The Structure of Noun Phrases Essay Example

The Structure of Noun Phrases Essay Univerzitet Novi Pazar Odeljenje: Beograd Fakultet humanistickih nauka Odsek: filoloski Smer: Engleski jezik i knjizevnost Predmet: Sintaksa Engleskog jezika Student: Nikola Vukasovic Beograd, 01. 06. 2011 1. Introduction Among the five different types of phrases in English namely noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, adverb phrases and prepositional phrases, noun phrases are the most common playing various syntactic functions in the sentence and clause structure: subject, object and complement (of various kinds), apposition and attribute. They are used to refer to things that people want to talk about: people, objects, concepts, processes and all kind of entities. 2. Basic Noun Phrases Structurally speaking, in the first place, basic noun phrases consist of pronouns, numerals or nouns with articles (indefinite, definite or zero) or nouns with other closed-system items that occur before the noun head including pre-determiners (pre-det), determiners (det. ) and post-determiners (post-det. ). The underlined parts of the following sentences are good examples of basic noun phrases: |   |I |stayed at |home |during |all |the |last few |days |   | |   |pronoun |   |zero article + noun|   |pre-de |+ det |+ post-det |+ noun |   | |   |Some people |dislike |‘13’ |   |   |   |   |   |   | |   |det. + noun |   |numeral | | | | | | | 2. Pronouns and Numerals Actually, pronouns are a special class of noun. As their names imply, they ‘replace’ nouns or rather whole noun phrases, since they cannot generally occur with determiners. For example, personal pronouns have two sets of case forms: subjective and objective: ‘I’/ ‘me’, ‘we’/ ‘us’, ‘he’/ ‘him’, ‘she’/ ‘her’, ‘they’/ ‘them’; ‘you’ and ‘it’ are exceptional in showing no distinction. Subjective personal pronouns function as subject and sometimes as subject complement while objective personal pronouns as object, prepositional complement and sometimes as subject complement. We will write a custom essay sample on The Structure of Noun Phrases specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on The Structure of Noun Phrases specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on The Structure of Noun Phrases specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer These can be illustrated by: He is happy. I   saw him at the station. Like personal pronouns, other types of pronouns including reflexive, possessive, relative, demonstrative, interrogative, universal, assertive, non-assertive and negative pronouns are all basic noun phrases. Reflexive pronouns include ‘myself’, ‘yourself’, ‘himself’, ‘herself’, ‘itself’, ‘ourselves’, ‘yourselves’ and ‘themselves’. He hurt himself yesterday. Possessive pronouns are ‘mine’, ‘ours’, ‘yours’, etc. This book is mine Relative pronouns: ‘who’, ‘whom’, ‘that’, ‘which’, etc. The book, which is on the table, is mine. Demonstrative pronouns fall in two groups. One is â€Å"near† reference with ‘this’ and ‘these’; and the other â€Å"distant† reference with ‘that’ and ‘those’. This is my friend. Interrogative pronouns: ‘who’, ‘whom’, ‘what’, etc. Who did you go with? Universal pronouns: ‘each’, ‘all’, and ‘every’ series: ‘everyone’, ‘everything’, etc. Everyone has his own ambitions. Partitive pronouns, parallel to the universal ones, consist of assertive pronouns including the ‘some’ group (‘some’, ‘someone’, ‘something’, etc. ; non-assertive with the ‘any’ series (‘any’, ‘anyone’, ‘anything’, etc. ); and negative with the ‘no’ series (‘none’, ‘no-oneâ€⠄¢, ‘nothing’, etc. ) Nobody has come yet. Apart from pronouns, numerals including cardinal numbers (‘one’, ‘two’, etc. ) and ordinal numbers (‘first’, ‘second’, etc. ) can form basic noun phrases, as in: Two is better than one. 2. 