Definition:
A word group that includes a noun and its modifiers. The noun can be preceded by determiners (such as the, a, her) and followed by complements. Often abbreviated as NP.
Examples and Observations:
- "The only white people who came to our house were welfare workers and bill collectors."
(James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son, 1955) - "McSorley's bar is short, accommodating approximately ten elbows, and is shored up with iron pipes."
(Joseph Mitchell, "The Old House at Home," 1940) - "The wells and water table had been polluted by chemical pesticides and fertilizers that leached into the earth and were washed by rain into the creeks, where the stunned fish were scavenged by the ospreys."
(Peter Matthiessen, Men's Lives, 1986) - A Georgia woman was jailed briefly after a run-in with courthouse security over her refusal to remove a religious head scarf.
- "The men in the class--there were a few older students, veterans--listened with good-natured interest, and the girls gazed at the instructor with rosy-faced, shy affection."
(Bernard Malamud, A New Life, 1961) - "Some of the owners of Harlem clubs, delighted at the flood of white patronage, made the grievous error of barring their own race, after the manner of the famous Cotton Club."
(Langston Hughes, The Big Sea, 1940)
Also Known As: NP
