1. Unit 9 Modifying Noun Phrases
Adjectives and Participles

2. Focus 1: Overview of Word order in Noun Phrases
What’s a noun phrase?
A determiner and a noun, plus its modifiers.
So then what’s a determiner?
What’s a modifier?
Determiners can be articles (a, an, the), demonstratives (this, that, these, those), possessives (my, your…), quantifiers (some, many…)
Modifiers include adjectives, participles, nouns, prepositional phrases, participle phrases and relative clauses

3. Order for Categories of Modifiers
Determiner
Intensifiers
Adjectives and Participles
Noun Modifier
Noun
Modifying Phrase
The/a/an
Really
Old/new
Stone
Wall
Next to the river
Some/no
Very
Interesting
University
Campus
River
My/your
Slightly
Well-known
described
Each/every
These/those
In the brochure

4. Focus 2-Order of Descriptive Adjectives
Evaluation/opinion
Appearance
Age
Color
Origin
Good
Size/measurement (big)
Old
Red
Geographical (French)
Interesting
Shape (round)
Antique
Purple striped
Material
(vegetable)
Intelligent
Condition (broken)
New
Bright blue
wooden
Put these words in the right order to make the sentence correct:
broken, dish, an, ceramic, ugly, white
Car, a, little, funny, metal
rubber, blue, a, ball, pretty, new
1. An ugly broken white ceramic dish.
2. A funny little metal car.
3. A pretty new blue rubber ball.

5. Focus 3-Particple modifiers
Participles can be used like descriptive adjectives to describe nouns too.
Verb
Present participle
Past participle
Study
Studying
Studied
Forget
Forgetting
Forgotten
Interest
Interesting
Interested
Just add –ing for present participle and –ed for past participle but don’t forget
about irregulars!

6. Focus 4-Meaning of Participles
That movie was boring. We were bored.
It was an interesting novel, but I wasn’t interested in the story.
We we’re excited to see the movie. I hope the movie is exciting!
What is the difference between these sentences?
We use present participles (verb +ing) to describe the agent, or the doer in the sentence. We use the past participle to describe receivers.

7. Adding information to Participles
Often when we add a noun or an adverb to a participle we use hyphens.
Some foot-tapping music (noun+present participle)
A fast-moving train (adverb+present participle)
Adjective-noun + past participle combinations describe physical characteristics
A blue-eyed baby
A short-legged dog
We don’t always use hyphens, especially with –ly adverbs
A deeply depressed individual
A manmade lake

8. Focus 6-Modifiers that Follow Noun Phrases
Participial phrases can be used to modify a noun phrase and can come before or after the noun and changes the meaning.
It comes after the noun to give more information about the particular noun we are talking about.
The man speaking to John told him some shocking information.
It comes before the noun if it has already been identified and the participle describes more about it.
Speaking to the man, John found out some shocking information.