A contrastive analysis of premodification in english noun phrase and vietnamese equivalent

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

O:Object
Adj: Adjective
Adv: Adverb
Od: Direct object
Oi: Indirect object
Cs: Subject Complement
Co: Object complement
Pre: Pre- position
Det: Determiner
n: noun
Eg: Example
Cl: Clause
Pg: Page
P: Phrase

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Nowadays, English has become an international language which is widely used
in almost every field of our life: trade, economy, science, technology, etc. English is a
bridge to connect cultures in the world. In order to master this language, it is essential
for the learners to master English grammar. Grammar plays an important role in both
writing and speaking as well. If we know the meaning of words, without knowing

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

In the course of writing paper, I have followed the procedure below
- Describing theoretical premises of pre-modification of noun phrases
- Collecting and classifying materials, analyzing and synthesizing all information
about pre-modification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese.
- Contrasting English premodification of noun phrases with those in Vietnamese
to find out the differences and similarities between them.
6. The structures of the study
The study is organized into five chapters: introduction, general introduction about
English noun phrase, general features of Vietnamese noun phrase, comparison between
pre- modification in English noun phrase and Vietnamese equivalent, and conclusion.
The introduction includes the rationale, purposes of the study, research questions,
scope of the study, methods of the study as well as structures of the study.
Chapter 2 gives general features of English noun phrase
Chapter 3 is general features of Vietnamese noun phrase
Chapter 4 presents the similarities and differences of pre- modification in English
noun phrase and Vietnamese equivalent
And the conclusion gives a summary of what has been done and provides
recommendations for further study.

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CHAPTER II: GENERAL INTRODUCTION OF ENGLISH NOUN PHRASE
2.1 Definition of the noun phrase
As far as we know the study of the noun phrase in English has been carried out
by many grammarians for many years. English noun phrase has been defined in
different ways. According to Randolph Quirk (in University Grammar of English,
1973) and Geoffrey Leech Jansvartvich (A Communicative Grammar of English,
1975). It is defined as follow:
“Noun is a phrase which can act as Subject, Object or Complement of a clause or

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

- Fractions

determiner:
Article
Demonstrative
Possessive
Interrogative
Indefinite
postdeterminer:
“Much”
Numerals
+ Cardinal
+ Ordinal
Quantifiers
+ Class system quantifiers
+ Close system quantifiers
Ad-jec-tive

Verb

clos
esyst
em
item

pre-modifiers

4
prem
odifi

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

Pre.
P

tion

Non- finite
Cl

clau
se

To -inf-init-ive Cl

Re-str-ect-ive Cl

Finite Cl
Relative

Non Re-ste-cti-ve Cl


From the diagrams of the basic noun phrase and the complex noun phrase, we
can draw out some similarities and differences as follows:
Both the basic noun phrase and the complex noun phrase have noun as the head,
pre-modification, and have the same syntactic functions.
However, the head noun in a basis noun phrase is not modified by postmodification whereas in a complex noun phrase, there are both premodification and
post-modification. Besides, premodification of the basic noun phrase consists of only
closed- system items, whereas it comprises both open- class items and closed- system
items in complex noun phrase.
Therefore, in order to have a complete contrastive analysis of premodification in

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

prepositional complement
2.3.4 Noun phrase as adverbials
Eg: I met him this morning
adverbial
2.3.5 Noun phrase as appositive
Eg: My friend Jame is the monitor
appositive
2.4 Components of premodification in English noun phrase
Looking at the diagrams of premodification structure in English noun phrase,
we can see that components of premodification are different parts of speech and they
are of two kinds:
- Closed- system items
- Open- class items
2.4.1 Closed- system items
First of all we should understand what items are called closed- system items and
what is closed- system items?
As far as closed- system items are concerned, they are defined in A University
Grammar of English by Randolph Quirk as follows:
“Closed- system items are items that can not normally be extended by the
creation of additional members”.
They consist of article (a, an, the), demonstrative (this, that, these, those),
pronoun (he, she, it…), preposition (of, at, without, in), conjunction (and, that,
when…), interjection: (oh, ah, uh…)

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The items are said to constitute a system in being
Reciprocally exclusive: The decision to use one item in a given structure
excludes the possibility of using another.

