ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Mrs. Ha Thi Van Tien,
my supervisor for her great help as well as her precious suggestions on my study.
I would also like to express our gratitude to my teachers and friends, who have
directly or indirectly helped me with their encouragement and comments.
Finally, my thanks go to my families for their support during the time I carried
out this study.

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ABSTRACT
Pre- modifier in English noun phrase has an important function in sentences;
however, they cause a great problem for Vietnamese learners. Both beginners and
advanced learners may make mistakes when using them in English noun phrase such as
arranging adjectives in order or using articles, etc. In order to help learners to avoid
these mistakes and acquire better knowledge of English, particularly the matters of
English noun phrase, it is necessary to give an overview of English noun phrase, its
pre- modifiers and to find out similarities and differences between pre- modifiers in
English noun phrase and those in Vietnamese. That is the reason why I chose the topic
“A contrastive analysis of premodification in English noun phrase and Vietnamese
equivalent” for my study.

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A LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
-

H: Head noun
S: Subject

about the rules of combining words into sentences how can we understand the meaning
of the whole sentence (especially a sentence with a complex structure) and how can we
make sentences correctly? But with the good grammar knowledge about noun phrase, it
is very easy for you to use and understand them perfectly.
Noun phrase has a very important function in forming sentences; it is a great
problem for most of learners. In order to understand about structure and word order in
English noun phrase, I wish to mention the noun phrase in this study. However,
because of limited knowledge, whereas noun phrase is a great problem, I cannot cover
all aspects of noun phrase but the focus is only on “A contrastive analysis of pre
modification in English noun phrase and Vietnamese equivalent”.
2. Purposes of the study
- To find out the similarities and differences in English noun phrase and
Vietnamese equivalent
- To enable the learners understand the structures of premodification and make
the correct sentences with noun phrase
3. Research questions
The research is carried out with an attempt to find out the answer to the
following research questions:
- What are pre- modifiers in English and Vietnamese noun phrases?
- What are the similarities and differences between pre- modifiers in English
noun- phrase and Vietnamese equivalent?
4. Scope of the study

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The study focuses on pre- modifiers of noun phrase in English and Vietnamese
and the similarities and differences between English noun phrase and Vietnamese
counterpart.
5. Methods of the study

as prepositional Compement”
Eg:
The girl
H
The pretty girl
H
2.2 Classification of noun phrase
English noun phrases are classified into two types:
- The basic noun phrase
- The complex noun phrase
Besides the common features, there are differences between the modification of
these two kinds. This can be seen clearly in their following diagrams.
The basic noun phrase
premodification

head noun

closed- system item
pre- determiner

determiner

post- determiner

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pre- determiner:
- Quantifiers
- Multipliers

catio
n

head
nou
n
Ope
nclass
item

The
com
plex
nou
n
phr
ase

Ge- nat-tiv- e
post
Ing- par-tici-ple Cl Adj.P

phra
se

mod
ifica

Ed -par-tic-iple Cl


English noun phrase and Vietnamese equivalent, I will focus on the premodification of
complex noun phrase in English.
2.3 Functions of the noun phrase
From the above definition, we can easily find out that the noun phrase in English
has several functions such as Subject, Object, Complement, besides according to John
Eastwood (in “ Oxford Guide to English Grammar”, 1994) noun phrase can function as
Adverbials and Appositive
2.3.1 Noun phrase as subject
Eg: Security guards set a trap
S
2.3.2 Noun phrase as Object
a) Direct object
Eg: The stewardess alerted the pilot
Od
b) Indirect object
Eg: She lent her friend some money
Oi

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2.3.3 Noun phrase as complement
a) Subject complement
Eg: He is a handsome boy
Cs
b) Object complement
Eg: I consider him my best friend
Co
c) Prepositional complement
Eg: The pretty girl in the corner is Mary

Eg: One can have the pen or a pen
but not
a the pen
Reciprocally defining: It is easier to define the meaning of an item in relation to
the rest of the system than define it individually.
Closed- system items as pre-modifiers consist of: determiner, pre-determiners,
post- determiners.
2.4.1.1 Determiner
According to Michael Swan’s definition of determiners (Practical English
Usage), they are defined as follows:
“Determiners are words like the, a, my, this, some, either, every, enough, several…
They come at the beginning of noun phrase but they are not adjectives”.
Eg:
The moon

