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Question

Difficulty: Very hardNouns and Noun Phrases

Consider the following sentence:

*'The newly installed solar-powered water purification plants in the remote border communities have significantly reduced waterborne diseases.'*

Which word functions as the structural head of the subject noun phrase in this sentence?

  1. plantsAnswer
  2. B
    purification
  3. C
    communities
  4. D
    diseases

Answer

The word 'plants' is the structural head of the subject noun phrase.
In the complex subject noun phrase 'The newly installed solar-powered water purification plants in the remote border communities', the noun 'plants' is the principal element (head noun). All preceding words ('newly installed', 'solar-powered', 'water purification') act as pre-modifiers, while the prepositional phrase 'in the remote border communities' acts as a post-modifier. Removing the modifiers leaves 'The plants... have significantly reduced waterborne diseases', showing that 'plants' controls the plural verb 'have'.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Isolate the complete subject noun phrase of the sentence.
The subject noun phrase is 'The newly installed solar-powered water purification plants in the remote border communities'.
Everything preceding the auxiliary verb 'have' forms the complete subject noun phrase.
2
Analyze the structural modifiers within the subject noun phrase.
'The newly installed solar-powered' is a complex adjective modifier, 'water purification' consists of noun adjuncts (pre-modifiers), and 'in the remote border communities' is a prepositional phrase (post-modifier).
Distinguishing pre-modifiers and post-modifiers isolates the central element being described.
3
Identify the primary element that dictates subject-verb concord.
The plural noun 'plants' governs the plural auxiliary verb 'have'.
The structural head noun is the essential noun that carries the syntactic weight and determines grammatical agreement with the main verb.

Key Concept

Identification of the head noun in multi-modified noun phrases
Estimated Time:1m 30s
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Topics

Nouns and Noun Phrases

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