ABSTRACT
Introduction The subject and objects in a sentence are nearly always nouns, or noun phrases. These are by far the most common roles for nouns. There are some grey areas that provoke some confusion, but we can gain a clearer understanding if we think of how nouns behave in a sentence rather than misleading rules of thumb like ‘nouns name things’. We are getting close to a pretty solid understanding of how sentences function: the verb (verb phrase) sits at the heart of the sentence; to complete a sentence, the verb requires a subject (noun phrase) and may require objects (noun phrases again). Each verb phrase can be made more specific by using tense and adverbials. Each noun phrase can also be made more specific, and this chapter explores how.
