20 The specifier covers the non-lexical categories such as determiner,
qualifier, and degree of word. The specifier is used to specify the phrase or the sentence before the head. For instance, the phrase is
the story of my life
. In this case,
the
is a determiner. It acts as the specifier of the head
story
. Besides, the phrase is also completed with
my life
as a complement.
6. Noun Phrase
Radford 1997 argues that “noun phrase is a phrase whose head is noun”
p. 266. For instance, in the expression
a thin book
, the head is
book
which is a noun, thus the expression belongs to a noun phrase. Noun Phrase is usually
symbolized with
NP
which stands for
Noun Phrase
. However, as well as sentence, the constructions of the noun phrase can be
complex. Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik 1985 also agree that it is not only the sentence which has the complex construction. The noun phrase might
have the complex structure. As a result, the noun phrase does not only consist of a simple construction such as in
a thin book
with
a
as the
determiner
,
thin
as the
premodifier
, and
book
as the
head
. In order to have a better understanding, the researcher will provide some examples which show that the noun phrase might be
complex in Figure 2.4.
Figure 2.4 The Examples of Noun Phrase NP
i
The headmaster
ii
The wise headmaster
iii
The wise headmaster of the school
iv
The wise headmaster of the school which has a car
21 From Figure 2.4, it is clearly noted that the noun phrase can be developed
into a complex phrase. Moreover, the head
headmaster
can be predetermined by
the
as determiner and
wise
as the adjective. Besides, the head
headmaster
can be followed by prepositional phrase as well as relative clause. As a conclusion, the
noun phrase can be enlarged into a more complex phrase. As students of English Language Education Study Program, this matter is
also being studied in
Morpho-syntax
class. The students need to know the construction of the phrases. This is supported by the objective of
Morpho-syntax
class as written on Panduan Akademik Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris 2010 that “students should be able to identify syntactic patterns and explain syntactic
constructions ” p. 51. As a result, in order to break down the structure, the
researcher also demonstrates the constituents of the noun phrase based on Quirk, et al. 1985.
a. Noun Phrase Constituents
Noun phrase has some elements that build it. The parts or the elements that generate the noun phrase are called constituents. In line with this, Radford 1997
argues that the constituents are the structural units in a particular expression. Quirk, et al. 1985 also state that the constituents are a smaller element of a
phrase so that it can be divided. In general, the syntactic structure of the noun phrase is illustrated in Table 2.2 based on Culicover 1982.