2 Basic Noun Phrases with Determiners Not only can basic noun phrases consist of pronouns or numerals, but they can also comprise a head noun with determiners or determiners modified by pre-determiners and/or post-determiners. The head noun of a noun phrase is the central element and decisive factor in performing the syntactic functions of the whole noun phrase. It can be singular count noun such as ‘book’, plural noun ‘books’ or mass noun like ‘ink’. Determiners can be indefinite article ‘a’ and ‘an’; definite article ‘the’; or zero article as in the noun phrase ‘books’. The use of articles is not the only possibility for determining nouns, but we can use such words as ‘no’, ‘what’, ‘this’, ‘some’, ‘every’, ‘each’ and ‘either’ before the head noun like ‘book’. These words, also called determiners, forming a set of closed-system, are mutually exclusive with each other, i. e. there cannot be more than one occurring before the head. Both ‘a the book’ and ‘a some book’ are ungrammatical. Determiners are in a â€Å"choice relation†, that is they occur one instead of another. In this respect, they are unlike ‘all’, ‘many’, ‘nice’, which are in a â€Å"chain relation†, occurring one after another as in: All the many nice pictures are collected. The articles are central to the class of determiners in that they have no function independent of the noun they precede. Other determiners like ‘some’ are also independent pronouns: A: I want the money. B: Here is the. (ungrammatical) B: Here is some. (grammatical) With regard to the co-occurrence of determiners with the noun classes singular count (‘book’), plural count (‘books’), and mass noun (‘ink’), there are six classes of determiners: (1) |The Possessive (‘my’, ‘your’, his’, etc. ) |+ |book | |Genitive (‘my father’s’, ‘Anne’s’, etc. | |books | |No | |ink | |Whose | | | |Which (ever) | | | |What (ever) | | | |Some (stressed) | | | |Any (stressed) | | | (2) Zero article |+ |books | |Some (unstressed) | |ink | |Any (unstressed) | | | |enough | | | (3) |This |+ |book | |that | |ink | (4) |These |+ |books | |Those | | | (5) A (n) |+ |book | |every | | | |each | | | |either | | | |neither | | | (6) |much |+ |ink | In addition to the determiners mentioned before, there are a large number of other closed-system items that occur before the head of noun phrases. These items, referred to as closed-system pre-modified, form three classes (pre-determiners, ordinals and quantifiers) which have been set up on the basis of the positions that they can have in relation to determiners and to each other. The first class of the closed-system pre-modifiers, pre-determiners, is unique in occurring before the determiners. They are: (1) ‘all’, ‘both’ and ‘half’; (2) the multipliers ‘double’, ‘twice’, ‘three times’, etc. and fractions ‘one-third’, ‘two-fifths’, etc. and (3) ‘such’ and ‘what’ (exclamative). Like determiners, pre-determiners are mutually exclusive. Therefore, ‘all’, ‘both’ and ‘half’ have restriction on their co-occurrence with determiners and head nouns. The illustrations are as follows: †¢ All |All |+ |The, my, etc. |+ |singular count noun | |All |+ |The, my, etc. |+ |plural noun | | | |These, those | | | | | |Zero article | | | |All |+ |The, my, etc. + |mass noun | | | |This, that | | | | | |Zero article | | | All my life All the books All this paper †¢ Both |Both |+ |The, my, etc. |+ |plural noun | | | |These, those | | | | | |Zero article   | | | Both these books †¢ Half Half |+ |The, my, etc. |+ |singular count noun | | | |A, this, that | | | |Half |+ |The, my, etc. |+ |plural noun | | | |These, those | | | |Half |+ |The, my, etc. |+ |mass noun | | | |This, that | | | Half an hour These pre-determiners can occur only before articles or demonstratives, but none of them can occur with such quantitative determiners as ‘every’, ‘either’, ‘each’, ‘some’, ‘any’, ‘no’ and ‘enough’. However, ‘all’, ‘both’ and ‘half’ have ‘of’-construction which are optional with nouns and obligatory with personal pronouns: All (of) the students   = All of them All (of) my time   = All of it With a quantifier following, the ‘of’-construction is preferred All of the ten students All of the many girls ‘All’, ‘both’ and ‘half’ can be basic noun phrases: All/Both/ Half were allowed to go out. Apart from ‘all’, ‘both’ and ‘half’, the multipliers such as ‘double’, ‘twice’, ‘three times’, etc. can occur before determiner s to denote a number, an amount, etc. : Double their papers Twice his strength Three times this amount ‘Once’, ‘twice’, etc. an occur with determiners ‘a’, ‘every’, ‘each’, and ‘per’ (less commonly) to form â€Å"distributive† expressions with a temporal noun as head: |Once |a |  day | |Twice |every | | |Three times |each | | | |per | | Preceding the determiners can also be the fractions ‘one-third’, ‘two-fourths’, etc. which can have the alternative ‘of’-construction, e. g. : One-third the time One-third of the time ‘Such’ and exclamation ‘what’ can occur only with indefinite articles and zero one, e. g. : What/Such a nuisance. What/Such fine singing. The second class of closed-system pre-modifiers is ordinals which include the ordinal numbers (‘first’, ‘second’, etc. ) as well as ‘(an) other’, ‘next’, and ‘last’. These words are post-determiners, that is they must follow determiners in the noun phrase structure, but they precede quantifiers and adjectives as modifier.    |The |first |(cold) |months |   | |   |determiner |post-determiner (ordinal) |modifier |noun |   | Cardinal numbers and quantifiers belong to the third class of closed-system pre-modifiers. They are mutually exclusive, following determiners but preceding adjectives as modifier. Cardinal numbers are ‘one’ (with singular count nouns) and ‘two’, ‘three’, etc. (with plural nouns), e. g. : One good reason All (of) the three brothers Closed-system quantifiers are ‘many’ (with the comparatives ‘more’ and ‘most’), ‘few’ (‘fewer’, ‘fewest’),   ‘little’ (‘less’, ‘least’) and ‘several’ as in: Several interesting b ooks All her many good ideas A basic noun phrase may contain various determiners, more concretely, pre-determiners, determiners and post-determiners which are in a fixed order: |pre-determiners |determiners |post-determiner |Head noun | |   |   |ordinal |cardinal/quantifier |   | |Half |my |first |   |salary | |All |the | |   |books | |All |her | |many |questions | 3 Complex Noun Phrases Complex noun phrases contain three components: pre-modification, head noun and post-modification. 3. 1 Head Noun Like in the basic noun phrase, the head noun, first of all, is the central element and core component of the complex noun phrase. It may be count or mass noun which dictates concord and (for the most part) other kinds of congruence with the rest of the sentence outside the noun phrase. This is exemplified in: The only girl in this class is hardworking. All of the beautiful girls in my class are kind. Also, when the genitive is as pre-modification, the head nouns can be omitted: We met at the dentist’s last week. 3. 2 Pre-modification The second component of a complex noun phrase is pre-modification, also called pre-modifiers, including modifiers that stand before the head noun. Pre-modifiers can be closed-system and/or open-class items. Closed-system pre-modifiers are discussed in the structure of the basic noun phrases above. These items are optional in the complex noun phrases. Meanwhile, open-class pre-modifiers come after the closed-system ones and precede the head noun as in: |   |All these |young beautiful |girls |   | |   |determiner |adjective as pre-modifier |head |   | Pre-modifying adjectives can be those denoting general description (‘beautiful’, intelligent’, ‘good’, etc. ; age (‘young’, ‘old’, etc. ); size (‘big’, ‘small’, etc. ); shape (‘square’, ‘round’, etc. ); colour (‘red’, ‘blue’, etc. ); material (‘silk’, ‘metal’, etc. ); resemblance to a material (‘silken’ in silken hair, ‘cat-like’, etc. ); and provenance or style (‘British’, â €˜Parisian’, etc. ). These adjectives can be both attribute and complement. In addition, pre-modifying adjectives can be intensifying ones which have a heightening effect on the noun they modify or the reverse, a lowering effect, e. g. : ‘real’ (a real hero), ‘definite’ (a definite loss), ‘complete’ (a complete fool) and ‘close’ (a close friend). These adjectives are generally attributive only. Restrictive adjectives, another class of pre-modifying adjectives, restrict the reference of the noun exclusively, particularly or chiefly, e. g. : ‘certain’ (a certain person), ‘exact’ (the exact answer), ‘only’ (the only occasion) and ‘very’ (the very man). Like intensifying adjectives, the restrictive ones are attributive only. However, there are a number of adjectives which cannot pre-modify the head, but can be predicative such as: ‘faint’, ‘ill’, ‘well’, ‘able’, ‘afraid’, etc. Not only are the head nouns pre-modified but pre-modifying adjectives can also