Academic Writing:Structures:How to extend nominal groups

Look at the following example. The first example 'managers' represents the single noun. The example below illustrates how you can build the nominal group:

Managers (head noun)
The (pre-modifier	management + head noun)
The poor (pre-modifier	management + head noun)
The poor (pre-modifier	management + head noun	of industries + post-modifier)
The poor (pre-modifier	management + head noun	of manufacturing industries + post-modifier)
The poor (pre-modifier	management + head noun	of manufacturing industries in the 1950s..... + post-modifier)

Pre-modifiers precede the head noun (pre because it is before the head noun, and modifier because the new information modifies or adds meaning to the head noun). Pre-modifiers include determiners such as a, the, some, these and adjectives, such as poor, technical or spacious, that describe or classify the head noun.

Consider these other examples of nominal groups with pre-modifying information.
(The nominal groups in the sentence are coloured and the head noun of each group is underlined.)

The activated sludge particles are composed of millions of actively growing bacteria.

Content analysis is designed to produce an objective, measurable, verifiable account of the content of the messages.

Post-Modifiers follow the head noun and also add meaning to it. One example of a post modifying structure is the prepositional phrase (prepositional phrases start with a preposition such as in, at, of, for).

Here are some examples of post-modifiers,
(the nominal group is coloured; the head nouns of the nominal groups are underlined, post-modifiers are bolded)

Content analysis is designed to produce an objective, measurable, verifiable account of the content of the messages.

Post modifiers can often contain further nominal groups. In the examples above, the content, the messages, this course and September are all further nominal groups.

Nominal Group

[ pre-modifier ]
(determiner) + (adjectives)

HEAD
NOUN

[ post-modifier ]
(prepositional phrases)

In academic texts, the nominal groups are often necessarily complex containing both Pre-Modifying and Post-Modifying elements. The nominal group structure is very useful because it is elastic: it can expand to specify and qualify information around the head noun. It allows the writer to build up the technicality of the information provided.