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

The quantitative adjectives
a) The definite article (the )
“The” is used with a noun that their meaning is particular, not in general
Eg: The stamp (I showed you) is available
I have lost the pens/ the money
b) The possessive adjectives (my, our, his…)
Eg: My car
Her children
c) The interrogative adjectives: whose, what, whatever…

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Eg:

Whose garden do you think look the nicest?
Whose gloves are they?
d) The quantitative adjectives : any, some ( stressed)
Eg: A’ny pen/ a’ny information will do?
Note: Possessive determiners can come after all, both, half or after a quantifier + “of”
Eg: All my money
A lot of his time
2) The second class: consists of determiners that can go with plurals nouns or
mass nouns only
They are: Zero articles, some, any (unstressed), enough
However, zero articles are used with plurals or uncountable nouns to talk about
things in general
Eg: I love sports but she loves music
When we talk about things that are not definite or uncertain, we can use nouns
with “some” or “any”(unstressed)

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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“every” can combine with plural- count noun and occur before numeral
Eg: The meeting is held every two years
6) The sixth class:
“much” can go with mass noun only
Eg: I do not have much news of him
H
Much can be modified by “so, too, as, very”
Eg: He has so much money
H
2.4.1.2 Pre-determiners
Pre-determiners occur before the head of noun phrase and determiners. They are
classified into 3 groups:
Quantifiers: all, both, half
Multipliers: twice, double, three, four….times
Fractions: one-third, two- third, three- fourth
1) Quantifiers: all, both, half
These pre-determiners can occur before articles or demonstrative but, since they
are themselves quantifiers, they do not occur with the following quantitative
determiners: every, (n)either, each, some, any, no, enough.
Eg: All the girls in our class are beautiful
pre det H
Both those men are wanted by the police
pre

det

H

All, both, half have “of- constructions” which are optional with nouns and
obligatory with personal pronouns

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

All of them
but

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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

The, my,
… these,
those

the, my,
this, that
ink

all

Pens

Zero
articles

Zero
articles

All and both can occur before a plural count noun without article, they are used
with definite articles for specific reference.
Eg: All children can be difficult
All the children (in our class) can be difficult
“All” and “both” often occur before plural nouns with the definite or zero article
or the plural demonstrative adjectives.
Eg:
All books
Both children
All these students

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,

each” and (less commonly) “per” to form “distributive” expressions with a temporal
noun as head of
Once
Twice
a day/ week/ year
Three times
…
Eg: I come back to my village twice a year
3) Fractions
Including one- third, two- fifth, three- quarters, etc… They are used with noncount noun and with singular and plural- count nouns, can be followed by determiners
and have the alternative “of” – construction.
Eg: It takes me two- third (of) an hour to go to my college by bicycle
Det
2.4.1.3 Post- determiners
Post-determiners follow determiners but precede adjectives in the premodification structure. They include:
- Numerals
+ Cardinals
+Ordinals
- Quantifiers
+Close system quantifiers
+Open class quantifiers
1) Numerals:
a) Cardinal numerals: consist of one, two, threes…

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All cardinal numerals, except one, co- occur only with plural count nouns
Eg: One pen and two books
“one” may be regarded as a stressed form of the indefinite article

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

There is a little evidence that he has committed the crime
Like in the case of “few”, in the case of “little”, there is also a positive and
negative contrast as the indefinite article is or is not used
Eg: We have a little water (some)
little (not much)

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b) Open- class of phrasal quantifiers
Basing on their combinability- possibilities with noun classes, open- class
quantifiers are divided into 3 subgroups.
The first group can occur with plural nouns:
A
good
great
number of
large
Eg: A great number of pupils will take part in the entrance exams this year.
The second group can co-occur only with non- count nouns:
a great / good deal of
a large / small quantity of
a large / small amount of
Eg: She took a small amount of sugar
The third group can co-occur with both plural noun and non- count nouns:
They are: plenty of, a lot of, lots of
Eg: We have got a lot of time to do that
Besides, there are phrasal quantifiers that provide a means of imposing countability on noun count nouns as following partitive expressions.
• General partitives: an item
furniture

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

“these”. So we can see that the ranges of the open- class items are extendable and
indefinite.
Premodification in English complex noun phrase can be performed by: adjectives,
adverbs, participles, ‘S- genitives, sentences/ clauses
Basing on the way that pre-modifiers combine with the head, pre-modification
can be classified into 2 kinds: Single pre-modification and multiple pre-modification.
2.4.2.1 Single premodification
2.4.2.1.1 Premodification by adjectives
An adjective is used to describe the qualities and characteristics of things,
people, events, etc. In an English noun phrase, adjectives are mostly used in premodification. They appear between the determiner and the head.
Eg: His beautiful wife
Det adj
H
A pre-modifying adjective; especially, when it is the first item after the determiner,
can itself be pre-modified by adverbs in the same way as it can be in predicative
position.
Eg: The really quite place
Det adv
H
It is a very funny story
adv adj (in predicative position)
However, some intensifiers tend to be avoided with pre-modifying adjectives:
“they’re so strict teacher” with indefinite determiner “so” would be replaced by “such”
Eg: Their teacher who is so strict
=> Such a strict teacher
Note:
Most of adjectives of English used in premodification of noun phrase but there
are some that cannot be attributes of nouns.
Eg: frond of, afraid of, conscious of…

