From Dread to Delight: An Insight into Grammatical Names and Functions (5) Lateef Kugbayi, PhD
In an effort to demystify the challenge of identifying grammatical names and their functions in expressions, Linguists’ Forum has established that the grammatical name that is given to a group of words in a sentence usually carries the traditional name of the part of speech it stands for. As done for noun phrase last week, the Forum specifically pays attention to adjective phrase in this week’s episode.
Adjective Phrase
An adjective phrase is a group of words that is used as a part of a sentence and does not have a subject or a (finite) verb, but performs the function of an adjective (which is to modify a noun or pronoun) in a sentence. The phrase provides information about the features, qualities or locations of the noun or pronoun as in:
i. (An expensive golden Chinese) spoon.
ii. (Two brand-new beautiful Toyota) cars.
Adjective phrases can be attributive or predicative. They are attributive when they come before the nouns they modify, e.g.
i. “A highly responsible” driver is needed for the job (“A highly responsible” modifies “driver”).
ii. We were served “very delicious” meals (“very delicious” modifies “meals”).
Adjective phrases are predicative when they come after the nouns they modify and linking verbs (e.g., seem, is, was, appear, are, were, etc.).
Examples:
i. Ojo is “extremely stubborn” (“extremely stubborn” modifies/complements “Ojo”).
ii. The girls are “too young for the job” (“too young for the job” modifies/complements “the girls”)
Since an adjective phrase is a group of words, it will contain two or more words. These words are not arranged haphazardly. They should be arranged in the following order:
1. Number/Determiner (e.g., one, two, an, the, that, those, each, etc.)
2. Attribute (e.g., beautiful, handsome, wicked, tough, happy, etc.)
3. Size/Weight (e.g., short, light, heavy, big, etc.
4. Age (e.g., old, new, ancient, modern, young, recent, aged, etc.)
5. Shape (e.g., lanky, thin, round, fat, etc.)
6. Colour (e.g., white, blue, green, yellow, golden, crimson, red, etc.)
7. Nationality/Origin (e.g., Nigerian, Ghanaian, European, Turkish, Japanese, etc.)
8. Noun used as an adjective (e.g., paper, wristwatch, table, road, etc.)
The orderliness in the use of an adjective phrase can be seen in the following examples:
i. Our manager has just bought “a beautiful brand-new Toyota” car (article+attribute+age+noun used as adjective to modify the noun “car”).
ii. The boy bought “one expensive golden Turkish” belt (number+attribute+colour+nationality to modify the noun “belt”).
iii. The comedians are “those young robust Ijaw” guys (determiner+age+shape+origin to modify the noun “guys”)
Lateef Iyanda Kugbayi, PhD
Senior Lecturer
Department of English Language
Zamfara State University
Talata Mafara
[email protected]/+2347032985052
