Questões de Concurso

In the English language, noun phrases often consist of a head noun preceded by a specific sequence of modifiers (determiners, adjectives, etc.). Analyze the underlined nominal structure in the sentence below:
“The aviation authority is looking for several highly talented young candidates to fill the vacancies.”

Regarding the internal structure of the underlined noun phrase, which statement is grammatically and functionally CORRECT?

(a)

The nominal structure is considered a “compound noun” because the words highly, talented, and young have fused semantically with candidates to form a single unbreakable lexical unit.

(b)

The word highly functions as the central adjective of the phrase, while talented acts as a post-modifier that characterizes the physical state of the candidates.

(c)

The quantifier several functions as the head of the nominal group, making the word candidates a dependent complement of the determiner.

(d)

The sequence of adjectives highly talented young represents a coordinate structure, meaning their positions could be freely swapped (e.g., young highly talented) without any impact on grammatical naturalness.

(e)

The structure follows the standard order of modifiers where a determiner (several) precedes an adverb-adjective sub-modifier phrase (highly talented) and a classifying/age adjective (young), all modifying the head noun candidates.