This book

A nice day

Some books

To understand the grammatical role of determiners, we have to consider what
determiners and nouns can occur together. It means that determiners are classified
basing on their possibility of combination with the noun classes. By this way,
Randolph Quirk as well as Michael Swan classified determiners into six classes:
1) The first class: including determiners that can go with all three classes of
noun
They are: The definite article
The possessive adjectives
The interrogative adjectives

Eg: I want some a’pple
Have you got any clothes or any furniture to sell?
With enough
Eg: we have not got enough oranges
3) The third class: including determiners that can go with singular nouns or
non-count nouns only. They are “this” and “that”. The basic meaning of this is” the
things near the speaker” and of that “ the things further away” both in space and time
Eg: This book (here)
This time (now)
That book (there)
That time (then)
This child (in here) That water (over there)
“This” and “that” combines with quantifiers occurring before non- count nouns
Eg: We drink that little water
4) The fourth class: consists of “these” and “those”. They are plural form of
“this” and “ that’ and go with plural nouns only
Eg: These people
Those boys
5) The fifth class: comprises of “a, an, each, either, neither”. They go with
singular nouns only
Eg: Wait a minute!
He comes here everyday
She had a child on each side of her
Either solution is bad one
Neither method is right
“a”, “an” are used to talk about things in general or things which are not definite

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Eg: All (of) the beer
Both (of) the children

All of them
but

9

Both of us


SINGULAR COUNT NOUN
half

a, this,
that
The,
my,…

all

pen
book
NON- COUNT NOUN
half

PLURAL COUNT NOUNS
half

all

Both these doctors
All the teachers
Both the pens
However, “all” can be used before uncountable nouns but “both” can not
Eg:
All the water
She spends all money on books
“all” can occur before some singular countable nouns referring to things that can
naturally be divided into parts.
Eg: All the week
All my family
All with other singular countable nouns, it is more natural to use the whole
Eg: The whole story

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Half can combine with indefinite articles or singular demonstrative or possessive
adjectives.
Eg: Half an hour
Half that cake is hers
“all, both, half” can be modified by adverbs:
Eg: He has eaten nearly half (of) this cake
adv pre
det H
2) Multipliers
Multipliers consist of double, twice, four times, etc… which occur with noncount and plural nouns, and with singular count nouns denoting number, amount, etc.
Eg: Double their work
Twice his strength
“Three, four, etc times” as well as “once” can occur with determiners “a, every,

The definite article can precede any cardinal but the indefinite can not
Eg: The two boys are naughty
“one” can occur before “hundred, million…” but when the other cardinal
numeral co-occurs with them, “ a” is replaced by “one”
Eg: A hundred of workers
Det post de
One hundred and twenty workers
Det
post det
b) Ordinal numerals
The ordinal numerals have one for one relation with the cardinals (i.e. fourfourth, six- sixth…) Ordinal numerals, except first, co- occur only with count nouns.
All ordinals often precede any cardinal number in the noun phrase.
Eg: The first two novels were written in English
2) Quantifiers
Quantifiers can function as pre- determiners, determiners and post- determiners.
They can be divided into 2 types: Closed- system quantifiers and open- class of phrasal
quantifiers
a) Close- system quantifiers as post- determiners: consist of 2 groups
Quantifiers co- occur only with plural nouns: many, (a) few, several
Eg: His many friends never deserted him
Several cars were involved in the accident
A few words he spoke were well chosen
“Several” is rarely preceded by a determiner
Eg: He has not been to school for several days
In case of “few”, there is a positive and negative contrast as the indefinite article
is used or is not used
Eg: He was a man of few words (not many words)
May I have a few words with you (several words)
Quantifiers occur before non- count nouns: “much, (a) little”
Eg: There has not been much good weather recently

two pieces
of
news
a bit
information
• Typical partitives: a roast of meat
a bottle of beer
• Measure : a pound of cheese
a spoonful of sugar
With all thing presented above, we can easily find out that identifying the
quantity of the referent of the head is the most important feature of post- determiners.
In short, closed- system items as pre-modifiers in English noun phrase precede
open- class pre-modifiers. They are used to identify the generation of the head or the
quantity of the head.
2.4.2 Open- class items
According to R. Quirk , by contrast with the closed- system items, the open- class
items have the same grammatical properties and structural possibilities as other
members of the class ( that is: as other nouns or verbs or adjectives or adverbs
respectively)

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The class of words is “open” in the sense that is indefinitely ex-tendable. New
items are constantly being created, no one could make an inventory of all nouns in
English and no one could be confident that it was complete.
This affects the way in which we attempt to define any item in open class. For
example, we can replace the meaning of “room” to others nouns with which it has
semantically affinity (i.e. chambers hall, house…) but we could not define “a room” as
“not box, not table…” As in we might define a close- system item like “those” as not