be, especially when they are the first items after the determiner. In this case, it can be pre-modified in the same way as it can be in the predicative position. This is illustrated by: |   |His really quite unbelievably happy |family |   | |   |   |Head |   | With indefinite determiners, some intensifiers such as ‘so’ are differently used. ‘So’ is replaced by ‘such’, which precedes the determiner or else ‘so’ plus adjective would be placed before the determiner, e. g. : Such a beautiful girl So beautiful a girl Apart from pre-modifying adjectives, the head nouns of the complex noun phrases can be pre-modified by particles, either present or past, e. g. : an approaching man (present participle), the badly injured dog (past participle), etc. The head noun can also be pre-modified by genitives, e. g. these qualified doctors’ salaries,these doctors’ high salaries, etc. group genitives as in the teacher of English’s salary, an hour and a half’s discussion, etc. ; or other nouns as in the city council, a love story, etc. Another class of pre-modifiers is the type of denomical adjective often meaning â€Å"consisting of†, â€Å"involving†, or â€Å"relating to†. These items must come next before the head and can be preceded by a wide range of pre-modifying items, e. g. :   the pleasant social life, a city political problem, etc. Finally there are various classes of pre-modification, both closed-system and open-class. Therefore, when the complex noun phrases consist of different classes of pre-modifiers, they may be placed in a relevant order. The acceptable order of pre-modifiers in a complex noun phrase is as follows: |1 |2 |3 |4 |5 | |(1) |a |book |with yellow covers (prepositional phrase) |   | |(2) |the |man |who told you the secret (finite clause) |   | |(3) |the |girl |speaking English fluently (nonfinite clause) |   | |(4) |a |shelf |full of books (adjective phrase) |   | |(5) |the |opera |Carmen (noun phrase) |   | |(6) |the |road |back (adverbial phrase) |   | In the example (1) ‘with yellow covers’ is a prepositional phrase post-modifying the head ‘book’. Apart from ‘with’, there is a wide range of prepositions that can be used, e. g. :   the road to London, the house beyond the church, a child of   five, etc. , including the complex prepositions, e. g. house on the top of the hill, action in case of emergency, etc. and those having participle forms as in problems concerning the environment. The commonest preposition in the noun phrase post-modification â₠¬Ëœof’ has a close correspondence to ‘have’ sentences: The ship has a funnel. the funnel of the ship The table has four legs. the four legs of the table However, some are relatable to ‘be’ sentences: London is a city. the city of London The news was the team’s victory the news of the team’s victory Also, the ‘of’ phrase can be used to express the subject or object relation: The bus arrived the arrival of the bus Someone imprisoned the murderer the imprisonment of the murderer In the example (2), the post-modifier is a relative or finite clause which can be restrictive or non-restrictive. There are a number of relative clauses beginning with relative pronouns: ‘who’, ‘whom’, ‘whose’, ‘that’ (personal); ‘which’, ‘that’, ‘what’ (non-personal); ‘when’, a preposition plus ‘which’ (time); ‘where’, a preposition plus ‘which’ (place); and ‘why’, ‘for which’ (reason). While restrictive relative clauses help to define the head noun, the non-restrictive ones give additional information to it, as exemplified in: |   |The woman |who is standing outside |is my neighbour.    | |   |   |restrictive |   |   | |   |That is my neighbour, |who is standing outside. |   |   | |   |   |Non-restrictive |   |   | The exampl e (3) illustrates the post-modifier as a non-finite clause, present participle clause. The non-finite can be past participle clauses. |   |The only car |serviced in the garage |is mine. |   | |   |   |past participle clause |   |   | In addition, post-modifiers can be to-infinitive clauses: |   |The next flight |to arrive |was from London. |   | |   |The place |to stay for summer holidays |should be pleasant. |   | As is seen in the example (4), adjective phrases can be post-modifiers of the head noun in the complex noun phrases. The