Noun Phrase Structure Research Articles

Noun phrase complexity in English integrated writing placement test responses

Research has shown that the use of noun phrases is a salient characteristic favored in academic writing (Biber et al., 2011; Biber & Gray, 2011; Parkinson & Musgrave, 2014). Although studies have examined the structure of noun phrases, further research is needed to deepen our understanding of noun phrase complexity in order to inform the instructional content of academic writing courses. In response to this need and the call for more empirical evidence for the developmental stages for complexity features proposed by Biber et al. (2011), this study aimed to investigate differences in the use of noun modifiers among second language learners of English at varying proficiency levels. A corpus consisting of 286 essays, written by international students in response to an English integrated writing placement test, was analyzed for grammatical structures of noun phrases. Results indicated that more proficient writers employed significantly more attributive adjectives, prepositional phrases, finite relative clauses with non-animate head nouns, and nonfinite relative clauses. These findings support previous research on the relationship between writing proficiency and the use of noun modifiers and provide implications for both academic writing instruction and the development of writing assessment criteria.

The Use of Translation Techniques for Translation of Post -Modifier Noun Phrases in “The Frog Prince” Subtitles by EFL Learners

This research aims to identify the structure of post-modifier noun phrases and analyze translation techniques of post-modifier noun phrases in ‘The Frog Prince’ subtitles that translated by EFL learners. This research is a descriptive qualitative method to compare the uses of translation techniques of post-modifier noun phrases translation between A class students and B class students of English Literature at STIBA Invada. This research used the theory of post-modifier noun phrases based on Aarts (2001) and translation techniques are proposed by Molina & Albir (2002). Then, the technique of collecting data is document analysis. The findings of this research show that there are 4 data of post-modifier noun phrases found in ‘The Frog Prince’ subtitles. Next, there are 4 translation techniques are applied by the A class students and B class student including established equivalent, adaptation, discursive creation, and reduction generally. It can be concluded that translation techniques that we chose between A class student and B class students can influence the meaning and form (structure) of post-modifier noun phrase from source language into target language.

What Formal Approaches to Syntactic Interfaces Can Tell Us about the Syntax of Preverbal and Prenominal Constituents in Galician

An important line of research within a generative, formal approach to syntax in the early 21st century has centered on exploring phenomena related to the interface between syntax and other linguistic modules in human language. In this paper, we review the notion of interfaces and how they have been viewed within formal theoretical approaches to monolingual and bilignual competence and language acquistion, noting their relevance as they relate to language acquisition and bilingualism in the context of Galicia (Spain). We review a selection of Noun Phrase (NP) structures that implicate a syntactic interface: subject position, clitic directionality, and determiner clitic allomorphy. We provide a review of the relevant literature and the theoretical issues of interest as they relate to our understanding of these syntactic interfaces, reporting on our current theoretical understandings, persistent questions, and our view of the path forward as it relates to linguistic research on the Galician language.

The Substantivization of Vietnamese Adjectives in Noun Phrase Structures

The Substantivization of Vietnamese Adjectives in Noun Phrase Structures

Contrastive Analysis of Noun Phrase between English and Bugis Language

This study aims to explore the similarities and differences in noun phrase structures between the English and Bugis languages. Using a documentation technique, the research selectively extracts data from the literature, specifically books and articles that focus on noun phrases. The researchers systematically collect and examine the data using the contrastive analysis technique. The findings reveal both similarities and differences in the form, structure and function of noun phrases between English and Bugis. Common features in both languages include numerals, demonstratives and quantifiers as modifiers preceding the noun (head), while prepositional phrases are positioned after the noun (head). Conversely, in English, articles, adjectives, possessives and ordinals precede the noun (head), whereas in Bugis they follow the noun (head). Relative clauses in English and Bugis have different structures and functions. Therefore, a contrastive analysis of noun phrases between English and Bugis proves to be very beneficial for learners, as it increases their awareness of the unique characteristics of both languages, especially in terms of their structural and functional aspects.

Breaking Down BBC News Headlines: A Study of Structure Types

This study aims to find the structure types used in BBC News headlines. This research used Morley's (2000) theory for sentence types and Matthews' (1981) theory for phrase types as well as Brown & Miller's (1991) theory to analyze its constituent structure. This research used descriptive qualitative method to explain the final result of the research. The data sources were obtained from 186 BBC headlines for the period July 2023 which were then presented in a table according to the frequency of occurrence. The results showed that based on the sentence types, there are three sentence types found, namely simple sentences, complex sentences, and compound sentences. Among the sentence types used, simple sentences are the most frequent, with 151 occurrences, followed by complex sentences with 20 occurrences, and compound sentences with three occurrences. Furthermore, based on the phrase types, 11 headlines with noun phrase structure and one headline with verb phrase structure were found. It is hoped that after this research is conducted, it can make a positive contribution to the development of science, especially in the field of syntax.

