1. Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English
Complex noun phrases
Chapter 9
Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English
Biber; Conrad; Leech (2009, p )

2. Knock knock Jokes Knock, knock Who’s there? Arthur. Arthur who?
Arthur-mometer is good for measuring the temperature
Knock, knock
Who’s there?
Philip.
Philip who?
Philip the tank, I’ve got a long way to go.
CONVERSATION HAS MANY NOUN PHRASES, BUT THEY ARE USUALLY VERY SHORT AND HAVE CONCRETE REFERENTS.

3. Introduction
The basic noun phrase can be expressed with noun modifiers. Premodifiers, like attributive adjectives, occur before the head noun. Postmodifiers, like relative clauses, occur following the head noun.
All noun phrases include a head, while determiners, premodifiers, and postmodifiers are optional.
He’s looking for a small wooden box that he owned.
Noun phrases can have a pronoun instead of a noun as the head. Pronoun-headed phrases usually do not include a determiner or premodifiers, but they may have postmodifiers (look at exception below) .
I’d rather stay at the big one in town.
There are different levels of embedding within noun phrases.
[The latest problem for the government] is [increasing competition for mobile cellular radio services, which have a small bunch of frequencies around 900 MHz.]

4. Types of noun modification
There are different types of premodifiers (adjective: special project; participial: written reason; noun: bus strike).
There are also different types of postmodifiers (Clausal post-modifiers: finite – relative clauses; non-finite – to-clauses, ing-clauses, ed-clauses)
NOUN COMPLEMENT CLAUSES ARE DIFFERENT FROM POSTMODIFIERS IN STRUCTURE AND MEANING, ALTHOUGH THEY ALSO OCCUR FOLLOWING NOUN HEADS. the idea that he was...
Adjectives are the most common premodifier type.
Nouns are also common as premodifiers in the written registers.
Prepositional phrases are by far the most common type of postmodifier.
Relative clauses are also common.
Premodifiers and postmodifiers are distributed in the same way across registers: rare in conversation, very common in informational writing.
Different types of noun phrase heads (e.g. common noun, personal pronoun: rarely occur with modifiers, demonstrative pronouns: take only postmodifiers) are associated with different types of modifiers.

5. Premodifiers: condensed postmodifiers
Premodifiers are condensed structures. They use fewer words than postmodifiers to convey roughly the same information. Most adjectival and participial premodifiers can be re-phrased as a longer, postmodifying relative clause.
premodifiers
relative clause as postmodifier
A staff room
A room where staff members work
A big pillow
A pillow which is big
A restricted area
An area which is restricted
An established tradition
A tradition which has been established
Flashing lights
Lights which are flashing
THE EXTREMELY PRODUCTIVE USE OF NOUN + NOUN SEQUENCES IN NEWSPAPER LANGUAGE RESULTS IN A VERY DENSE PRESENTATION OF INFORMATION!

6. Premodification
There are four major types of noun premodifier: general adjective, ed-participial modifier, ing-participial modifier, and noun.
Nouns as premodifiers are especially rich in meaning because they express a wide array of logical relationships (composition: metal seat, purpose: pencil case, identity: member country, content: algebra text...).
A few nouns, like car, school, government, and TV, are especially productive as premodifiers.
Plural nouns can also occur as premodifiers, as in savings account. This pattern is more common in British English.
When noun phrases have multiple premodifiers, they tend to occur in a predictable order depending on their grammatical category: e.g. adverb + adjective + head (a really hot day); adjective + noun + head (black leather jacket); descriptor + classifier + head (clear blue eyes).
Coordinated premodifiers (e.g. male and female workers, racial or religious cohesion) are found primarily in academic prose.
Coordinated premodifiers are surprisingly complex because their meaning is not explicit.

7. Tongue Twisters Hungry hippos hate horribly hot hamburgers.
Big bad baboons blow up beautiful blue baloons.
Vain vultures in vivid velvet vests.
My mean monster munches marmalade muffins.
Five friendly frogs feast on fat figs.
Rude rats run round ruffled rabbits.

8. Relative clauses
Relative clauses, and other postmodifiers, are classified into two main types by their function: restrictive, helping to identify the reference of the head noun (He hit the ball on the car that was going past), and non-restrictive, adding descriptive details about the head noun (He looked into her mailbox, which she never locked).
In general, restrictive relative clauses are more common than non-restrictive.
Most other postmodifier types are restrictive, but can occasionally be non-restrictive (... picture of Victorian urban society, concentrating on the capitalist...).
Relative clauses have three key components: the head noun, the relativizer, and the gap (location of the missing constituent in the relative clause).
There are eight different relativizers in English. The most common ones are which, who and that. Pronouns: whom, whose. Adverbs: where, when, why.
In some cases, the relativizer can be omitted altogether, although its meaning is still implied. This is referred to as the zero relativizer.
Some relativizers (such as which and that) are similar in their potential uses, but there are differences in their actual patterns of use.
The gap refers to the location of a missing constituent in the relative clause. The gap can occur at almost any noun phrase position (e.g. subject, direct object, adverbial)
Relative clauses with adverbial gaps involve special choices for the relativizer.

