A New Approach of Grammar Teaching: Pre-modifiers in Noun Phrases

Abstract

Teaching grammar has always constituted a major part of language education in curricula around the world. This paper investigates pre-modifiers in noun phrase in English and focuses on their definition and classifications. Pervious scholars have different focuses and give various definitions and classifications of pre-modifiers. Through thoroughly evaluating and comparing of the different theories given by previous grammarians and linguists, this study redefines modifiers from a semantic, formal and syntactical perspective and constructs a new classification based on word classes and classifies pre-modifiers into six categories: 1). adjectival pre-modifiers; 2). nominal pre-modifiers; 3). participle pre-modifiers; 4). genitive pre-modifiers; 5). adverb phrases pre-modifiers; 6). sentences, etc. The implications of this paper may provide new insights in grammar teaching in English classes.