1. A Linguistic Toolkit Grammar Chapter 10: Noun phrases: who or what?
Chapter 11: Modality: maybe
Chapter 12: Words and grammar
Chapter 13: Grammar in use

2. Noun phrases: who or what?
Chapter 10

3. Verb phrases: what’s going on Chapter 10
Noun phrases can act as the subject , as the object or the complement of a clause.
Noun phrases are also seen on their own, for example in lists, menus and advertisements.
Noun phrases name entities. They may be people, places and objects, but can also be events (a concert), or qualities (honesty) or systems (blood circulation) or concepts (free will) or just about any ‘thing’ that you can think of.

4. Noun phrases: who or what? Chapter 10
Clause
Subject
All my friends
Verb
are watching
Object
the World Cup Final
Adverbial
tonight.

5. Noun phrases: who or what? Chapter 10
Clause
Subject
Tonight’s special
Verb is
Complement
Sichuan-style sea bass

6. Noun phrases: who or what? Chapter 10
For her gift, we will buy a 19th century style painting to go with her Victorian decoration.
The noun phrase in the sentence can be as short as one word (noun or pronoun - we) or can be longer.
In the example above, the object noun phrase could have been a painting). “But however long the noun phrase is, there is normally one key word that identifies what the basic entity is (painting in this example). This is called the head of the noun phrase.”
“The head of the noun phrase is usually a noun, but it can also be a pronoun.”

7. Noun phrases: who or what? Chapter 10
Usually when the noun phrase contains a pronoun, the pronoun occurs alone. But it sometimes has ‘quantifiers (all of us, some of you, many of them). Occasionally a pronoun may be modified in other ways. (little old me, same old you, teachers may call on you in the back, in the blue shirt and singers may sing of anyone who had a heart)” but the tendency is for pronouns to occur alone (p.68). “When the noun phrases have a noun as the head, other elements can be included. The first of these elements is a determiner.”

8. Noun phrases: who or what? Chapter 10
Determiners include articles [a, an, the] but can also include other forms such as [a, the, this, that, every, any, one, for singular form, [these, those/ many, some, several, a few, enough, both, two, three…. any, no] for plural form when the nouns are countable which means can be either singular or plural. Uncountable nouns – (words that cannot be counted such as butter) can be preceded by [the, this, that, all / much, some, a little, enough, any, no] Sometimes, too, the possessive form can be used as a determiner, such as (his book, their problem. Less is a form that can be used as a determiner, and mostly used for uncountable nouns, but is more acceptable with countable nouns too, esp. in informal contexts. (p. 69)

9. Noun phrases: who or what? Chapter 10
“Not all noun phrases begin with determiners, although a singular countable nouns always requires a determiner, plural and uncountable nouns do not.”
“The only compulsory element in a noun phrase is the noun (or pronoun) itself.”
“Apart from determiners, a noun may also be accompanied by modifiers which give more information about it. These may appear before the head (pre-modifiers), or after the head (post-modifiers).” (p.70)

10. Noun phrases: Pre-modifiers Chapter 10
Most common pre-modifiers are adjectives (bright, clever, old, young…).
Sometimes the pre-modifiers also have a noun element (a, clever, middle-class business student ) (luxurious sea-side resort).
The adjective pre-modifier element(s) occurs before the noun pre-modifier element(s).
Noun pre-modifiers usually classify the head of the noun phrase and are essential, while the adjective pre-modifiers give less fundamental information and therefore can be omitted and occur at the front of the noun phrase.
See pp.70-1

11. Noun phrases: Post-modifiers Chapter 10 Adapted Table 10.2 - p. 72
Common Post-modifiers:
Prepositional Phrases: which begin with a preposition; e.g. a detached house with three bedrooms / the first turn on the left.
Relative Clauses: which begin with words like who, which, what, where, that reposition; e.g. the only person who arrived on time/ the only place where they hold the farmers’ market.
Infinitives (to + verb): e.g. a difficult problem to solve / the best way to get to Birmingham.
Present Participles (verb + ing): e.g. bacteria belonging to the streptococcus family
Past Participles (verb + ed/en): e.g. all the languages spoken in India/ a city devastated by hurricane Katrina.

