LANG7011 (Autumn 2023)
Formal and Functional Grammar
Week 3
Nominal Groups
Nouns are the people, places, or things in
a text such as John, the corner store,
fruit.
The ‘things’ can be concrete, tangible
objects, or they can be abstract ones
such as the decision, the increase.
What are nouns?
Our example “the corner store” shows us that
a noun can include more information than just
the ‘thing’ itself: corner describes the kind of
store.
We will be referring to nouns and noun
phrases such as the corner store as nominal
groups.
What are nouns?
Identify the nouns in the following text.
Oliver Button was called a sissy. He didn’t like to do
things that boys were supposed to do. Instead he
liked to walk and skip in the woods. He liked to read
books and draw pictures. He even liked to play with
paper dolls. And Oliver Button liked to dress up. He
would go up to the attic and put on costumes.
Task 1
Oliver Button was called a sissy. He didn’t like
to do things that boys were supposed to do.
Instead he liked to walk and skip in the woods.
He liked to read books and draw pictures. He
even liked to play with paper dolls. And Oliver
Button liked to dress up. He would go up to
the attic and put on costumes.
Task 1
The term nominal group refers to a noun and
other words around the noun which further
describe and classify it, e.g.,
The difficult university entrance examination
Nominal group
The difficult university Entrance Examination
which
examination?
describes the
examination
tells us
what kind
of
examination
what kind
of
examination
head noun
Nominal group
Head nouns
o The head is the most important word in a phrase.
e.g., The number of cars sold by the company
o All the other words in a phrase depend on the head.
o Words which are part of the phrase and which come before
the head are called the pre-head/premodifier.
o Words which are part of the phrase and which come after
the head are called the post-head/postmodifier.
Which sentence is a pre-modifier and which is
a post-modifier?
a) He didn’t like to do things that boys were
supposed to do.
b) Oliver Button was called a sissy
Head nouns
a) He didn’t like to do things that boys were
supposed to do (post-modifier)
b) Oliver Button was called a sissy (premodifier)
Head nouns
Pronouns are the simplest possible type
of nominal group, consisting of only one
word, but most nominal groups are more
complex. For example:
o This material (nominal group)
o It (Nominal group: pronoun)
Nominal group structure: determiners
and heads

Nominal group structure: determiners
and heads
Nominal group structure: determiners
and heads
Determiner Premodifier Head
noun
Postmodifier
my Much larger particles
The woman in the red dress

Determiners
Occasionally a head may consist of two or
more nouns or pronouns that are joined by
conjunctions, e.g. you or me, or trains, boats,
and planes.
There may also be a determiner before the
head, and modifiers before or after the head.
Nominal group structure: determiners
and heads
Embedding occurs whenever one structure is contained within another
structure, so that it functions at a lower level;
e.g., The manager lacked the experience that would have helped him
overcome the crisis.
In the example above, the clause “the experience that would have helped him
overcome the crisis” is contained within a nominal group.
In an analysis, embedded elements are indicated by square brackets: This must
be a place [[that would have helped him overcome the crisis]].
Embedded nominal group
Prepositional phrase (PP): a preposition + nominal group
e.g., of Poland and its people : prepositional phrase
Embedded PP, this is a prepositional phrase that is modifying
a noun in a nominal group.
e.g., The book offers a vivid picture [of Poland and its people].
In an analysis, embedded PPs are indicated by single square brackets.
Embedded Prepositional nominal group

Please access the LANG7011 Warm Up
worksheet from week 3 on vWSU.
Then read the text and identify the noun
phrases and indicate if they contain a premodifier, a postmodifier, or both.
Task 2: Nominal groups
The structure of the nominal group
DEICTIC
THING
NUMERATIVE EPITHET CLASSIFIER QUALIFIER
Elements
of the
nominal
group
THING
o nucleus of the nominal group
o ‘thingness’ – concept that is being talked
about, typically a noun or pronoun.
o HEAD of the nominal group
DEICTICS
point to, or in some way select, the noun
functioning as Thing.
o articles a/an the
o demonstratives this, that, these, those
o possessives my. her, their, my father’s
a few non-specific pointers some, both, all
NUMERATIVE
NUMERATIVE
how many of the Thing there are or in what
order they occur.
o cardinal numbers one, three, a thousand
o ordinal numbers first, second, third, last
EPITHETS
describe a quality of a Thing.
active young, red, dirty, exciting, disgusting,
wonderful
CLASSIFIERS
the Thing as a member of a class.
o adjectives Australian, financial, public
o nouns acting as classifier cedar tree, car pool
QUALIFIER
QUALIFIER
Post modification functions to qualify the
Thing in more detail
A clause or prepositional phrase.
If a clause or prepositional phrase is
functioning as a Qualifier, it is embedded.
Rankshifting and
embedding
• //The cat sat on the mat//
• //The cat on the mat shat//
• //The cat [[that sat on the mat]]
shat//
• The cat [[that shat //while sitting on
the mat//]]
The structure of the nominal group

Label the constituents
1) inappropriate government tax policies
2) the most widely-kept working and companion
animals
Abstraction –
Grammatical
metaphor and
nominal
groups
//Ivy sniffs petrol//
Petrol sniffing among
young indigenous
people
Petrol sniffing among
other symptoms of
distress
Label the constituents
1- a small gnome in the garden
2- three tall gum trees
3- clear water cascading over the rocks
4- that big guard dog that lives over there
Create nominal groups to fit these
patterns
Deictic Epithet Thing
Numerative Thing Qualifier
Epithet Classifier Thing Qualifier