The Nominal Group

Abstract

The nominal group may be defined briefly as a group of words which can act as the subject of a sentence.¹ As we noted in the Introduction it is usual to posit that the nominal group in Modern English contains four elements: determiner, modifier, head and qualifier. The head is that part of the group upon which all the other elements depend and is the only obligatory element. The modifier and qualifier are those elements which precede and follow the head respectively and are defined formally by their position in relation to the head. There is theoretically no limit to the number of modifiers and qualifiers each head can carry. The determiner in Modern English precedes the modifier and consists of a small group of words like the articles and possessive and demonstrative pronouns which are mutually exclusive; there can be only one determiner per head in each nominal group. One cannot say in Modern English the his book. Hence the nominal group ‘The beautiful, young girl with the black hair sitting in the corner’ consists of the determiner the, two modifiers beautiful and young, the head girl, and two qualifiers with the black hair and sitting in the corner. It is characteristic of Modern English that whereas modifiers consist usually of single words like beautiful, though they can be modified by an intensifier like very, qualifiers are usually phrases such as with the black hair.