Talk:Noun phrase

plurals
http://www.tesol-direct.com/guide-to-english-grammar/nouns-and-noun-phrases explains it to some extent although they are not correct on data  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.113.91.38 (talk) 17:52, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

This practice takes the constellation to be primitive rather than the words themselves.
Can someone please rewrite that sentence or expand it to make the meaning clear? I can't do it myself - it makes no sense to me. Is constellation a typo, or does it have some meaning in linguistic jargon? Whikie (talk) 18:41, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

no — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.173.124.98 (talk) 10:47, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

For an article to achieve feature article standing it must following multiple guidelines that this article does not reach. Particularly, this article lacks a well written and comprehensive explanation of what a Noun Phrase is. It seems to assume too much prior knowledge as well as not giving direct links to where you could find more information. This is an issue because Noun Phrases are basic building blocks for linguistics and should be easily comprehendible. For examples of this restricted explanation, one may look at the lead section to find gaps. While the section does give some important information it also mentions ideas that are never fully addressed in particular, constituents. There is a small follow up about constituents but it never explicitly states that it is explaining how to find constituents and why they are important for phrases. Also, another area where clarification would be beneficial is the section on Noun Phrases with and without determiners. This section has a good idea by explaining the differences but is not well written and would be confusing for someone with no prior knowledge. This article does do a good job explaining what the components of a noun phrase are by using examples and by the written explanation discussing form and position. In general, this article could improve by using clearer speech to explain the basics of noun phrases as well as flushing out ideas into well-written sentences for clarification.--Marisadavidson13 (talk) 01:07, 19 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Ling 300, UBC, right? How long did it take you to produce your critique here, an hour? How many hours do think others have invested in this article? Pass this message on to your instructor.

Broken example
It'd be great if the example in the first box actually worked "Those five beautiful shiny Arkansas Black apples sitting on the chair" is a noun phrase of which apples is the head. To test, a single pronoun can replace the whole noun phrase, as in "They are delicious". «They sitting on the chair.»? Umm no. This demonstrates the opposite of what is being argued… the long noun phrase cannot be replaced by a single pronoun. Perhaps the original "sitting on the chair" should just be "are delicious"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.171.144.116 (talk) 07:22, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Ajayi oluwaseun (talk) 18:39, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

False dilemma
The section "Status of single words as phrases" seems to imply a false dilemma. Either a single word (a noun or a pronoun) is a (noun) phrase, or it isn't. But a better way to think about this is that the test for what's a noun phrase is not to do with how many words it contains, but whether it can be nested. A single word that's a noun *can* be a noun phrase, since that can be nested. A single word that's a pronoun cannot be a noun phrase since it cannot be nested. So, the word count in a phrase is the wrong way to think about this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.22.165.103 (talk) 19:42, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

No.... even a pronoun in a clause structure is a noun phrase. It can also be nested as per your qualification prescribed for a noun phrase. See here, He came here. He whom you called came here. For a better understanding read Geoffery Leech's 'English Grammar for Today '. No other grammar book as I know can express the phrase topic better. Here the problem is not the noun phrase or any other phrase but the pseudo-writers are a problem in themselves. They don't read authentic books and are often puzzled in themselves and make even others their real species. Birbal Kumawat (talk) 13:47, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Praise for Geoffrey Leech, etc
User:Birbal Kumawat, you want to add a lot of material, for example in this edit, notably:


 * In our modern grammar no other theorist but Geoffery [sic] Leech has ever been able to give Noun Phrase a clear-cut and comprehensive look. The Palgrave Macmillan Press has the everlasting prestige for publishing Leech’s “English Grammar for Today” that gives a clear-cut and the most comprehensive explanation to such basic units of grammar as word, phrase, clause and sentence.

This is misguided on so many levels that I hardly know where to start. What is "our modern grammar"? By "Geoffery Leech" I suppose you mean Geoffrey Leech. In an encyclopedia you don't award prestige, let alone "everlasting prestige", for anything. I've no doubt that Leech explains these basic units of grammar well; so does (for example) The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, and I'd be surprised if the Comprehensive Grammar by Quirk et al (which I don't know well) doesn't do as well.

Now, just what is it that you want to add? Please get consensus here for adding it. -- Hoary (talk) 09:43, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Here I want to add the real concept of phrase. All whatever u have said about a phrase as a grammatical topic is ambiguous and incomplete. And my expression above is thoroughly right and clear. By modern grammar everybody means the modern concept of grammar that is clearer than the traditional that. Birbal Kumawat (talk) 13:58, 10 December 2017 (UTC)