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Adjectives when they modify indefinite pronoun ending in “body, one, thing,
where” such as somewhere, someone, something…will be post-modifiers
Eg: Let’s go to somewhere quiet
H
adj
The adjectives can be post-modifiers in several compounds (mostly legal or
quasi-legal), the most common being.
Eg: Court martial, post master general, heir apparent
Some “a-” adjectives and adjectives as “absent”, “present”, “concerned”,
“involved” are usually used in post-modification
Eg: The house ablaze
Please, speak to the clerk concerned
Some post posed adjectives, especially those ending in “ible, able”… implying
what they are denoting has only a temporary application, whereas pre-modifying
adjectives denote permanence
Eg: A star visible (refer to a star that can be seen at certain time)
A visible star (refer to a star that seen at any time)
2.4.2.1.2 Premodification by adverbs
Some adverbs (mostly adverbs of place and time) can be used in pre-modification
of noun phrase, among them “above” and “then” are most commonly used
Eg: The above examples
adv
H

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Eg: The beaten man
The stolen book
However, there are some exceptions such as a retired doctor, an escaped
prisoner.

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The exceptions are somewhat more general when an active participle is
adverbially modified
Eg: A carefully- hidden spy
In pre-modification, participles must be either have “permanent” reference or be
adverbially modified
Eg: A married women
A newly opened shop
2.4.2.1.4 Premodification by genitives
Eg: The dentist’s house
Lan’s books
The sentences can be interpreted as the house of the dentist, the books of Lan
However, not every noun can take the ‘S- genitive. Normally, it is used with the
classes which are highest on the gender scale i.e. animate nouns, in particular persons
and animal with personal gender characteristics
Besides it is also used with certain kinds of inanimate nouns such as:
geographical and institutional names, temporal nouns, nouns of special interest to
human activity. ‘S- genitives is used in a number of fixed expressions (arm’s length)
The genitives easily cause ambiguity. Therefore we should understand the right
meaning of noun phrase basing on both its structure and the context
Eg: Thanh’s photograph can be
# The photograph of Thanh
# The photograph belongs to Thanh

H
2.4.2.1.5 Premodification by nouns
This type of premodification often closely associated with the head as to be
regarded as part of compound noun
Eg: A car key (the key of the car)
A chair leg (the leg of a chair)
A door knob (the knob of the door)
The head noun is modified by another noun which stands after the head noun. It
refers the thing that belongs to the previous thing.
Plural noun usually become singular
Eg: The leg of a trousers = the trouser leg
A chair with arms = an armchair
But while singularization is normal it is by no noun means universal, especially
with noun pre-modification that is not hardening into a fix phrase or compound.
Eg: The committee on promotions
= The promotions committee
2.4.2.1.6 Premodification by sentence
In English, if a sentence or a clause is used to modify the head noun, it will often
be post-modifier. But there are some cases in which a sentence can pre-modify the
head
Eg: I do not like his “I do not care” attitude
Det sentence
2.4.2.2 Multiple premodification

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Multiple premodification means a head of noun phrase has more than one premodifier at the same time. The order of noun phrase with multiple pre-modification is
complicated and the quantities, the variety of the pre-modifiers which can themselves
have modifiers lead to complexity

In general, when may adjectives co –occur in pre-modification of noun phrase at
the same time, they tend to occur in the following order.
Adjective

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+ head
General

size

shape

age

20

color

origin

material


Order of adjectives before head noun
General
Famous

size

table
novels

2.4.2.2.2With multiple head
Apart from single head, modification may apply to more than one head
Eg: The old- T shirt
=>The old T- shirt and trousers
The old trousers
The multiple head can be subject to recursive or co-ordinate modification
Eg: The old T-shirts and trousers
=>The big old T- shirt and trousers
The beautiful T-shirt old (but) and trousers
If we co- ordinate “old T-shirt” and “trousers” as in “the old T-shirt and trousers”
We would suggest that “old” applies to both T-shirt and trousers
To clarify, we can either re-order (the trousers and old T-shirts) or give emphasis:
The old T’- shirt and trousers
2.4.2.2.3With modified modifier
As far as we can see some kinds of modification with modified modifier
Eg:
a) A really attractive woman
adv adj
b) A fast moving train
adj ing participle
c) A recently converted collage
adv ed participle
d) The beautiful lady’s hat
adj ‘S-genitive
e) The Soviet trade delegation
n
n