adjective phrases can usually be regarded as a reduced relative clause. Complex indefinite pronouns ending in –body, -one, -thing, and –where can be modified only post-positively, e. g. : Anyone (who is) intelligent can do it. The men (who were) present were his supporters. In the example (5), the phrase explicitly encodes the information that â€Å"Carmen is an opera†. For this reason, ‘ Carmen’ is traditionally said to be in apposition to ‘the opera’. Another minor type of post-modification illustrated in the example (6) is adverbial modification. Similarly, in the following examples, the adverbial phrases post-modify the head noun: the way ahead, the direction back, the hall downstairs, etc. Unlike pre-modifiers, their no grammatical limit to the number of post-modifiers occurring in a noun phrase, considerations of style and comprehensibility will normally keep them to one or two. Where we have more than one, the relative order tends to depend on the related properties of length and class, with shorter modifiers preceding longer ones, prepositional phrases preceding clauses: |   |A man |from Britain |who I was talking about last night |   | |   |   |prepositional phrase |relative clause | | 4 Conclusion In conclusion, noun phrases, either basic or complex are potentially very complicated. Most simply, basic noun phrases consist of just one overt element, pronouns of different types or numerals. Basic noun phrases, more complicatedly, comprise pre-determiners, determiners, post-determiners and the head nouns, the order of which is fixed. Complex noun phrases, as their names imply, are the most difficult of all. They consist of pre-modification, head noun and post-modification. Pre-modification includes closed-system and open-class items which are in the given order. Post-modification can be finite or non-finite clauses and adjective, noun, prepositional and adverbial phrases. SOURCES Aarts, B. ( 2001 ) English Syntax and Argumentation Brown, E. K. and J. E. Miller ( 1991 ) Syntax : A linguistic Introduction to Sentence Structure examples and tables internet

Homeostasis Is a Central Theme In Animal Physiology Essays

Homeostasis Is a Central Theme In Animal Physiology Essays Homeostasis Is a Central Theme In Animal Physiology Essay Homeostasis Is a Central Theme In Animal Physiology Essay Homeostasis is the name given to the process that allows optimum conditions to be regulated in the body. This regulation of the internal environment must be independent of external environmental constraints. In humans this process is controlled by almost all of the bodily systems but mainly by the endocrine, respiratory and renal systems. Homeostasis therefore allows an organism to live in habitats that are not ideally suited to the internal environment, because, only in favourable conditions will the organism thrive. This allows the organism to in an environment not best suited to its internal functioning but in conditions which may be favourable for foraging etc. a prime example are fish, a fresh water fish lives in an environment which in definition is more dilute than within its internal environment, sea water fish on the other hand live in a environment where its surroundings are more alkali than its internal environment. The need for homeostasis can be traced to the cellular level, as cells interact with their immediate environment (either via cellular communication, signal proteins, expulsion of ion, and uptake of ions). It is this communication, which ultimately leads to a change in the external environment. Right to the organ level or tissue organisation were for example the expulsion of urea changes the blood pH and osmolarity. These internal changes are countered by the excretion of hormones etc, (these substances share 4 main structural forms. Amines, steroids, prostaglandin and peptides) which start a chain reaction to nullify the change these hormones are either secreted via ducts (exocrine system) or directly into the blood stream, (endocrine system). Homeostasis therefore is controlled by many systems, and although complex, many multi organ physiological mechanisms help regulate in many ways. However the theory of an internal environment wasnt recognised until a French physiologist Claude Bernard in 1872 put forward the idea of a constant internal environment stating, 1Constancy of the internal environment is the condition of free life. It is however important to remember that the regulation of an internal environment does not only concern body temperature but also such things as blood pH [H+], Blood glucose concentration, osmotic potential etc. All of these systems must be regulated in some how to maintain this internal environment, this regulatory system relies on a feedback system, which can be illustrated in a simple diagram (figure 1. 