Premodifiers and a scarcity-productivity hypothesis in Yorùbá: Does the scarcity of adjectives influence productivity of the premodification slot?

The notion that the Yorùbá language operates only a small, closed class of adjectives is well noted in the literature. However, this hypothesis of scarcity of adjectives in the Yorùbá language is yet to be examined in light of how such scarcity may influence the creativity of speakers in creating new functional adjectives, influence the placement of ‘created’ adjectives and the productivity of the premodification slot in the noun phrase structure. Combining theoretical concepts from construction grammar with corpus evidence drawn from a major source of contemporary Yorùbá, the article shows how speakers of Yorùbá negotiate between scarcity, creativity, placement and complexity in modifying their referents. The article identifies different forms of premodifiers, especially a sort of ‘creative premodifier’ with which a complex syntactic-semantic behaviour is built into the ensuing NP structure. It is argued that a scarcity of attributive adjectives in the language is a crucial variable with which relations between premodifiers and postmodifiers can be explored.

STRUCTURAL SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS OF NOUN PHRASES IN INDONESIAN

Syntax is a part of linguistics that studies how words are combined into sentences and phrases. In this study, we focus on analyzing the syntax of noun phrases in Indonesian. We use the treebank analysis technique to identify the syntactic structure of noun phrases in Indonesian. Study results show that noun phrases in Indonesian have complex and varied syntactic structures and that the context and types of noun phrases play an important role in influencing the syntactic structure of noun phrases. These findings are important for understanding how noun phrases are formed and understood in Indonesian and how it affects language processing.

Chinese Word Order in the Comparative Sino-Tibetan and Sociotypological Contexts

The present study discusses typology and variation of word order patterns in nominal and verb structures across 20 Chinese languages and compares them with another 43 languages from the Sino-Tibetan family. The methods employed are internal and external historical reconstruction and correlation studies from linguistic typology and sociolinguistics. The results show that the head-final tendency is a baseline across the family, but individual languages differ by the degree of head-initial structures allowed in a language, leading to a hybrid word order profile. On the one hand, Chinese languages consistently manifest the head-final noun phrase structures, whereas head-initial deviants can be explained either internally through reanalysis or externally through contact. On the other hand, Chinese verb phrases have varied toward head-initial structures due to contact with verb-medial languages of Mainland Southeast Asia, before reinstalling the head-final structures as a consequence of contact with verb-final languages in North Asia. When extralinguistic factors are considered, the typological north-south divide of Chinese appears to be geographically consistent and gradable by the latitude of individual Chinese language communities, confirming the validity of a broader typological cline from north to south in Eastern Eurasia.

I saw a movie with Brad Pitt – Using pencils to learn syntax

This paper presents a research project conducted on four second-year English classes (approximately 110 students) at Sorbonne Nouvelle University (Paris, France) in 2021/2022. This project was motivated by the realization that students were struggling to understand the opposition between linearity and syntax and to grasp the basic syntax of noun phrases in English. This difficulty can be explained by two reasons: the students were not engaged in the learning process because they did not clearly understand what they had to learn about syntax; and what was expected of them – demonstrating their understanding of noun phrase structure by adding brackets – was beyond their reach.The authors assumed that a non-verbal modality such as drawing could serve as a first step in understanding the opposition between syntax and linearity. They hypothesized that offering more than one modality to demonstrate one’s understanding of noun phrase structure would address both difficulties: engaging the students and helping them achieve the learning outcomes. To that effect, they designed an activity that introduced the concept of syntactic ambiguity and that was both engaging and multimodal. Students were presented with syntactically ambiguous sentences such as "I saw a movie with Brad Pitt" and were asked to:• discuss the two possible interpretations in their own words, i.e., produce a gloss;• draw the two possible interpretations of the sentence; • add a follow-up sentence to clarify the context;• bracket the noun phrases to make the syntactic pattern visible.A satisfaction questionnaire was completed by 93 students at the end of the session and 111 midterm exam papers were collected for analysis.The results tend to prove that the original hypothesis was valid. Offering an array of mediums, including drawing, to describe the syntax of noun phrases made students feel confident and engaged. However, the lesson plan should also include activities that help students transition towards verbal expression as university students are expected to exhibit understanding in words.

