3 Post-determiners
Numerals such as ordinal e.g. fourth, twentieth, next, last, other, another, additional and cardinal e.g. one, two, three ... and quantifiers e.g. many, a few,
few, several for countable plural nouns and much, a little, little for non-countable nouns must follow the determiners but precede the adjective in the pre-
modification structure. 1985: 65.
i. Pre-modifiers
The pre-modifiers are different from determiner in certain ways Downing and Locke, 2006: 436. Pre-modifiers which are also called as pre-head modifiers
help to classify the head. The pre- modifiers’ function is to describe or classify the
referent while the determiners’ function is to define and select the referent. Pre- modifiers are usually distinguished into epithet and classifier based on the function.
The epithet that is usually indicated by the adjectives helps to characterize the referent by its quality e.g. new room, a young man. The classifier which function
to restrict the referent into a sub-class indicated by nouns e.g. one Saturday morning, art lovers, top ten or particular kinds of adjectives and participles e.g. a
political broadcast, general elections, leading articles 2006: 404.
ii. Post-modifiers
The post-modifier is also known with the term qualifier. According to Downing and Locke the basic function of post-modifier is to either supply
information in order to specify and identify the referent or add supplementary information about the referent. The post-modifiers can be in the form of finite and
non-finite clauses, e.g. the film we saw, a man reading a newspaper, PPs e.g. in PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
February 1893 and, other noun phrase e.g. shoes that size and adverbial phrase e.g. the car outside 2006: 404.
Table 2.2 below is the summary of the noun phrase constituents that is proposed by Quirk and Greenbaum.
Table 2.2 Summary of Parts of Noun Phrase
Determiner Pre-
Modifier Post-
Modifier Pre-
Determiner Central Determiner
Post- Determiner
all, both, half double, once,
twice, threefour ...
times, one-third,
two-fifth, three-
quarters with of
construction. For singular count
noun: The, possessive my,
our.., whose, whichever,
whatever, some stressed, any
stressed, no, this, that, an, every,
each, either, neither Cardinal
numeral: one, two,
three... Classifier:
Noun art,
Saturday, water
Adjective political,
general, green
Qualifier: Finite
clause we saw,
Non finite clause
reading a newspaper
PP in
February 1893,
Other noun
phrase that size
For plural count noun: the, possessive my,
our.., whose, whichever,
whatever, somestressed,
anystressed, no, some unstressed, any
unstressed, enough, these, those, zero
article Ordinal
numeral: fourth,
twentieth, next, last,
other, another,
additional. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
For non-count noun: The, possessive my,
our.., whose, whichever,
whatever, some stressed, any
stressed, no, some unstressed, any
unstressed, enough, this, that, much, zero
article. Quantifier:
many, a few, few,
several much, a
little, little
d. The Functions of Noun Phrase in a Clause