1). Figure 1. 1 clearly shows the system of negative feedback this is where in essence an off signal (in one of the structural forms mentioned). Is sent from the hypothalamus to stop the process and therefore retain a homeostatic condition. This feedback system allows homeostasis to be regulated almost automatically. This negative feedback however can sometimes go wrong. A prime and well-documented case of this is diabetes. When blood glucose levels increase above a threshold limit the endocrine system (stimulated via the hypothalamus) activates the pancreas, this then secretes a hormone called insulin which this accelerates the uptake of blood glucose into storage molecules of glycogen (especially in the liver) and fat molecules. However if this uptake of sugar is not regulated enough then absorption of sugar will continue and the blood glucose level drops the result is glaucoma and ultimately death. This leads to the conclusion that glaucoma is the result of a breakdown in the homeostatic system and therefore a breakdown of blood glucose regulation. Homeostasis however is not only controlled by the hypothalamus, hormones which are produced by the hypothalamus to regulate homeostasis, are regulated by neurohormones, which are secreted by specialised nerve cells called neurosecretory cells. These cells which are found in the hypothalamus. These regulate the secretion of various glandular hormones from the non-neural anterior pituitary gland. These neurohormones are different to the hormones secreted by the hypothalamus as they target direct tissues (with relation to hormone structure and function). These specific neurosecretory cells are located in the anterior hypothalamus, these also demonstrate the diversity found within an organ, which allows this process to be self regulated. But homeostasis is not only regulated by internal bodily systems but also external structural/environmental conditions, an example environmental control is that of heat transference, As all metabolic reactions produce heat sometimes this heat would build up in the body, this would have devastating consequences on bodily functions such as the functioning of enzymes as after a certain temperature these become permanently de natured and unable to function, So when the body over heats, the hypothalamus sends a signal to the sweat glands which are located in the epidermal layer of the skin to produce sweat. This sweat then evaporates taking the heat energy with it. Therefore reducing the body temperature and maintaining homeostasis, the skeletal structure is an example of a structural way of controlling homeostasis. This is mainly due to the composition of skeletal bone. As skeletal bone is comprised mainly of calcium this can act as a calcium reserve. there are times in the homeostatic cycle when this calcium needs to be metabolised from bone tissue for use by other systems, e. . Calcium is very important for normal muscle functioning, therefore calcium ion concentration must be kept at a correct level in the surrounding blood and tissue fluids, the consequences of a breakdown in this regulation would lead to changes in the calcium ion concentration leading to a compromise in muscle activity, it is in this way that the skeletal system helps regulate homeostasis. The conclusion of this is that homeostasis is essential to a living organism and is in essence self regulated by a complex system of feedback loops regulated by many organ systems however these regulatory systems sometimes go wrong and need external assistance be this injecting hormones, taking advantage of environmental conditions, i. e. basking in the sun (lizards), panting (dogs, etc).