Cambridge Grammar of English Hardback with cd-rom a comprehensive Guide

Functions of noun phrases in the clause (noun phrases in green; heads in bold)

subject

verb

object

complement

adjunct

My

father

used to play

the 

piano

.

She

was

a fairly average

swimmer

.

The

children

loved

him

.

His

body

was found

the next 

day

.

Noun phrases frequently occur as the complements of prepositions:

We usually go 

to

our local gym

at

the weekends

.

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Noun phrases also occur in the noun phrase +’s possessive determiner

construction:

the average meat-eater

’s diet

the biotechnology department

’s long-awaited new building

Û

176–196 Nouns and determiners

Other less frequent functions of noun phrases include:

The train was 

an hour

late leaving Milan.

(premodifier of adjective)

Two days

before we left, we still hadn’t heard from her.

(premodifier of conjunction)

We agreed that 

two meetings

ago.

(premodifier of adverb)

He lives 

three houses 

along our street.

(premodifier of prepositional phrase)

She watches 

children

’s TV in the afternoon.

(the ‘descriptive’ use of the ’s construction)

Û

197–212 Pronouns, 236–241 Adjectives and adjective phrases,

242–249 Adverbs and adverb phrases for premodification and

postmodification of pronouns and the role of adjectives and adverbs in

postmodifying structures

HEADS

168

The head of a noun phrase may be a noun or a pronoun:

My 

father worked there three years ago.

(noun as head of noun phrase)

He was a friend of Jean’s.

(pronoun as head of noun phrase)

Simple heads

168a

A simple head consists of one noun. The following noun phrases have simple

heads:

my 

sister

the larger 

size

a new 

home for the children

a government 

report

this year’s 

budget

Û

539 Glossary for any unfamiliar terms

The noun phrase | 319

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Compound heads

168b

Structure of compound nouns

Compound nouns consist of a noun head with another item (most typically a

noun, but it may also be an adjective or verb) placed before it in a very close

syntactic and semantic relationship. The initial item most typically identifies a

type of the class of entities denoted by the final noun. For example, a video shop is

a type of shop; orange juice is a type of juice:

The elements in compounds are closely bound to each other syntactically and

cannot normally be interrupted by other elements (e.g. a motorway petrol station,

not a petrol motorway station). Compounds are therefore best considered as single

heads in the noun phrase. Their typical stress pattern is with stress on the first

item (petrol station, blackboard, grindstone).