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The phrases can be subdivided into three types on the basis of
syntactic functions. These are : Noun phrases, Adverb phrases and Verb
Phrases.
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Noun phrases are those constructions which may replace a single noun in
a sentence. In the language either it functions as a subject or a object
or a nominal complement. Noun phrases of the structure Adj+N are
considered to be derived either from copula sentence having adjective as
the complement or from the relative clause such as
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/c ngo
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gero/
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‘good
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boy’
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from
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/gero
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1
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2 |
1 |
2 |
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1 |
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| cngo |
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‘The |
boy |
is |
good’ |
or |
/jé o |
gero |
cngo |
/
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3 |
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1 |
3 |
2 |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
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| ‘The
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boy
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who
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is
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good’
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2 |
1 |
4 |
3 |
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and such phrases are attributive in an endocentric construction.
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In such noun phrases any of the noun is the head and it can take one or
more than one modifiers as attributes to the noun heads. Modifiers which
are adjectival inflects for gender-number-case forms of the noun head in
a noun phrase construction. Following are some noun modifiers :
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Uninflected |
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Qualitative
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Inflected
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| 1. Adjective |
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Uninflected
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Quantitative
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Inflected
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Imperfective
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2. Participles
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Perfective
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Cardinal
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3. Numerals
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Ordinal
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4. Genitival
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5. Demonstrative
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All the above mentioned modifiers can occur singly as well as in
combination as the attributes to the noun head.
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Following are the noun phrases with a single modifier preceding the
head noun.
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1. Qualitative adjective occurring as the modifier
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Examples are
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ka o
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kUtto
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‘black
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dog’
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1
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2 |
1 |
2 |
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kaa
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kUtta
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‘black
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dogs’
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1
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2 |
1 |
2 |
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kai
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kUtti
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‘black
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bitch’
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1
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2 |
1 |
2 |
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kaĩ
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kUttĩ
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‘black
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bitches’
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1
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2 |
1 |
2 |
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2. Quantitative adjectives occurring as the modifier of the head noun.
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kItna
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ma
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‘how
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many
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heads
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of
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1
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2 |
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1 |
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