Nominalfrasen

Nominalfrasen, known in English as noun phrases (NPs), are syntactic units centered on a noun or pronoun and functioning as a coherent unit within a sentence. They can serve as subjects, objects, complements, or modifiers, and they encode information about definiteness, number, and reference.

Most nominalfrasen are built around a head noun and may include determiners, adjectives, genitive marks, and various modifiers. Determiners like the, a, or some mark reference and definiteness; adjectives provide properties; prepositional phrases and relative clauses can elaborate the head noun. The typical order in English is determiner, adjectives, head noun, followed by post-nominal modifiers; other languages may vary in order and inflection.

Examples illustrate the range: simple NP: the book; extended NP: the tall red book on the shelf; possessive NP: the students' projects; a complex NP with a relative clause: the author whom you met. Nominalfrasen also function in different roles, such as subject ("The quick brown fox jumps"), object ("I read the old map"), or complement ("The winner is the champion").

In German linguistics the term nominal phrase is often rendered as Nominalphrase or Nominalgruppe. German nominalfrasen commonly show case and gender marking on determiners and adjectives, and the noun's inflection reflects number and case. Analyses may treat DPs as the functional projections hosting determiners, adjectives, and nouns; in syntax research, nominalfrasen are central for studies of reference, definiteness, plurality, and modification.