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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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2.4.2.1.3 Premodification by participles
In premodification position of noun phrase, ing- participles and ed- participles are
usually used as adjectives attributed the head nouns
a) “Ing” participles
“Ing- participles” is one of the forms of verb ending in “ing”. The participles
stand before the noun to take the action of the agent to define more clearly the agent.
Eg: The dancing girl
The crying child
Everything here depends on potentiality of the participles to indicate a permanent
or characteristics feature. When the participle is preceded by the indefinite article, it
favors the habitual or permanent characteristics and if it is the definite article, the
participle shows the specific or temporary.
Eg: He has a very interesting mind
permanent
The boiling water
temporary
From the two sentences above, we can see that the first one shows a permanent
feature, but the latter indicates a sudden one.
However not every head noun can co- occur with pre-modifying participles but
this is controlled by the contextual meaning or habitual language.
For example: A wandering minstrel is one habitually given to wandering, but if we saw
a man wandering down the street, we could not say “who is the wandering man”? ( in
A University Grammar of English by R. Quirk and Greenbaum, Pg. 397)
b) Ed- participles
Much of what has been said of ing-participles applies to ed- participles also. In
other words, it may also indicate permanent state
Eg: The damaged building
or temporary state, for instance: A confused man
But there are additional complications. In the first place, the ed- participle can be
active or passive, but the active is rarely used in pre-modification

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

#The photograph that Thanh took
Or we should distinguish between the two noun phrases
These old men’s clothes
These men’s old clothes
The first one means the clothes of these old men, the second one means the old
clothes of these old man
1) ‘S- genitive with ellipsis
The noun modified by the ‘S- genitive may be omitted if the context makes its
identify clear
Eg: My car is faster than John’s (i.e. than John’s car)
Omission of the head noun is typical of expression relating to premises or
establishments
Eg: Tonight we are going to Bill’s (normally means where John lives)
2) The double genitive

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An of- phrase can be combined with an ‘S-genitive into double genitive. The
noun with the ‘S- genitive must be both definite and personal
Eg: This is a friend of my wife’s
Unlike the simple genitive, the double genitive usually implies non unique
meaning, i.e. that my wife has several friends
Let’s compare two examples:
He is my brother (I have one or more than one brother)
and
He is my brother of mine ( I have more than one brother)
3) The group genitive: In addition to the ‘S- genitive, the head noun can be premodified by the group genitive
Eg: The people next-door’s house is for rent
group genitive

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

2.4.2.2.1 With single head
When two nouns pre-modify a single head, the noun which corresponds to the
head as object to verb will follow one relating to material or agency
Eg: a stain-less compacter
=>A stain-less garbage compacter
garbage compacter
More than one adjective pre-modifier may be related to a single head with no
grammatical limit on the number.
Eg: His beautiful car
His big car
His (…) car
=>His big beautiful car
This is however misleading in giving impression that the multiple modifiers
constitute an unordered and coordinate string. In fact it usually follows a recursive
process.
By contrast, we may have:
His car-> His big car-> His {beautiful (big car)}
This indicates that his big car was beautiful without commitment to whether any
of his others cars were.
In some cases, we do indeed have multiple modification in which no priority
among modifiers needs to be assumed to these we may give separate, emphasis or
introduce commas in writing
Eg: A tall, thin man
A ‘tall, thin man
Or formally co-ordinate them, there would be little difference between
A handsome, intelligent boy
A handsome and intelligent boy
But when co- ordinate modifiers relate to properties, there are normally thought
to conflict, the coordinator will properly not be “and”.
Eg: A handsome but stupid boy

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

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color

origin

material


Order of adjectives before head noun
General
Famous

size

big
large

shape

Age
Old

round

interesting

colour

Origin
English

black

wooden
Canadia

New

material

n

Head
house

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

Among these above kinds, three kinds (a,d,e) are more complex than the rest,
they can be modified by many pre-modifiers at the same time.
Eg:
A really quite unbelievably attractive woman
The really dangerous robber’s gun
The excited Lancester city football club supporters
However, if an adjective was introduced in the last noun phrase, it should be noted:
• The adjective would have to come immediately after the determiner

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