大学英语专业语法课件3——限定词Determiner

We’ll concern ourselves with
Noun and Noun Phrase (an overview) Genitive Noun Determiner
Noun and Noun Phrase


Classification of nouns According to word formation: Simple nouns: man, cat, chair… Compound nouns: greenhouse, landlord… Derivative nouns: worker, examination… According to lexical meaning: Proper nouns: names for a person, place or thing, e.g. China, New York, John… Common nouns: individual, collective, material and abstract nouns, e.g. teacher, faculty, water, honesty… According to grammatical form: Countable nouns: a car, two cars, … Uncountable nouns: bread, milk, furniture, …
d) In coordinate nouns, add –’s to each of the coordinate
elements when denoting respective possession, and only to the last element when denoting common possession, e.g. Mary’s and John’ pens, Mary and John’s pen…
Note: For more details, read the course books by yourselves.
Genitive Noun
Case is a grammatical category. It denotes the changes
in the form of a noun or a pronoun showing its semantic relations with other words in a sentence. (e.g. genitive case, nominative case, accusative case, etc.) In modern English, nouns do not have a complicated case system like that of Latin, German, or Russian. The different grammatical functions of English nouns in a sentence are mostly determined by word order. It is in this sense that the genitive case may be viewed as a relic of the old case system.
Partitives ---- also called unit nouns, are commonly used to denote
individuality of a whole unit nouns, e.g. a piece of information, a bottle of ink, a pair of glasses, a flock of birds, a herd of cattle, …
Noun and Noun Phrase
Functions of noun phrases: S, SC, O, OC, Appositive, Prep C,
Adverbial, Conjunction
Number forms of nouns: rules & exceptions (See section 4.2)
The meanings of Genitive Noun
Genitive is chiefly used to denote possession, and therefore is


called possessive case. But genitive meanings are by no means restricted to possession. Observe the examples below, identify the semantic relations between the genitive nouns and its head nouns: (See Ex. 5A) ownership Mary’s handbag Subject-predicate David’s prompt reply Verb-object The criminal’s punishment Mr. Smith’s donation source a summer’s day description Two hours’ drive time 300 kilometers’ distance distance 5 dollars’ worth of stamps value
The Formation of Genitive Noun
e) In “noun phrase + appositive(同位语)” construction,
add an –’s to the end of the appositive, or both to the noun phrase and to the appositive, e.g. Basel the bookseller’s; Basel’s, the bookseller’s…
Independent Genitive
C) when the missing noun refers to church, school, or
The Formation of Genitive Noun
a) Add –’s to singular nouns and plural nouns that do
not end in –s, e.g. Mary’s pen, Children’s Day…
b) Add an apostrophe (–’) to plural nouns ending in –s,
Independent Genitive
Sometimes, a genitive noun can be used independently, that is,


without a following noun. This is known as independent genitive. Independent genitive can be used in the following situations: A) when the missing noun has occurred somewhere in the context, e.g. Your bike is somewhat similar to John’s. Ted’s was the most expensive car. B) when the missing noun refers to somebody’s house or residence, e.g. We’ll have our party at Mary’s. The dentist’s is not too far away from the Metro station.
Lecture 3 Determiner
____ friends usually speak highly of him.
A. His some B. Some his C His many D Many his Please send ____ samples to London by air. A. these enough B enough these C. Five these D These five
f) In Personal names ending in sibilant /z/, add –’s or –’
only. But it can only be –’s when personal names end in other sibilant sound, e.g. Dickens’ / Dickens’s works, Jones’ / Jones’s poems, Marx’s Doctrine, Ross’s dissertation…
e.g.. Teachers’ Day, ladies’ room…
The Formation of Genitive Noun
c) Add –’s to the end of the compound nouns or to the
end of a post modified noun phrase, e.g. his mother-in-law’s death, someone else’s opinion, the university of Minnesota’s president…
The Genitive Noun and of-Phrase
However, we can only use of-phrases instead of
genitive nouns in the following cases: when the noun is followed by a long modifier: The opinion of the chairman appointed a month ago; The suggestions of those present at the meeting; in the pattern “the + adj.” or when of-phrase an appositive: The income of the rich; The struggle of the exploited; The city of Rome…