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Noun phrases are phrases that function grammatically as nouns within sentences, for example as the subject or object of a verb. Most noun phrases have a noun as their head. [5] An English noun phrase typically takes the following form (not all elements need be present):
A major sentence is a regular sentence; it has a subject and a predicate, e.g. "I have a ball." In this sentence, one can change the persons, e.g. "We have a ball." However, a minor sentence is an irregular type of sentence that does not contain a main clause, e.g. "Mary!", "Precisely so.", "Next Tuesday evening after it gets dark."
The formal study of grammar is an important part of children's schooling from a young age through advanced learning, though the rules taught in schools are not a "grammar" in the sense that most linguists use, particularly as they are prescriptive in intent rather than descriptive.
Rudolph Carnap defined the meaning of the adjective formal in 1934 as follows: "A theory, a rule, a definition, or the like is to be called formal when no reference is made in it either to the meaning of the symbols (for example, the words) or to the sense of the expressions (e.g. the sentences), but simply and solely to the kinds and order of the symbols from which the expressions are ...
A formal proof or derivation is a finite sequence of well-formed formulas (which may be interpreted as sentences, or propositions) each of which is an axiom or follows from the preceding formulas in the sequence by a rule of inference. The last sentence in the sequence is a theorem of a formal system.
In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an object or subject within a phrase, clause, or sentence.
The subject of a sentence is generally a noun or pronoun, or a phrase containing a noun or pronoun. If the sentence features active voice, the thing named by the subject carries out the action of the sentence; in the case of passive voice, the subject is affected by the action. In sentences with imperative mood, the subject may not be expressed.
Some examples of noun phrases are underlined in the sentences below. The head noun appears in bold. This election-year's politics are annoying for many people. Almost every sentence contains at least one noun phrase. Those five beautiful shiny Arkansas Black apples is a noun phrase of which apples is the head.