Adjectives is a fundamental linguistic resource which writers use in their texts. They stay as building bloc and are used to modify nouns, convey quality, indicate evaluation, build stance, and realize meanings. Adjectives are placed in different positions in relation to the nouns they modify. These positions are prenominal, predicative, postpositive, or distanced. Every position of adjective has its role in expression and enhancement of the quality of academic texts. This post covers all these positions of adjectives and their roles.
1. Attributive Adjectives
Commonly adjectives stay before nouns as attributive adjectives. For example:
a. Specialist doctors are assigned duty to examine critical patients.
b. An expert influencer changed the point of view of the audience.
In example (a), the adjective specialist stays before the noun doctors and plays the role of an attributive adjective. In example (b), the adjective expert staysbefore the noun influencer as an attributive/qualifying adjective.
1.1. Role of Attributive Adjectives in Scholarly Texts
Academic writing values informational density. For the observation of this standard, the academic writers have to construct concise noun phrases by packing dense information in them. Here attributive (prenominal) adjectives can replace full relative clauses. For example, ‘the individuals who are growing rapidly in terms of educational dimensions’ can be written as ‘the rapidly growing educated individuals.” Further, these adjectives frequently function as classifiers (such as rhetorical, theoretical, practical, syntactical) to place the head noun in a specific academic or technical domain. For example:
a. Pronouns can occur in several syntactical positions in a sentence, i.e., subject, object, object of preposition.
Further, the attributive adjectives help bring about precision and can reduce ambiguity through narrowing down the scope of broad nouns. For instance, using ‘communicative challenges’ instead of ‘challenges’ only helps the reader know the exact nature and status of challenges.
1.2. Adjectives vs Nouns in Attributive Role
Similar to adjectives, noun also can have a prenominal role after ‘the’. The reader can make it clear whether an adjective or another noun is before the head noun. For this the reader needs to know what alternative wording is necessary if the described noun is mentioned first. For example, in the phrase the citrous fruit, the described noun is fruit. When this noun is positioned first, the structure of the noun phrase will become the fruit which is citrous. On the other hand, in the noun phrase the road condition, the described noun is condition. When this noun is positioned first, the structure of phrase becomes the condition of the road. Here, it can be concluded that when the described noun is followed by preposition of, the describing word is a noun. When the described word is followed by which, the describing word is an adjective.
2. Predicative Adjectives
Predicative adjectives stay after a linking verb (i.e., be, seem, appear, look, etc.). These adjectives are associated with nearby nouns or equivalents. For example:
a. Some foods are harmfulfor health.
b. Nadir is happy at his success.
In example (a), the adjective harmful stays after the linking verb ‘are’. Although, it is separated from the noun foods, it defines this noun. Thus, it is in predicative role. Similarly, in (b), the adjective happy describes the subject Nadir, and is in role of predicative adjective.
An important feature of adjectives regarding the said positions (i.e., attributive and predicative) is that some adjectives can only precede nouns (e.g., a future opportunity) and others can stay only as predicative ones (e.g., … was dormant). It means the positions of these adjectives are specific and cannot be moved from one position to the other.
2.1 The Role of Predicative Adjectives in Academic Writing
These adjectives help the reader know the sort and value of the subject of a sentence. Practically, they allow writers to state objects, conditions or situations objectively and critically (e.g. “The situation was critical”). In addition, they help establish qualities, and conditions of the subject (e.g., “The text was fuzzy.”), etc. Further, these adjectives contribute to emphasis shift. It means, owing to the presence of these adjectives, the emphasis of the sentence shifts from the subject to the quality itself. Furthermore, predicative adjectives stay before prepositional phrases or clauses for enhancing precision (e.g., “The researchers were confident of collecting valid data for their study.”)
The two positions mentioned above are the normal positions for adjectives where they stay in relation to their head nouns. However, all the adjectives do not take these positions. It means, certain other adjectives can take other positions. The details of such adjectives are given below.
3. Postpositive Adjectives
Some adjectives can stay just after the noun they describe or modify. These adjectives are called postpositive or postnominal adjectives. For example:
a. The attorney general presented the government’s case in the court.
b. Nothing special has happened today in the parliament.
c. Humans have been found erring from time immemorial.
d. The only solution possible in this predicament is to wait and see.
e. The individual involved in this case of theft is my neighbor.
