When I lived in the UK, I used to love taking the train everywhere, and this grew into an interest in railway memorabilia. Here are some great Railway Notices from Britain’s past. (Present-day notices are, unfortunately, far less interesting.)
(1) Railway notices contain surprisingly good examples of non-finite clauses used as postmodifiers in Noun Phrases:
(1) Railway notices contain surprisingly good examples of non-finite clauses used as postmodifiers in Noun Phrases:
NOUN PHRASE = “Any person committing a nuisance”
Determiner = “Any”
Head = “person”
Postmodifier = “committing a nuisance” (non-finite clause of the V-ing variety)
NOUN PHRASE = “Men employed by farmers”
Head = “Men”
Postmodifier = “employed by farmers” (non-finite clause of the V-ed/ V-en participle variety)
Determiner = “Any”
Head = “person”
Postmodifier = “committing a nuisance” (non-finite clause of the V-ing variety)
NOUN PHRASE = “Men employed by farmers”
Head = “Men”
Postmodifier = “employed by farmers” (non-finite clause of the V-ed/ V-en participle variety)
(2) And I’ve always liked the following sign. There’s nothing grammatically wrong in any of these signs, but the one below would be great for teaching about how to identify the different meaning units in a sentence, and how to decide which words belong together as a noun phrase.
Noun Phrases in the portion with the instructions:
your feet
the seats
stoves
the compartment
the calls of nature
the window
Note that “your feet upon the seats”, “stoves inside the compartment”, and “the calls of nature from the window” are NOT Noun Phrases. In each of these cases, separate meaning units are involved. ==> Do not put SOMETHING (your feet) SOMEWHERE (upon the seat). Do not light SOMETHING (stoves) WHERE (inside the compartment). Do not relieve WHAT (the calls of nature) HOW / WHERE (from the window).
There are many other interesting railway signs, but I think I won’t hog the space here.
R Tang