Structure of Noun Phrases in Novel Synopsis by Jenny Han

This study aimed to find various forms of noun phrase structures and found the most dominant noun phrases used. To solving the problem, the researcher used Burton's theory. In addition, descriptive qualitative used by the researcher to analysing the data. This analysis used a tree diagram to see the detailed structure of the noun phrase used in the synopsis of the novel. The data used was a synopsis of novels written by Jenny Han, including, To All the Boys series and Summer I Turned Pretty series. This analysis found seven types of noun phrase structures consisting of Determiner + Head, Premodifier + Head, Head + Postmodifier, Determiner + Premodifier + Head, Determiner + Head + Postmodifier, Premodifier + Head + Postmodifier and Determiner + Premodifier + Head + Postmodifier. Last, the researcher found that the most used structure of noun phrases is Determiner + Head + Post modifier with 28%.

On the structure of Welsh noun phrases

Welsh noun phrases have had much less attention than Welsh clauses, and there are unresolved issues about the nature of possessors, attributive adjectives, and the definite article and agreement clitics. There is evidence, especially from agreement, that possessors are complements, evidence that attributive adjectives are adjoined to a preceding [LEX+] nominal constituent, and evidence that the definite article and agreement clitics are specifiers. The last of these positions makes it fairly simple to capture the relation between the definite article and agreement clitics and possessors. It is not difficult to formalize these ideas within HPSG.

The Study of Noun Phrase Structure of English Names for Menus in Selected Restaurants and Cafes in Padang Chinese Town, Indonesia

This paper discusses the phrase structure construction of English in the names of foods and drinks on the list of menus sold by some modern restaurants and cafes. The phrase structure analysis is based on Burton's (2013) and Collins's (2000) theories. The function of the head in structure and types of phrases are determined by applying the deletion technique. The research data were collected from lists of menus used in nine Restaurants and cafes in Pondok, a Chinese Town of Padang City. There are 209 food and drink names in the form of noun phrases. The NPs can be categorized into 31 types, ranging from simple to complex constructions. The most common type is Noun + Noun and Adjective + Noun. The NPs are used more for food names than that for drinks'. It is probably due to the wider variety of cooking styles and food ingredients than drinks. A wide variety of NPs used for the menus' names in the observed restaurants indicates the owners' sufficient knowledge of the English language.

The Effect of Some Aspects of Swati Grammar on the Conceptualization of the Structure and Functions of the English Noun Phrase by University Students

Eswatini is a bilingual country with English and Swati as official languages. Speakers of other languages use English to communicate with the exception of many speakers of languages spoken in Mozambican such as Shangaan and Portuguese who tend to acquire Swati as soon as they interact with the locals and pick some English if they work for English-speaking employers. At the University of Eswatini, students in the Bachelor of Arts in Humanities programme have an option to study both Swati and English grammar in the Departments of African Languages and Literature and English Language and Literature respectively. Over the years, we noted that despite intensive teaching the constituent structure of the English noun phrase and its syntactic functions within the clause, many candidates still translate the syntactic functions of the Swati noun phrase when describing the English noun phrase. This study then determined to investigate whether the incorrect description of the syntactic functions of the English noun phrase was a result of negative transfer/interference; lack of focus, or an error learnt during the teaching and learning of the English noun phrase from the secondary school level. Using a linguistic analysis of students' responses to tests/examinations and an analysis of prescribed textbooks for teaching English Language in secondary schools, we found that the problems students had in describing the constituent structure and syntactic functions of the noun phrase were transferred from two sources. The first source is the errors identified in the content of prescribed textbooks used to teach English Language at the secondary school level and the second source is the transfer of the description and function of the noun phrase from Swati– a first language of the participants. The findings show the need to incorporate all pillars of linguistic competence: the organizational and sociolinguistic competences when designing materials for the teaching of English to enrich the input required for the optimal comprehension and use of the structural elements of a second language.

ENGLISH LEXICAL BUNDLES IN THE GRADUATE THESES: THE FREQUENCY, STRUCTURE AND DISTRIBUTION

Lexical bundles are one of the important characteristics of academic discourse which tell readers to know whether the writer is professional or novice. Inevitably, studies on lexical bundles in scientific essays are important to do. This study identifies the most frequent, structural characteristics, and the functional categorization of lexical bundles in the Master Theses in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL), specifically in the Findings and Discussion section. There were 651.083 words from 74 different theses compiled to create the corpus by using Antconc 3.5.8. The results found 117 different lexical bundles and the sequences ‘the result of the’ and ‘on the other hand’ dominate the section. Noun phrase + of structure which covers one third of overall forms in the corpus were the most lexical bundles’ structural types in the findings and discussion section followed by other noun phrase structures (22% out of overall bundles). Functionally, research-oriented bundles (45% of overall bundles) were the most frequent ones followed by text-oriented (40%) and the least frequent bundles were participant-oriented. Reported findings are further discussed with related theories.

