A Functional and Categorical Analysis of Noun Phrases in the Text “Ten Advantages of Being Blind”

Abstract

Noun phrases dominate other types of phrases in sentence construction. Few studies on noun phrases are conducted towards English texts written by disabled persons, particularly persons with visual impairment. This study aims at describing the noun phrases used in an English text by specifying the constituents that make the noun phrases from the functional and categorical perspectives. The data source was an English text entitled “Ten advantages of being blind” written by Julie McGinnity, a person with visual impairment, published by the National Federation of the Blind (https://nfb.org/blog/ten-advantages-being-blind). The data were analyzed by segmenting all of the constituents of the noun phrases by describing the functions and the categories of the constituents. The study concludes that the functional elements that make the noun phrase phrases vary with one constituent (H), two constituents (Det + H, Prem + H, H + Pom), three constituents (Det + Prem + H, Det + H + Pom, Prem + H + Pom), and four constituents (Det + Prem + H + Pom). The categories that realize the Determiner (Det) are article (DefArt/IndefArt), possessive pronoun (ProssPro), Numeral (CNum/ONum), or quantifier (Quan); Premodifier (Prem) can be realized by adjective (Adj) or noun (N); H is always realized noun (N); and Postmodifier can be realized by prepositional phrase (PrepP) or clause (FinCl/NFinCl). The dominant noun phrase used in the text is the noun phrase with one constituent (H), while the least is the noun phrase with three constituents (Prem + H + Pom).