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A noun can be described by various types of wording after it
THE STUDY OF POST-NOUN WORDING
This discussion is a continuation of one begun in the post before this, where post-noun wording in noun phrases (technically called “noun postmodification”) is said be of various types, and a start is made on describing and analysing them. Three types are considered there: infinitive verbs, preposition phrases and relative clauses. Here, the focus is on participles, adjectives and other nouns.
The aim of the study is to assist recognition of noun phrases, which is useful for both reading comprehension (see 15. Reading Obstacles 8) and grammatically accurate writing. Many of the points are also made elsewhere in this blog, but having them all together here may help their greater appreciation. For a similar discussion of adjective phrases, see 203. Expanding an Adjective with Words after it.
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FURTHER TYPES OF NOUN POSTMODIFICATION
1. Participles
The verb forms that grammarians call participles are by definition noun-describing, and hence particularly likely to be in noun phrases. However, not all go after their noun – some must go before. Some are verbs with -ing, others are regular verbs with -ed (e.g. involved) or irregular ones in the “third” form (e.g. put, begun, known – see 97. Verb Form Confusions).
Participles after a noun can be alone or closely combined with their own object, complement or adverbial (their subject usually being the noun they are postmodifying). In the following proverb, the participle living is combined with an adverbial in phrase:
(a) People living in glass houses should not throw stones.
This means “Do not criticise if you yourself deserve criticism”. It will be seen that living follows directly after its noun people. This is common but not inevitable, since sometimes the same noun will have another postmodifier in between. It is even possible for a participle and its noun to be at opposite ends of a sentence, but this is not the focus here – it can be read about in 101. Add-On Participles.
With the exception of this last kind, postmodifying participles can generally be thought of as just abbreviated relative clauses: living in (a) means the same as who live. Replacement by a relative clause is practically always possible, though the reverse is less so (see 52. Participles Placed Just after their Noun, #5).
The participle in (a) has -ing because it corresponds to an active, not passive, verb after who. The tense of live (present simple) is irrelevant here: living (despite being what some would call a “present” participle) could replace other tenses too, such as the past simple. For an -ed participle to be necessary, the corresponding verb after who would need to be passive. For example, who are accommodated used in (a) would be paraphrased with the participle accommodated.
The similarity between participles of this type and relative clauses even extends to the fact that two commas (or a comma and a full stop) sometimes have to be placed around the participle and any partner words of it (see 52. Participles Placed Just after their Noun, #3).
Some participles are as usable before their noun as after. For example, remaining may go equally well before or after problems. Other participles, however, go always before or always after their noun. An easily-recognisable kind that must always go after has its own following words, in the manner of living in (a) (see 109. Placing an Adjective after its Noun, #3). Participles without such words are harder to judge. Their meaning can sometimes indicate where they go: those expressing a one-off event rather than a constant characteristic or condition tend to follow their noun. For example, emerging, a characteristic in emerging nations, is a one-off event in the colour emerging.
There is one situation where an -ing word after a noun may not be a postmodifying participle: when the noun is the object of a particular kind of verb:
(b) The magazine photographs people working in London.
There are two ways of understanding this. In one, working is a participle like those discussed above: equating to who work and classifying the photographed people. Crucially, it does not refer to anything photographed: the object of photographs is only people, not their work. In the other interpretation, however, working in London is the main part of what is photographed. Working means not “who work”, but “when they are working”.
In this second case, working is a noun-like gerund rather than adjective-like participle. As the main part of the object of photographs, it is not postmodifying people (see the end of 71. Gerund and Participle Uses of “-ing”). As one might expect, this ability of the same combination to have different meanings sometimes causes misunderstanding (see 257. Structures with a Double Meaning 4, #2).
The gerund meaning is not possible after any verb – it is a special property of just some, not usually predictable. Other examples besides PHOTOGRAPH include DEPEND ON, ENTAIL, FIND, INVOLVE, LEAD TO, LIKE, NECESSITATE and SEE (see 232. Verbs with an Object + “-ing”).
