oblique or unspecified case. Noun classes and noun features, as well as the classification of noun types, are discussed in two follow-up virtual sessions referred to as head noun 1 and head nouns 2. Let us now focus on the components that precede and follow the head in this e-lecture and let's start with pre-modification. When used in discourse, noun phrases refer to the situational and linguistic context. The kind of reference depends on the pre-modification structure of a noun phrase that is by the items that pre-modify the head noun or that stand before it. Here is an example. All of the five extremely large apples. This is a noun phrase where we can identify a set of determiners, for example, all of the five. And where we can identify pre-modifiers, for example, extremely large. And apples is, of course, the head. In looking at the determiners, three classes of determiners are generally distinguished. Central determiners such as the pre-determiners, here the example all of, and post-determiners, in our case, the element five. Let us look at these elements in detail and let's start with the central determiners. There are six classes of determiners that can be associated with the two noun classes, count noun and non-count noun. For example, we have the first class, the, my, some, any, which are stressed and no. And as an example, we take the count noun bottle in the singular form, bottles in the plural form and a non-count noun such as milk. And then we can easily observe that they can be used in all three contexts. So we can have something like, my bottle, my bottles and my milk. A second class contains the element, the zero article, some and any in their weak form and enough. And of course, here we know it is impossible to say enough bottle. Enough bottles, of course, is possible and enough milk is also possible. A third class of central determiners contains the elements this and that in the singular form. And of course, then it's relatively easy that these are the contexts. So we can have this milk, this bottle, but not this bottles. The opposite applies to the two items, these and those, which are of course used only in the plural form. So these bottles, but not these milk. Then we have elements such as the indefinite determiner A and then every each and either where every bottle is possible, every bottles and every milk are out. And finally, we have an element such as much, which is of course a typical central determiner that is associated with non-count nouns, but not with count nouns. So we can set up classes. For example, for the first class, we have determiners that can occur with count nouns, both in the singular and plural and also with non-count nouns. So we have the bottle, the bottles and the milk. Or if you take class five determiners such as A, every each and either, they can only be used with count nouns in the singular such as in every bottle. Let's now look at the predeterminers. Predeterminers form a class where the members are mutually exclusive and precede those central determiners with which they can co-occur. We can distinguish two subsets. The first subset contains elements such as all half both and so on as in all the apples. And the second set contains multipliers such as twice, double, once, etc. So we have examples once a day, four times every year. Note that the predeterminers of the first group, the group all half and both, can also be used pronominally. So you can have something like my students set their exams all past, in which case all is used as a pronoun. Furthermore, this first group is often followed by an off-phrase. So you have something like all of the students or half of the team. So much for predeterminers. Let's now look at the elements that can follow the central determiners. The post determiners as in examples such as the two young women were here. Now here we have two, an element that takes its place immediately after the central determiner. These post determiners fall into two classes. The first class are the ordinal such as first, second, last, other. As in the first book. And then we have the quantifier such as 560, many, few and so on, as in the five books. Now where these two classes, ordinals and quantifiers can co-occur, ordinals usually precede the quantifiers. Here is an example. The other two young women were here where we have the ordinal first and then the quantifier and then the rest of the noun phrase. Let us now look at those elements that can be placed between the determiners and the head noun. These items are referred to as pre-modifiers. Let's see what type of pre-modifiers we have in present day English. Holding a constant frame such as I read G and then the head noun book. The following range of post-modifying items can be postulated. For example, we have simple adjectives. So let's write down A for adjective here. We have genitive constructions. I read the trainer's book. Genitive. We have participle constructions such as I read the recommended book, participle. We have nouns or nominal constructions which you can also analyze as a compound noun. I read the football book. Adverbials may be pre-modifiers such as I read the often quoted book. And last but not least, we can have whole sentences such as how to play football. I read the how to play football book. So you see, the class of pre-modifiers is relatively diverse and allows almost all other elements to occur in here. Let us finally discuss the part of a noun phrase that follows the head noun. This part is referred to as post-modification. The post-modification places all the items after the head. Most notably, prepositional phrases such as the chair by the wall, a prepositional phrase by the wall. Or non-finite clauses, the boys playing in the garden. Commonly used are relative clauses, the car which she bought recently. Post-modification as you may have heard can be restrictive or non-restrictive. If the head of a noun phrase can only be identified through the modification that has been supplied, it is referred to as restrictive. If the additional information is not essential, it is called non-restrictive. Here are two examples. My brother, who lives in London, is 16. How many brothers do I have? Well, in this case, the number of brothers is relatively simple. The number of brothers is one. And we have a non-restrictive relative clause. Note that the non-restrictive information is given a separate tone unit. My brother, who lives in London, and it is enclosed in commas. Now, in the second example, my brother who lives in London is 16. The information is restrictive. We have several brothers, but refer to the one in London only. So the number of brothers is larger than one. Again, important, the non-restrictive information is given a separate tone unit and it is enclosed in commas. So much for the traditional analysis of the noun phrase. Before we finish, let us finally look at the presentation of the noun phrase in formal syntax. According to our traditional analysis, something like the sweet apples from Spain would be the classical noun phrase, with a central class 1 determiner, the, an adjective sweet as a pre-modifier, the same noun of the type count noun and a prepositional phrase as post-modifier. Well, let's move this noun phrase over here as a starting point. Such a noun phrase has traditionally been analysed like this, as a phrase with a noun as a head. This is the traditional x-bar syntax representation with a determiner, n-bar slot, which is recursive, a prepositional phrase as a post-modifier from Spain, the adjectival phrase which has been left unanalyzed here, and the head noun apples. But what happens if we add a pre-determiner such as all or all of, or a post-determiner such as a genitive construction? Well, let's do that. So for example, if we add all of, we would classically analyse it as a pre-determiner. Oops, there we are. But what would we do over here? Well, there is no possibility of analysing all of and all the other stuff in the pre-modification part of a noun phrase. We have a problem in x-bar syntax. This system, as I said, is referred to as the x-bar syntax system which constitutes the phrase structure system in modern syntactic theories. For this and other reasons, an alternative analysis arose in the mid-1980s that posits the determiner as the head, which makes the phrase a determiner phrase rather than a noun phrase. And now we have all of the pre-determiner in a specifier slot of the determiner phrase. Today, the determiner phrase analysis of phrases such as the apple is the majority view in generative grammar, but it is a minority position in the study of syntax and grammar in general. Most frameworks outside of generative grammar continue to assume the traditional noun phrase analysis of noun phrases. So, let's summarise the main facts of this e-lecture which did not focus on a generative grammar analysis. We saw that the present-day English noun phrase exhibits a high degree of complexity, especially as far as the pre-modification component is concerned, where pre-determiners, central determiners and post-determiners may determine the head. And after the head? Well, here we saw that there are many possibilities of post-modifying the head in restrictive or non-restrictive ways. The head itself was not the focus of this e-lecture. For further details about the head of a noun phrase, I recommend my two e-lectures on head nouns in present-day English, where noun classes and the features associated with them are discussed in detail. So, I hope I'll see you there. Until then, thanks for your attention.