12. Noun phrases: Post-modifiers Some issues of Complexity, Ambiguity & Agreement
Postmodifiers can create ‘complex’ structures within the noun phrase.
Occasionally the same type of postmodifier, for example, prepositional phrases, or relative clauses may ‘occur one inside the other…like Russian dolls’(p.72)
e.g. --the bench in the park near the bakery, under the dancing studio, on 12th Street in New York City
-- the student who won the prize which was offered by the institute that supports graffiti art which is usually not very welcome in our city
Sometimes these complex structures may be ‘ambiguous’ in their reference.
e.g. --the girl with the pink bag at the front of the classroom
These long noun phrases may also have subject-verb concord which refers to subject verb agreement in singular or plural form.
e.g. - The players who are responsible for winning the game and who met with the famous reporter study at our university.
The verb concords (is either in singular or plural form) based on the head of the noun phrase.

13. Noun phrases: who or what? Chapter 10
Clause
Noun phrase
Determiner My
Pre-modifier
Adj (s)
stainless N
steel
bathroom
Head
Noun or Pronoun
cabinet
Post-modifier
One example
infinitive
to organize NP
(Det +N)
my stuff
Verb Phrase +
Noun
Phrase

14. Noun phrases: (Noun as Head)
Pre-modifiers /One pattern NP
Adj
stainless
steel
bathroom
NP/ Head
cabinet

15. Noun phrases: (Noun as Head) Chapter 10
Premodifiers
Adjective
stylish
Noun
cotton
uniform
Head (noun)
trousers

16. Noun phrases: (Noun as Head) Chapter 10
Noun Phrase (see slide 10)
Determiner + Premodifier+ Head (N) + Post-modifier
Test yourself by giving examples on all different types of pre-modifiers + post-modifiers to form coherent & interesting Noun Phrases. 

17. Noun phrases: (Pronoun as Head) Chapter 10
Pronoun (Usually Alone) He
Quantifier + Head (Pronoun)
All of us
Adjective + Head (Pronoun)
silly me
Head (Pronoun) + Prepositional Phrase
you at the back

18. Noun phrases: Head (Pronoun)
Informal
(Pronoun Head + Prepositional Phrase)
(Adjective + Pronoun Head)
( Determiner +Pronoun Head )
Pronoun (Head)
You
Prepositional
Phrase
at the back
Adj
Smart/old me
Noun Phrase
Noun Phrase
Quantifier
Most of
Head(pronoun) us

19. Modality: maybe
Chapter 11

20. Modality: maybe Chapter 11
Modality refers to language resources that enable us to represent information that is non-factual by indicating how far we regard it as likely or desirable.
Some sentences in English are bare assertions- that is ‘stat(ing) that something is the case [factual] without any suggestion that the information might be open to question I can assume that my readers will have no reason to doubt what I say”
e.g. You need yeast and flour to make bread/ We locked the back door.
(pp.74-5) + (p.79 compare bare assertions w modality)

21. Modality: maybe Chapter 11
In some sentences, the speaker
(a) makes ‘logical deductions’ ‘relating to the speaker’s assessment of whether something is likely or possible’ – a conclusion can be reached – Epistemic Modality
Shakespeare’s plays may have been written by Francis Bacon.
There might be life on Mars. / House prices could fall next year
Or (b) ‘suggests that it would be desirable’ or ‘necessary ‘ for a certain action to be taken’ –Denotic Modality
Everyone should save energy.
(a) She must be good at Spanish.
(b) She must come and see us before she goes.
{See examples 74-9 esp. Table 11.1 p. 76}

22. Words & grammar
Chapter 12

23. Words & grammar Chapter 12
The window is too open. (p. 81)
She let me to use her stapler.
They presented the runner up a cash prize.
I encourage students doing these at home.
The above sentences (and there are many other very useful examples in your chapter pp ) are examples of errors in usage.

24. Words & grammar Chapter 12
One main reason for the errors in the sentences above is that the grammatical forms used do not fit the verbs, nouns or adjectives’ meanings and conventions of usage. The same form too open can correctly be used in – too open to fraud, too open about their private lives, but not with t window is too open. Instead we say window is open too far.
This has led linguists to recognize ‘the difficulty of keeping lexis and grammar separate and to look instead at the way they work together, in what is know as lexicogrammar.’ (p.84)

25. Words & grammar Chapter 12
One way of raising awareness of the role of lexicogrammar (and to make it) possible to store and analyze huge amounts of natural language, … is the development of technology for language processing.
Electronic Corpus has made it possible to identify patterns of usage in databases consisting of millions of naturally occuring text.
The first of these sources of electronic corpus were The Cobuild Dictionary (1976) and the Cobuild Grammar (1990) (pp.84 -6) .