A practical english grammar - Vyssaja skola 1978

Chapter 13 - Modifiers of nouns
Sound symbols

We have seen that nouns can occur as subjects and objects of verbs, as complements after linking verbs, and as objects of prepositions. Nouns rarely occur alone, however. Most of the time they occur as the chief word, or “head,” as grammarians say, of a more complex structure consisting of the noun and its modifiers. But no matter how complex this structure may be, it continues to function as a simple noun. Study these sentences:

1) The change won’t have to be made.

2) The important last-minute change won’t have to be made.

3) The important last-minute change that we were talking about when you dropped in the other day won’t have to be made.

The expanded subject in Sentence 3 says a great deal more than the simple noun phrase the change in Sentence 1, but its relation to the predicate is exactly the same.

Words that are grouped around nouns to form expanded noun phrases' are classified as:

determiners

adjectives

adjectival phrases

adjectival clauses

present and past participles

noun adjuncts

The various elements in the noun phrase may be modified in turn by other nouns, adjectives, intensifiers, and so on, so that there is no theoretical limit on the length of the phrase. In practice, of course, it is limited by considerations of intelligibility, style, and taste.

The modifiers of adjectives will be discussed in Chapters, 15 and 16. Now we turn to the words that modify nouns.