English Noun Phrase Structure Found in Inclover Magazine

The aim of this paper was to know about English noun phrase, especially the types and structure of noun phrase. To collect the data, the data source was read carefully, then underlined, and quoted based on the types of them. They were analyzed qualitatively based on the theories. There are two theories that were used in this paper. First, the theory from book entitled A University Grammar of the English by Quirk and Greenbaum (1973) which discussed about the concept of the types of noun phrase structure and the tree diagram theory which is adopted from Richard Veit in his book Discovering English Grammar (1986). Based on the analysis, it was found that a lot of noun phrases occur in the magazine. The types of noun phrase were divided into three categories, they are pre-modification noun phrase, post-modification noun phrase and multiple modification noun phrase. The filler of the noun phrases was represented by the tree diagram that had shown more clearly explanation about the internal structures of the construction of the noun phrase.
 Keywords: noun phrase, modifiers, syntax

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF LEXICAL BUNDLES USED BY NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE NOVEL WRITERS

The current study intends to explore the lexical bundles in English novels written by native and non-native writers. The study focuses on lexical bundle types and frequencies in the novels of native and non-native English writers. In this modern era of advancement, English has become a dominant language in every field and every country has accepted the preeminence of the English language as the “Tyrannosaurus rex of the linguistic grazing ground” (Swales, 1997). The novel is a genre of fiction and the language of novels is characterized by the use of various expressions, the use of lexical bundles is one of them. In non-native context knowledge about the English language can be improved by reading novels written by native writers. The present study provides insight into the native speakers’ use of lexical bundles in novel writing. Two novels namely Me Before You and Kartography serve as the corpus for study. The research paradigm is quantitative and Biber and Conrad’s (1999) structural taxonomy has been used as the framework for the study. The results revealed that native writers used far more lexical bundles than the non-native writer. Both novel writers used distinct and unique types of lexical bundles, only some types were common in both novels. The category “others” of lexical bundles held the highest place in both native and non-native novels. A variation regarding types can be seen in the second highest category of lexical bundles as in the native novel Me Before You the structure of other noun phrases held the second highest place while in the non-native novel Kartography the structure of other prepositional phrases held the second highest place. Keywords: Lexical bundles, Preeminence, Fiction, Expressions, Expertise

Noun phrase in Nigerian Pidgin English

Works showing the extent to which structural complexity characterizes syntactic structures in contemporary Nigerian Pidgin English are underrepresented in the main literature. For instance no works have shown the extent to which noun phrase (NP), an important syntactic measure of variability and complexity, exhibits variability and complexity, and the extent to which pattern found converges with /diverges from similar linguistic varieties. The present study provides the basic corpus-driven contemporary nature of simple-complex NP structures in NPE, including how factors such as syntactic function and weight explain context where we might find simple or complex NPs. Our results, though tentative, show that NPs in NPE exhibit considerable complexity, which is against simplification hypothesis exemplified in standard Nigerian English.

The syntax of nominal modification and complex noun phrases in Siwkolan Amis

AbstractThis work investigates the syntax of nominal modification involving the linkerain Siwkolan Amis, one of the dialects of Amis, an Austronesian language spoken in Taiwan. Based on the two observed types of NP-ellipsis patterns and the formal licensing condition, I argue that Amis displays two types of modification. Modifiers in direct modification are functional heads projecting extended functional projections of NP, whereas those in indirect modification are modifier phrases base-generated at [Spec, ModP]. This distinction adds weight toJ. Wu’s (2003)view that relative clauses and description-denoting modifiers marked by -ayare clausal modifiers that have a full-fledged CP structure from a cartographic perspective. Furthermore, I argue thataprojects the Modifier Phrase (ModP) and is a modificatory clitic endowed with a [+mod] feature that attaches to a head element moving from a lower head position to form a morphological word. Very much in line withPhilip (2012), the proposed analysis suggests thatais endowed with an interpretative profile in marking a modification relation between an extended functional projection (a modifier phrase) and a dependent word (a modified noun) in the nominal domain. Issues involved in dealing with the structure of Amis complex noun phrases are discussed.

English Features in Saudi Arabia: A Syntactic Study Within the World Englishes Framework

Saudi English has recently emerged as a new variety within the World Englishes framework. Many scholars have argued that there is still a gap in the literature and more studies on Saudi English are needed. This study hopes to contribute to the growing research interest in Saudi English studies. The current study aims to identify Saudi English syntactic characteristics classified in relation to noun phrase, verb phrase, prepositional phrase, and clausal structure. Data were collected using three methods: conversation in natural settings, open-ended questions, and students' writings. The findings confirm that substrate-superstrate interaction affects many syntactic characteristics of Saudi English.