Level: intermediate
Often a noun phrase is just a noun or a pronoun:
People like to have money.
I am tired.
Premodifiers
But noun phrases can also include:
- determiners: Those houses are very expensive.
- quantifiers: I've lived in a lot of houses.
- numbers: My brother owns two houses.
- adjectives: I love old houses.
These parts of the noun phrase are called premodifiers because they go before the noun.
We use premodifiers in this order:
| determiners and quantifiers | > | numbers | > | adjectives + NOUNS |
For example:
| Determiners and quantifiers | Numbers | Adjectives | NOUNS |
| The | six | children | |
| Our | young | children | |
| Six | young | children | |
| These | six | young | children |
| Some | young | children | |
| All those | six | young | children |
| Their many | young | children |
- Premodifiers 1
- Premodifiers 2
- Premodifiers 3
Postmodifiers
Other parts of a noun phrase go after the noun. These are called postmodifiers.
Postmodifiers can be:
- prepositional phrases:
a man with a gun
the boy in the blue shirt
the house on the corner
the man standing over there
the boy talking to Angela
the man we met yesterday
the house that Jack built
the woman who discovered radium
an eight-year-old boy who attempted to rob a sweet shop
- that clauses. These are very common after nouns like idea, fact, belief, suggestion:
He's still very fit, in spite of the fact that he's over eighty.
She got the idea that people didn't like her.
There was a suggestion that the children should be sent home.
I've got no decent shoes to wear.
These are very common after indefinite pronouns and adverbs:
You should take something to read.
I need somewhere to sleep.
There may be more than one postmodifier:
an eight-year old boy with a gun who tried to rob a sweet shop
that girl over there in a green dress drinking a Coke
- Postmodifiers
- Premodifiers and postmodifiers
Hello Mussorie,
You can read about the difference between the present simple and the present perfect on our Present simple and Present perfect pages. If you have any further questions about this, please ask us on one of those pages.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Risa warysha,
The plural form is an error, as you say. The correct form would be 'a two-week long voyage'.
I don't know the source of the sentence, but it may be simply a typo, or it may be an error caused by inaccurate language.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Misbahuddinktk,
I'm afraid we can't explain why grammar books say what they do, and in any case it's not clear to me what words the book identified as an adjective phrase and what words it identified as a noun phrase.
We're happy to try to help you understand the grammar here, but we need to understand what precisely the question is.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello abalHasan,
The first phrase is a subject of a passive verb and the second one is the subject complement of the link verb 'look'.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Yigido,
I'd need to see the full context to be sure, but it sounds as if someone is saying you can do that, but it's not a good idea because it's dangerous. Here, the word 'walk' seems to be an imperative verb.
The imperative is the form used to give commands or make requests and is sometimes used on signs to warn people (as appears to be the case here).
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello knownman,
It depends on what you mean. In this case, 'her' probably refers to the subject 'she', but it could refer to some other woman or girl. But you could use 'it' to refer to some object or behaviour, or 'them' to refer to another group of people or objects.
The postmodifier phrase beginning with 'that' doesn't have to refer back to the subject -- it can refer to anything or anyone.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team