Griffith English Language Institute
HELP Yourself Resource Transcript: Complex Structures Part 4
This video is the third in a series on Complex Sentences. In this video we focus on noun
phrases, also referred to as ‘nominal phrases’. We look at:
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identifying a noun phrase
pre-modification,
post-modification, and
noun phrases within academic texts
Don’t worry about these grammar terms because we will explain them as we go along.
Identifying a noun phrase
We all know that a noun is a thing but what is a noun phrase? A ‘noun phrase’ is a word - or
group of words - with a noun as its headword. It may be just a noun, for example:
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Students study hard
Or just a pronoun:
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It is difficult.
Or it could be a noun and a determiner:
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This essay is hard.
Or a noun with an adjective:
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My favourite lecturer is retiring.
Or a noun with several other words - before or after it - which define and explain it:
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The woman in the red dress is the tutor.
Noun phrases can be short or long. Sometimes in long noun phrases it can be hard to locate
the main noun or headword. Here is an example.
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The attractive middle-aged woman sitting at the front of the room in a blue dress is a
visiting professor of medical research.
This is a long sentence which means:
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The woman is middle-aged and attractive.
She is sitting at the front of the room.
She is wearing a blue dress.
She is a visiting professor.
She is a professor of medical research.
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Griffith English Language Institute
In this sentence “The middle-aged woman sitting at the front of the room in a blue dress” and
“the visiting professor of medical research” are both noun phrases. Here are the headwords:
“woman”, “professor”.
If you cannot find the headword, you may not be able to understand the meaning of the
sentence so let’s practise this. What is the main noun (in other words, the headword) in this
example?
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The considerably complex nature of legal terminology can make it hard to
understand.
Pre-modification
‘Terminology’ is the main noun but a lot of other information in the noun phrase comes
before it to describe the kind of ‘terminology’. This is called “pre-modification”. ‘Pre’ means
before.
Post-modification
Let’s try another one. What is the main noun in the noun phrase in this sentence?
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The risks of smoking and drinking during pregnancy are well documented.
We can see that the main noun is ‘risks’ and that all the detail about ‘risks’ comes after it.
This is called “post-modification”. ‘Post’ means ‘after’.
Noun Phrases in Academic Texts
Noun phrases are very common in academic writing. Look at this example from an academic
journal article. Can you find the noun phrases?
In academic writing it is common to find a high number of noun phrases and comparatively
few verbs. This is one way that academic written language differs from everyday language.
For more on nouns and the use of nominalisation in academic texts, look at the video on
academic vocabulary.
This series has looked at complex structures, including the difference between simple and
complex sentences, relative clauses, participle clauses and noun phrases. Complex
structures are common in academic texts. When you read, try to notice how complex
structures are used in your field by expert writers. Later, try to incorporate them into your
own writing.
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