05 · Frame
Find the head
The head is the word that the rest of a phrase is built around. In the key to the cabinets, the subject is about one key, not several cabinets. That is why the singular noun key determines the singular verb is.
The key to the cabinets is missing. The nearby plural noun cabinets does not control the verb.
The keys to the cabinet are missing. The head noun is plural, so the verb is plural too.
Changing the noun nearest the verb changes nothing. The verb is singular with key and plural with keys, because those nouns head the subject phrases.
the layers
Read outward from the head noun
Start with the noun key. The phrase to the cabinets depends on it, forming the nominal key to the cabinets. The determiner the completes the noun phrase. The diagram calls key the noun head and the completed nominal the head of the noun phrase.
the test
Set aside what depends on another noun
To the cabinets sits inside the nominal that key heads.
With the dependent phrase set aside, The key is missing still stands.
Set aside to the cabinets, and The key is missing remains. The added phrase depends on key; it contains another noun, but it does not organize the subject. The verb still follows the number of key.
Choose between competing nouns
- Find the nouns inside the phrase.
- Notice which words or phrases attach to each noun.
- Temporarily set aside an attached modifier and read the smaller phrase.
- If the noun phrase is the subject and the verb shows number, check which noun supplies that number.
These tests are clues, not a rule for every noun phrase. Agreement helps only with subject noun phrases when the verb shows number. Removal works here because the attached phrase is a modifier.
old school terms
Simple subject and complete subject name the two levels
When the noun phrase is the subject, older grammar books call its head the simple subject and the whole noun phrase the complete subject. In “The key to the cabinets,” key is the simple subject; all five words form the complete subject.
the point
A head organizes its dependents
A noun phrase may contain several nouns, but they do not all have the same relationship to the whole phrase. One noun organizes the nominal, while the others may belong to phrases that depend on it. The head is the noun that holds those relationships together.
Ten sentences from this lesson, one decision at a time.