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2. Adjectives
English adjectives are, of course, not normally placed directly after a noun they are describing, the two standard positions being either directly before it (difficult problems) or after it with a link verb like BE in between (…problems are difficult). One could say, in other words, that adjectives are rare postmodifiers. Most English courses highlight the few exceptional adjectives that do usually need to follow their noun, such as immemorial, present (= “in attendance”) and responsible (= “in charge”).
In this blog, the post 109. Placing an Adjective after its Noun considers both adjectives that always occupy this position, like immemorial, and those that only do so in particular grammatical circumstances, such as when describing pronouns ending in -thing or -body (e.g. something beautiful), or when possessing their own postmodifiers (e.g. islands beautiful in the extreme). The possibility of circumstantial influences entails that practically any adjective can be placed directly after its noun in the right circumstances.
However, adjectives in this position are not always postmodifying. Here is an example of the main exceptional kind:
(c) Some language learners find grammar enjoyable.
The reason why the adjective enjoyable is not considered to be postmodifying the noun grammar here is a close link to the verb find. This is a verb whose meaning (= “consider”) necessitates mention of two types of information, one represented by grammar and one by enjoyable. If enjoyable was left out, the sentence would either feel incomplete or convey a different meaning of find.
More technically, find (= “consider”) is a verb that requires an “object complement” to describe its object (grammar), and enjoyable has that role. Object complements are classified as a major sentence element along with subjects, verbs and objects, and as such they cannot be part of a subject etc. – they cannot postmodify. For more about them, see 220. Features of Complements.
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3. Other Nouns
It is quite common in English to see two nouns acting together in a single noun position in a sentence. However, the second noun is not always postmodifying. It is never so if the nouns refer to two different things. They may be linked by and (e.g. nouns and adjectives are…) or just placed together, as in library books or the night sky. With and, both nouns are equal; without it, the second noun is the main one, modified by the first. In this blog there is plentiful information about this latter combination type in posts like 38. Nouns Used like Adjectives.
When two adjacent nouns refer to or describe the same thing, however, the second noun is often more like a postmodifier. Examples are the footballer Maradona and mammoths, an extinct species. As these show, sometimes there is a comma between the nouns, sometimes not. Technically, such combinations are called “apposition”. They are analysed in detail in this blog in 77. Apposition.
To say that the second of two nouns (or noun phrases) in apposition is a postmodifier is probably not strictly true. Certainly in some cases (for example where two alternative names are being given) the second noun is as central as the first. However, the second noun seems in many cases to be more describing than described, so that apposition does perhaps have some relevance to this discussion.
In some apposition constructions, the second half is a noun phrase based on a verb:
(d) There is little proof that Homer was a real person.
Here, the underlined words form an apposition construction with the preceding noun proof. They are easily mistaken for a relative clause (one of the postmodifying possibilities considered in the post before this). One indicator of the difference is the inability of that to be replaced by which – it is a conjunction here, not a pronoun. Another is that, unlike relative clauses, the phrase as a whole can be the object of a verb like proved (see 153. Conjunction Uses of “that”, #1).
Noun phrases beginning with that cannot be placed after every noun to make an apposition construction. Most possible preceding nouns represent speech or thought, e.g. argument, belief, claim, denial, expectation and suggestion. Their combination with that is thus a form of indirect statement (see 127. When to Use Indirect Speech). Other nouns that can precede that include advantage, evidence, likelihood, possibility and problem.
That is not the only word that can introduce a verb-based noun phrase after another noun. Most others are question words, creating indirect questions. Typical combinations are uncertainty when…, the question whether… and explanations why…. In many such cases, though, a preposition, typically of, is added before the question word, ruling out apposition (see 160. Uses of “of”, #4).
Question words used after a noun in this way are classified not as conjunctions like that, but mostly as adverbs (linking in an adverb-like way with the verb after them). They are further called “interrogative” in order to distinguish them from the same spellings used as so-called “relative adverbs”, as in the reason why…. Relative adverbs introduce not noun phrases but adjective ones, similar to those made by relative pronouns like who.
One way to tell the difference is to examine the meaning of the preceding noun: any expressing asking, explaining or knowing will probably indicate an interrogative adverb and hence an apposition construction. Interrogative adverbs should also not be paraphrasable with which: after reason, why can become for which but after explanation no which paraphrase is possible (see the end of 185. Noun Synonyms of Question Words).
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