Noun combinations

Combinations of nouns are common in academic texts. A "steel box" is a box made of steel and a "computer programmer" is someone who programmes computers. The problem is to understand the relationship between the nouns. A "hand towel" is a towel for drying your hands but a "bath towel" is not a towel for drying the bath. A "paper bag" is a bag made out of paper, but a "hand bag" is not a bag made out of hands and a "shopping bag" is not a bag made out of shopping. In order to understand these combinations, it is first necessary to identify the headword and work backwards.

Difficult sentences

When a sentence cannot be understood even though all the vocabulary is known, it is often because it is long and syntactically complex. There are a number of causes of difficulty:

1. complex nominal groups

2. nominalisation

3. co-ordination

4. subordination

A. A nominal group is a head noun modified by adjectives, nouns, or other words which may come before or after it. It is often the words that come after the head noun that cause most difficulty.

B. Nominalisation is common in academic texts. This is the formation of a noun from a verb. In the examples above, "unwillingness" is a noun from the verb "willing", and "recommendations" is a noun from the verb "recommend". As if often the case with complex sentences, it is useful to change the noun back to a verb and work out which nouns, functioning as subject and object, are associated with it. In example 1 above, the subject of unwilling is "biologists".

C. Co-ordination is joining sentences together with words like "and" or "but". It is sometimes difficult to decide exactly what is joined together.

D. Subordinate noun-clauses are often difficult to understand as they make it difficult for the reader to understand which nouns function as subject or object of the verb. It is useful in such a situation to identify the basic structure of the sentence by identifying the main verb and then asking various questions like "Who does what?"