Subordinate phrases

Subordinate phrases may be best enumerated when we arrange them according to their leading member: noun phrases, adjectival phrases, verb phrases, adverbial phrases, pronominal phrases (pronominal phrases are most suitably included in the noun or adjective groups to which they are evident parallels). As has been pointed out, their immediate constituents are head word and modifier (adjunct). The term head word (head) means the word that is modified.

Noun-Phrases

In terms of position of the attributive adjunct, noun-phrases may be classified into; 1) phrases with preposed modifier; 2) phrases with postposed modifier.

Phrases with Preposed Modifier

In noun-phrases with preposed modifiers we generally find adjectives, pronouns, numerals, participles, gerunds and nouns in the possessive case. Here belongs also premodification of nouns by nouns (so-called noun-adjunct-groups).

With his own hands he put flowers about his little house-boat and equipped the punt in which, after lunch, he proposed to take them on the river. (Galsworthy)

Many a time had he tried to think that in old days of thwarted merrier life; and he always failed. (Galsworthy)

Val had just changed out of riding clothes and was on his way to the fire — a bookmaker's in Cornmarket. (Galsworthy)

Jolly Forsyte was strolling down High Street, Oxford, on a November afternoon. (Galsworthy)

After a few morning consultations, with the pleasant prospect of no surgery in the evening Andrew went on his round. (Cronin)

And beneath it lay the family's Christmas treat — three small oranges, (Cronin)

A preposed determinant may be extended only by an adverb, e. g.:

That was a typically French way to furnish a room. '

In premodification of nouns by nouns the noun-adjunct may be extended by words of different parts of speech, e. g.: long playing micro-groove full frequency range recording.

The -s is appended to a group of words if it forms a sense-unit, e. g.: the man of property's daughter, Beaumont and Fletcher's plays, the King of Denmark's court.

The division into immediate constituents in cases like the man of

property's daughter is not the man || of property's, but the man of property's.

Postposition of adjectives occurs in some fixed phrases, e. g.:

mother dear the university proper

the president elect a battle royal

time immemorial the first person singular

Postpositive position is often natural for adjectival units which themselves contain postpositive modifiers of their own and even for some which contain only postpositive modifiers

applicants desirous of personal interviews a wall six feet high rooms large enough