In the examples given above adjectives (in italics) follow their nouns that have been placed in bold format.
3.1 The Role of Postpositive Adjectives in Academic Writing
The role of postposed adjectives relates specifically to structure, semantics, and stylistics in academic writing. First, these adjectives when posed immediately after compound indefinite pronouns (e.g., someone, anything, something, nothing), they help specify qualities. For example, in “We witnessed nothing incredible in the information.” the quality of information has been specified. Next, they assist academic writers in the realization of their aimed at meanings through semantic shifts based on position. For example, in the phrase “The concerned parents”, concerned means worried or anxious and in “The parents concerned”, concerned means related or involved. These adjectives can also be used for reducing relative clauses to gain conciseness and precision. For example, “the best medicine that is available in the market” can be changed into “the best medicine available in the market.
4. Adjectives Distanced from Noun
A number of adjectives can stay at a distance separated from a preceding or following noun. This category of adjectives typically includes postpositive/postnominal adjectives separated by commas, appositive adjectives, or detached descriptive phrases (extracted from reduced relative clauses). For example:
a. Excited and invigorated, the Shaheena received her husband at the airport.
b. The sheep arrived to their fold, slow paced and contented.
c. The audience, silent and attentive, listened to the key speaker.
d. The soldiers, fatigued yet intimidating, dominated the border.
An adjective can also follow a noun without a linking verb. In this type of construction, adjective is separated from its head noun with a comma. For example:
- The knowledge spreads gradually, beneficial to all who receive it.
Separated adjectives can also stay in the beginning of the sentence. For example:
- Capitating in nature, social media is engaging everybody.
- Favorite on the dining table was barbeque food.
Adjectives capitating and favorite, in the above examples, are related to the sentence subjects i.e., social media and food respectively. The adjective capitating in (a) starts an adjective phrase before a separating comma. The adjective favorite in (b) is a complement that has changed place with barbeque food. This sort of reversal is commonly required when the subject is a long phrase or is the main information in the sentence.
4.1 The Role of Adjectives Separated from Nouns in Academic Writing
The adjectives that stay apart from head nouns help writers in emphasizing specific traits of entities, handling complex modifying phrases and avoiding clumsy pre-nominal stacking. First, these adjectives stay as appositive adjectives after the noun they modify and are set off by commas or dashes. For example, in “The area, vast and uncultivated, required adequate irrigation.” the head noun does not go under burden of multiple modifiers or heavy modification.
Further, the pre-nominal overload, i.e., stacking too many adjectives directly before a noun e.g., “the initially irrigated high-production giving land” make the head noun obscure. When pre-nominal overload is avoided by separated adjectives, naturally readability becomes improved. This occurs because the post-posed or separated adjectives help the reader to pay attention to a specific condition or qualification of the head noun.
5. Adjectives’ Position in Phrasal Constructions
The determiners like ‘the’, ‘a(n)’, ‘this’ or ‘their’canstay before a noun. In such cases, adjectives go in between the determiner and noun, e.g. the blue sky, an important fact, this critical factor, their favorite food. When prepositions are seen as adjectives, they stay before the said determiners + noun. For example: across the road, beyond the river, againstthe law, behind this mountain, beneath the cover, inside their house, etc.
In sum, adjectives stay in different positions with respect to the noun they are associated with. First, they stay immediately before their head noun as attributive adjectives and in this way concise and compact noun phrases come into existence. Second, they stay after linking verbs as predicative adjectives and assist the writer in describing or complementing the head noun (sentence subject). In this position, these adjectives help writers in stance building. Third, adjectives stay straight after their head noun as postpositive adjectives and contribute in structure, semantics, and stylistics in academic writing. Fourth, there is another category of adjectives that are separated from nouns. These adjectives help writers in emphasizing specific traits of entities, handling complex modifying phrases and avoiding clumsy pre-nominal stacking. Lastly, adjectives can also stay in phrase structures. All this information with good understanding empowers the academic writers in writing impactful texts.
