Noun Phrase Patterns Clarified

They are everywhere. I mean nouns. You’ll find them in nearly any sentence you come across. But they rarely stand on their own. Usually nouns are accompanied by other words, forming, along with those other words, noun phrases. It’s an interesting subject, I think, so let me cover it in a bit more detail.

What does a noun phrase consist of?

A noun phrase always contains one central element, which we call its head. It’s usually a noun, but it may be a pronoun or an adjective as well. I’m going to use nouns as heads right now, though, and have a look at pronouns and adjectives in a moment.

But before I move on to some examples, there’s one thing I’d like to mention. In this article I’m going to use the following convention: the heads of the noun phrases that I’ll be using will be in bold type, and if a noun phrase is given in the context of a sentence, the whole noun phrase will be in red.

Noun Phrase Patterns One by One

Anyway, in its simplest form a noun phrase consists of just a noun. It may be a common noun or a proper noun. In more complex scenarios there are also other words that accompany the noun. Here are all the possible patterns you may come across:

HEAD

HEAD + DETERMINER

HEAD + MODIFIER

HEAD + COMPLEMENT

HEAD + DETERMINER + MODIFIER

HEAD + DETERMINER + COMPLEMENT

HEAD + MODIFIER + COMPLEMENT

HEAD + DETERMINER + MODIFIER + COMPLEMENT

Let’s now have a look at all those possible combinations one by one.

The pattern: HEAD

Here are some examples of noun phrases that consist of just the head, be it a common noun or a proper noun. On the left you can see just the noun phrase and on the right you can see the noun phrase in a sentence.

people	She likes people.
water	I need water.
Europe	Europe is a beautiful continent.
Denver	She lives in Denver.

As you can see, noun phrases play different roles in a sentence. They may be subjects, objects and other parts of a sentence, as I will show you in a minute. But now let’s move on to the next pattern.

The pattern: HEAD + DETERMINER

This is a very common pattern. Determiners are words (usually short ones) that are used to narrow down the reference of a noun. Here are some examples:

a dog	He was bitten by a dog.
the car	The car broke down again.
those women	I think I know those women.
his house	His house is pretty small.

The pattern: HEAD + MODIFIER

We use modifiers to give some more information about the noun or to describe the entity it denotes in more detail. Modifiers are often adjectives or nouns (sometimes with a genitive suffix). Some examples:

white snow	White snow was covering the fields.
silver plates	Silver plates are quite expensive.
loud music	I don’t like loud music.
boys’ games	She often plays boys’ games.

The pattern: HEAD + COMPLEMENT

The meaning of a noun in a noun phrase may be completed by a complement. Usually it’s a that-clause or infinitive clause. Here are some examples:

hope that they’ll find her	There’s still hope that they’ll find her.
incentives to save money	I really need incentives to save money.
rumors that they got married	There are rumors that they got married.
orders to leave the city	They received orders to leave the city.

The pattern: HEAD + DETERMINER + MODIFIER

Noun phrases may not only contain a determiner, a modifier or a complement, but they also often contain different combinations of those. For example, there may be a determiner and a modifier, like in the following examples:

our cozy room	We were sitting in our cozy room.
the green meadow	The kids were playing on the green meadow.
an intelligent man	He’s an intelligent man.
some funny hats	I’m going to buy some funny hats.

The pattern: HEAD + DETERMINER + COMPLEMENT

Another possible combination is the one with both a determiner and a complement:

a premonition that I would win	My mother had a premonition that I would win.
his refusal to help me	His refusal to help me made me really sad.
my plans to see the movie	My plans to see the movie didn’t matter to her.
some hints that she could do it	There were some hints that she could do it.

The pattern: HEAD + MODIFIER + COMPLEMENT

Sometimes there may be a modifier and a complement:

crazy insinuations that I did it	Crazy insinuations that I did it are driving me mad.
enormous motivation to stay	She needs enormous motivation to stay.
stupid rumors that she loved him	Stupid rumors that she loved him almost killed her.

The pattern: HEAD + DETERMINER + MODIFIER + COMPLEMENT

Finally, there may be all the elements I mentioned before, so a determiner, a modifier and a complement. Here are some examples:

the meaningless fact that she’s gone

I’m not going to change my mind despite the meaningless fact that she’s gone.

your stubborn refusal to speak

I was taken aback by your stubborn refusal to speak.

Noun Phrase Examples with Pronouns and Adjectives as Heads

As I mentioned before, the head of a noun phrase doesn’t have to be a noun. It may also be a pronoun or an adjective. In the latter case the adjective is used like a noun, so it may be preceded by the definite article for example. Here are some noun phrases with adjectives as heads:

the poor	He used to spend a lot of time with the poor.
the impossible	The impossible will become more possible if you try harder.

And now some examples of noun phrases with pronouns as heads:

she	She is coming tomorrow.
us	You don’t know anything about us.
nothing special	There’s nothing special about his car.
anybody	Anybody can do it.

Split Noun Phrases

Sometimes noun phrases can be split. This is especially the case with longer, more complex noun phrases. Here are some examples:

a rumor that some of his best soldiers were sentenced to death

A rumor spread through the country that some of his best soldiers were sentenced to death.

their plans to move the headquarters of their company back to the state where it was originally founded

Their plans were just announced to move the headquarters of their company back to the state where it was originally founded.

The Syntactic Roles of a Noun Phrase

In the examples above noun phrases function as subjects or objects. They may also have other syntactic roles. Let’s have a look at what roles they may have. In the table below you can see the roles on the left and examples on the right:

SUBJECT	The little girl was crying.
DIRECT OBJECT	They sold it to their boss.
INDIRECT OBJECT	He bought his wife flowers.
PREPOSITIONAL OBJECT	It depends on his decision.
COMPLEMENT OF PREPOSITION	She moved to a bigger city.
ADVERBIAL	I bought a new house last year.
SUBJECT PREDICATIVE	He wants to become president of the USA.
OBJECT PREDICATIVE	I must consider it a total failure.
APPOSITION	Mike and his wife, Sarah, were late again.
PREMODIFIER OF NOUN	I lost my car key.
PREMODIFIER IN ADJECTIVE PHRASE	Some trees are a thousand years old.
PREMODIFIER IN ADVERB PHRASE	He did show up, but two hours later than expected.

As you can see, there’s much more to noun phrases that most people are aware of. Noun phrases are everywhere. They are so common that we usually don’t pay any special attention to them, and that’s good, but still, I think it’s always good to know how they function in our linguistic reality.