SayPro Noun Pre-Modifiers Consulting Service

SayPro SayPro What if a single noun isn’t specific enough for our purposes? How then do we modify a noun to construct a more specific reference?English places modifiers before a noun. Here we indicate the noun that is at the centre of a noun phrase by an asterisk (*) and modifiers by arrows pointed toward the noun they modify.White house *Large man *Modification is a somewhat technical term in linguistics. It does not mean to change something, as when we "modify" a car or dress. To modify means to limit, restrict, characterize, or otherwise focus meaning. We use this meaning throughout the discussion here.Modifiers before the noun are called pre-modifiers. All of the pre-modifiers that are present and the noun together form a noun phrase. NOUN PHRASE Pre-modifiers noun *By contrast, languages such as Spanish and French place modifiers after the nounCasa Blanca white house

Home grand big man

The most common pre-modifiers are adjectives, such as red, long, hot. Other types of words often play this same role. Not only articlesThe water But also verbsRunning water *And possessive pronounsHer thoughts *Premodifiers limit the reference in a wide variety of ways.Order: second, last Location: kitchen, westerly Source or Origin: Canadian Color: red, dark Smell: acrid, scented Material: metal, oak Size: large, 5-inch Weight: heavy Luster: shiny, dull A number of pre-modifiers must appear first if they appear at all.Specification: a, the, every Designation: this, that, those, these Ownership/Possessive: my, your, its, their, Mary’s Number: one, many These words typically signal the beginning of a noun phrase.Some noun phrases are short:the table ® *Some are long:the second shiny red Swedish touring sedan *a large smelly red Irish setter *my carved green Venetian glass salad bowl *the three old Democratic legislators *Notice that each construction would function as a single unit within a sentence. (We offer a test for this below,)The noun phrase is the most common unit in English sentences. That prevalence can be seen in the following excerpt from an example from the section on the choice of language:The stock market’s summer swoon turned into a dramatic routMonday as the Dow Jones industrial average plunged.The stock market’s summer swoon turned into a dramatic rout * *Monday as the Dow Jones industrial average plunged. *To appreciate the rich possibilities of pre-modifiers, you have only to see how much you can expand a pre-modifier in a noun phrase:the book the history book the American history book the illustrated American history book the recent illustrated American history book the recent controversial illustrated American history book the recent controversial illustrated leather bound American history book

Noun Post-Modifiers

We were all taught about pre -modifiers: adjectives appearing before a noun in school. Teachers rarely speak as much about adding words after the initial reference. Just as we find pre -modifiers, we also find post -modifiers—modifiers coming after a noun.The most common post-modifier is prepositional phrases:the book on the table * civil conflict in Africa * the Senate of the United States * Post-modifiers can be shorta dream deferred * or long, as in Martin Luther King Jr.’s reference toa dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves * and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down togetherat a table of brotherhood.What does King have? A dream? No. He has a specific dream. Once we are sensitive to the existence of noun phrases, we recognize a relatively simple structure to the sentence. Here we recognize a noun phrase with a very long post-modifier—thirty-two words to be exact.We do not get lost in the flow of words, but recognize structure. At the point that we recognize structure within the sentence, we recognize meaning. (Notice also that post-modifiers often include clauses which themselves include complete sentences, as in the last example above.)Post-modifiers commonly answer the traditional news reporting questions of who , what , where , when , how , or why . Noun post-modifiers commonly take the following forms:prepositional phrase the dog in the store * _ing phrase the girl running to the store * _ed past tense the man wanted by the police * wh – clauses the house where I was born * that/which clauses the thought that I had yesterday * If you see a preposition, wh – word ( which, who, when where ), -ing verb form, or that or which after a noun, you can suspect a post-modifier and the completion of a noun phrase.The noun together with all pre- and post-modifiers constitutes a single unit, a noun phrase that indicates the complete reference. Any agreement in terms of singular/plural is with the noun at the centre.The boys on top of the house are …………. * Here the noun at the centre of the noun phrase is plural, so a plural form of the verb is called for (not a singular form to agree with the singular house) .

The Pronoun Test

In school, we were taught that pronouns replaced nouns . Not so. Pronouns replace complete noun phrases . Pronoun replacement thus offers a test of a complete noun phrase. Consider:The boy ate the apple in the pie. What did he eat? The boy ate the apple in the pie. * Want proof? Introduce the pronoun “it” into the sentence. If a pronoun truly replaces a noun, we’d get*The boy ate the it in the pie.No native speaker would say that! They’d say The boy ate it. The pronoun replaces the complete noun phrase, the apple in the pie .This pronoun substitution test can be particualrly useful. Not all prepositional phrases after a noun are necessarily part of the noun phrase – they could be later predicate or sentence modifiers. In other words, we must not only identify noun phrases, we must parse out other material, and in that act recognize broader aspects of sentence structure.The web page on distinguishing sentence and predicate modifiers (www.criticalreading.com/sentence_predicate_modifiers.htm) discusses the three sentences:

1. 1. The boy ate the apple in the pie.
2. 2. The boy ate the apple in the summer.
3. 3. The boy ate the apple in a hurry.

Only the first includes a noun phrase longer than two words: the apple in the pie.Please visit our website at www.saypro.online Email: info@saypro.online Email: info@saypro.online Call: + 27 11 071 1903 WhatsApp: + 27 84 313 7407. Comment below for any questions and feedback. For SayPro Courses, SayPro Jobs, SayPro Community Development, SayPro Products, SayPro Services, SayPro Consulting, and SayPro Advisory visit our website to www.saypro.online