Postby Dardallion » 2005-04-22, 11:55
I'm English, with a good knowledge of French, so I'll be happy to help out with any lessons here.
I just want to go back to the discussion on noun phrases. An important thing to note here is that if you divide a sentence into subject and predicate, then the subject is considered by formal logic to be a noun phrase.
For example:
The red book was on the big table.
The bold part is the subject, which is considered a noun phrase. Note also that although the whole underlined section is the predicate, the italic section is the object, and thus another noun phrase.
As you can see, noun phrases can include adjectives, articles and in some cases, any other parts of speech, but they are still noun phrases.
This can be easily seen if we draw a tree, like so:
----The red book was on the big table
-----------------------/-------\
----------------------/---------\
---------------------/-----------\
--------------------/-------------\
-------------------/---------------\
------------------/-----------------\
-----------------/-------------------\
----------------/---------------------\
----------(subject)----------------(predicate)
---The red book------------------was on the big table
-----------/\-------------------------------/-----\
----------/--\-----------------------------/-------\
---------/----\---------------------------/---------\
--------/------\-------------------------/-----------\
-------/--------\-----------------------/-------------\
------/----------\---------------------/---------------\
-----/------------\-------------------/-----------------\
(noun phrase)-(adjective)---(verb phrase)-------(noun phrase)
--The book-------red------------was on-------------the table
-------/\------------------------------/\---------------------/---\
------/--\----------------------------/--\-------------------/-----\
-----/----\--------------------------/----\-----------------/-------\
----/------\------------------------/------\---------------/---------\
---/--------\----------------------/--------\-------------/---------- \
(article)--(noun)-------------(verb)-(preposition)-(adjective)-(noun phrase)
-the-------book----------------was------on-----------big-----------the table
--------------------------------------------------------------------------/\
-------------------------------------------------------------------------/--\
------------------------------------------------------------------------/----\
-----------------------------------------------------------------------/------\
----------------------------------------------------------------(article)-----(noun)
------------------------------------------------------------------the----------table