13 noun phrase. The noun phrase indicates the thing or person that is the goal of the
action of the verb. The third type, ditransitive means a verb which takes three arguments. In a sentence,
They give Joshua books
, the verb
give
is ditransitive because it has three arguments, which are
they, Joshua,
and
books
. Bloor and Bloor 2004 say that a verb has many forms. For example, the
verb
take
has forms:
takes, took, am taking, are taking, is taking, was taking, were taking, has taken, has been taken, have been taken, had been taken, will take, may
take
, and so on. The word
take
is called
citation form
because the word
take
refers to all or any of the forms collectively in the list given Bloor Bloor, 2004. In
dictionaries, we look for the word
take
, not
was taking
or
has taken
. It is because the word
take
is the citation form.
b. Noun
Aarts 1997 says that nouns are words that represent people, animals, things, or places. Nouns identify
Peter, bird, car, student, New York
, etc. The description given by nouns is called a
notional definition
, because it presents a characterization, in term of concept of meaning Aarts, 1997.
1 Subdivision of Noun
Based on Bloor and Bloor 2004, there are three subdivisions of noun: pronoun, proper noun, and common noun. There are three subclasses of pronouns:
personal pronouns, possessive pronouns, and the so-called wh-pronouns. Table 2.1 below classifies the personal pronouns left and possessive pronouns right.
14
Table 2.1 Personal Pronouns and Possessive Pronouns Singular
First Person
I, me, mine my
Second Person you, yours,
your
Third Person
he, him, his his
she, her, hers her
it, its its
Plural First person
we, us, ours our
Second person you, yours
your
Third person they, them, theirs
their Bloor Bloor, 2004, p.21
Table 2.1 above lists the personal pronouns and possessive pronouns. Besides, there are
so-called wh-pronouns
. They include
who, whom, whose, which, what
, and
that
for example,
the shoes that you are wearing
. Bloor Bloor 2004 add that proper nouns define as the names of persons for example,
Martin, Karen
, places
Venice, Bali Island
, transportations
Titanic, the Star Express
, institutions and organizations
Honda, Unilever
, book and film titles
Life of Pi
, and similar categories. The proper nouns are written in capital letters. The third one is common nouns. Based on Bloor Bloor 2004,
“nouns others than pronouns which do not fall into this class are labelled
common nouns
” p.19. The examples of common noun are
rice, donkey, rain, imagination
.
2 Noun Phrase
According to Azar and Hagen 2009, a noun phrase can be used as a subject or an object. Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad, Finegan 1999 state that
“a noun phrase consists of a noun as a head, either alone or accompanied by
15 determiners which specify the reference of the noun and modifiers which
describe or classify the entity denoted by the head noun ” p.122. The examples
of noun phrase are
a house, his bristly short hair, the little girl next door.
Moreover, the head of a noun phrase can be followed by complements, which is
that
-clauses or infinitive clauses Biber,
et al
., 1999. The meaning of the noun is completed by complements. Take for instance in this sentence,
[The popular assumption
that language simply serves to communicate ”thoughs” or “ideas”] is
too simplistic
.
c. Adjective
Based on Bloor and Bloor 2004, the first function of adjective is to modify nouns, for example,
a pretty boy
. The other function of adjective is to be a head of a group that is the complement of a copular verb be, seem, become, for
example:
the shop is big.
Aarts 1997 states there are some adjectives adj that can change improve nouns, for examples in:
the red shoes, a patient girl.
The adjectives give more description about the nouns.
Adjectives can be formed by adding suffixes –
ful, -less, and
–
ive
and prefix –
un
in some words nouns, verbs Aarts, 1997. For instances:
clue
noun + –
less
clueless
adj;
thank
verb + –
ful
thankful
adj. Aarts 1997 says that there are gradable adjectives which form adjectives
by giving words
very, extremely, less
, etc., for examples:
very expensive, extremely hot, less important.
The adding of words
very, extremely, less
shows the degree to which the adjective put to the word it joins Aarts, 1997.