9. Relative pronoun choices
The choice among relative pronouns is influenced by a number of other factors, including gap position, and restrictive v. non-restrictive function. In general, that is usually used only with restrictive relative clauses, while which is used with both restrictive and non-restrictive clauses.
Who v. which with human OR non-human head nouns
That and zero with human AND non-human head nouns
Whom (non-subject gap) v. who v. that with human head nouns
THERE MIGHT BE PEOPLE THAT WE DON’T KNOW OF.
Whose v. of which (alternative to whose with inanimate head nouns)
Zero relativizer: e.g. the way the man used to watch him
WHICH
THAT
Rare with animate heads
Common with animate heads, especially in conversation or with non-subject gaps
Common in non-restrictive relative clauses
Rare in non-restrictive relative clauses
Usually considered more formal
Usually considered less formal
Can follow a preposition (e.g. of which)
Cannot follow a preposition (e.g. *of that)

10. Relative clauses
Relative clauses are clauses starting with the relative pronouns who*, that, which, whose, where, when. They are most often used to define or identify the noun that precedes them. Here are some examples:
Do you know the girl who started in grade 7 last week?
Can I have the pencil that I gave you this morning?
A notebook is a computer which can be carried around.
I won't eat in a restaurant whose cooks smoke.
I want to live in a place where there is lots to do.
Yesterday was a day when everything went wrong!
* There is a relative pronoun whom, which can be used as the object of the relative clause. For example: My science teacher is a person whom I like very much. To many people the word whom nows sounds old-fashioned, and it is rarely used in spoken English.

11. a person who(m)/that, whose
Relative pronouns are associated as follows with their preceding noun: Preceding noun - Relative pronoun – Examples:
a person who(m)/that, whose
- Do you know the girl who .. - He was a man that .. - An orphan is a child whose parents ..
a thingwhich/that, whose
- Do you have a computer which .. - The oak a tree that .. - This is a book whose author ..
Note 1: The relative pronoun whose is used in place of the possessive pronoun. It must be followed by a noun. Example: There's a boy in grade 8 whose father is a professional tennis player. (There's a boy in grade 8. His father is a professional tennis player.)
Note 2: The relative pronouns where and when are used with place and time nouns. Examples: FIS is a school where children from more than 50 countries are educated was the year when terrorists attacked the Twin Towers in New York.

12. Relative clauses with adverbial gaps
When relative clauses have adverbial gaps, speakers and writers have four choices for the use of relativizers.
Relative adverbs: where, when, why
The time when I began
Preposition + relative pronoun which
The time at which I began
Stranded preposition
The time that I began at
Omitted preposition
The time that I began OR The time I began
Manner adverbial gaps and way
There is no relative adverb available for relative clauses with manner adverbial gaps (*the way how I look at it). Instead, these structures almost always use the same head noun: way. They’re not used to the way we live.

13. Participle relative clauses 
Present and past participle forms, (e.g: talking, made) can be used without a pronoun or auxiliary to form a participle relative clause, e.g.:
Do you know the boy talking to Thomas?
The participle relative clause underlined in the example has the same meaning as a defining relative clause with the relative pronoun who, i.e:
Do you know the boy who is talking to Thomas?
A participle relative clause with an –ing (present participle) form can be used like a defining relative clause to identify which person or thing you are referring to, e.g.:
The house has three bedrooms. The bedroom overlooking the garden… (= which overlooks the garden)

14. Participle relative clauses with an –ed (past participle) form are also used like defining relative clauses to identify a particular person or thing. They have a passive meaning, e.g.:
The woman injured in the accident was expecting a baby. (= who was injured in the accident…)
All cakes sold in the café are made on the premises. (= which are sold in the café …)
It is also possible to use participle relative clauses as non-defining relative clauses which add information. Like other non-defining relative clauses, these participle clauses are surrounded by commas, e.g.:
His first novel, published in 1965, was an immediate success. (= which was published in 1965…)

15. Other postmodifier types non-finite clauses, prepositional phrases, appositives
Postmodifiers can be clauses or phrases.
In addition to relative clauses, three types of non-finite clauses can be noun postmodifiers: ing-clauses, ed-clauses (SUBJECT GAP), or to-clauses.
The verbs in ed-clauses correspond to passive verbs in relative clauses.
The verbs in ing-clauses sometimes correspond to progressive verbs in relative clauses (travelling), but often do not (involving).
Postmodifying to-clauses are more flexible than participial clauses; for example, they can have subjects that differ from the main clause subject.
Prepositional phrases are by far the most common type of phrasal postmodifier. feedback systems with chaotic behavior
They can express an extremely wide range of meanings. of phrases, for instance
Noun-phrases can also be postmodifiers, called appositive noun phrases.
Appositive noun phrases are non-restrictive; they are especially common in the written registers. former secretary of state Jim Baker
When a noun phrase has two postmodifiers, they are usually both the same structural type (e.g. both are prepositional phrases)
One exception is that relative clauses commonly occur following other structural types of postmodifier. car in the driveway, which had been set on fire

16. Noun complement clauses
Noun complement clauses can easily be confused with relative clauses. report that its leading indicator fell in September
They differ in that they are structurally complete (i.e. noun complement clauses do not have a gap) and the complementizer that cannot be omitted.
There are two types of noun complement clause: finite that-clauses and non-finite to-clauses (permission to wear them).
Ing-clauses intention of singing and wh-clauses question why the devil can be used as noun complements clauses, but are less common.
The most common function of noun complement clauses is restrictive. However, they can be used in non-restrictive functions (parenthetical).
Noun complement clauses occur with only a few abstract nouns.
Each structural type of complement clause occurs with a different set of head nouns. the idea of putting a lamp
The head nouns that take that-clauses (e.g. fact, possibility, claim) mark stance.
The head nouns that take to-clauses (e.g. chance, attempt, plan) mark human goals or actions.

17. What is a complement clause?
Definition   A complement clause is a notional sentence or predication that is an argument of a predicate.
Discussion   The term complement clause is extended by some analysts to include clauses selected by nouns or adjectives.
  Examples:
I heard the evidence that he did it.
I am sure that he did it.
I am not certain what we did.
We thought that you were coming.
For you to come would be a mistake.
I wonder whether you are coming