OTHER MODIFIERS

In the preceding lessons we have discussed nominal group structure using examples in which the headwords were common nouns. In such cases the nominal group structure is most complex, but we should also say something about the type of modification which occurs with the two other classes of headword, pronouns and proper nouns. With these, modification tends to be more restricted. For instance, the personal pronouns cannot normally be premodified by a deictic or an adjective, and where this does occur it is unusual.
e.g.	A brand new me.
	Lucky you.
Pronouns are commonly post-modified, however, and there are various words such as reflexive pronouns, and words such as "both", "alone" and "all" which can act as qualifiers for personal pronouns. Prepositional groups may sometimes do this too. Words like "else", "more", and many ordinary adjectives such as "different", "new", "clever" etc, can also function as qualifiers for indefinite pronouns, as may prepositional or adverbial groups.
e.g.	Amir and Dhea all went.
	Nobody else saw it.
	Amir and Dhea in this party think otherwise.
	I myself didn't like it.
	Amir and Deha need somebody clever.
	I don't know anyone that tall.
	Do you want anything more?
	Amir did something bad.
	Amir and Dhea alone can't do much.
	Someone in the group took it.
Vocatives may also be post-modified:-
e.g. You at the back stop talking.
It is worth pointing out that pronouns actually stand for a whole nominal group, and not simply the "thing" which is denoted by the headword, which is why they are not generally premodified themselves.
e.g.	A great big long-necked bird flew past. We watched as it flew into the distance.
There is one important exception to this, however, which is the pronoun "one / ones", which may function as a headword exactly like any common noun and is relatively unrestricted as to the nominal group structure which may form around it. This pronoun thus represents only the headword and not the whole nominal group for the thing to which it refers.
e.g.	Which of these boxes would you like?
	I'd like the funny-looking one with brass knobs.
	I'd like the wooden ones.
Proper nouns may take adjective premodifiers, but not usually a deictic. Qualifiers can also be attached, and are typically formed from prepositional groups. There is also a special use of nominal groups which can function as qualifiers for proper nouns:-
e.g.	Lucky Amir.
	Big bad Amir.
	Clever Trevor.
	Dhea with the light brown hair.
	Dhea the secretary told me.
ADJECTIVES We have seen a number of examples of adjective modifiers which have featured in the previous discussion of nominal group structure, and now we shall look more closely at how they behave and may be classified. If we return to a previous example, we saw three distinct types of adjective were featured:-
e.g. The stale sterilised Devonshire cream.
We can recognise "Devonshire" as the name of an English county - i.e. it is a proper noun. The word "sterilised" is a participle formed from the verb "sterilise", and is thus also a derived adjective. Only "stale" has no other derivation or function, and is thus a "true" adjective. We shall call words like "stale" and "sterilised" EPITHETS to distinguish them from NOUN MODIFIERS such as "Devonshire". We can distinguish then between "stale" and "sterilised" in several ways.
(i)	"Sterilised" is a participle - i.e. it is a derived inflected form.
(ii)	"Stale" is a gradable epithet, "sterilised" is not.
	That is, there are degrees of staleness which can be
	expressed by words such as "very" or "rather".
	e.g. rather stale, a bit stale, really stale
	Words like "sterilised" cannot be so graded.
	Something is either sterilised or it is not.
We identify these two classes of epithet by calling words which behave like "sterilised" CLASSIFIERS - they modify the headword by attributing to it an either/or classification. Words like "stale" attribute qualities to the headword which are a matter of degree, and are thus gradable, and we call these QUALITATIVE epithets. Classifiers are usually some derived (inflected) form, typically created by means of a suffix from a noun, or a verb participle.
e.g.	southern, English, practical, ruined, dining
	southern hospitality
	English tea
	practical problem
	ruined temple
	dining table
(Note that participles may also function as gradable epithets - e.g. a very exciting film). The qualitative epithets really comprise two broad categories. There are those words such as "old", "big", "slow" etc which express a more or less objective attribute of the headword - they have an "experiential" meaning; and there are those words such as "nice", "good", "lovely" etc which express the speaker's attitude to the thing referred to, and are to some extent subjective. There is a tendency when both types occur in the same group for attitudinal epithets to precede experiential ones, but this is not a hard and fast rule, and may vary in particular instances.
e.g.	a nice hot cup of tea
	a big nasty noise
There is also some overlap between attitudinal and experiential meaning in that the same word can often express both aspects in its semantic range.
e.g.	Amir's a silly boy.
The principal functional difference between experiential and attitudinal epithets is that the former are able to define the headword in terms of a norm to which they refer, whereas attitudinal epithets function in incorporating an INTERPERSONAL element of meaning - they serve only to define how the speaker feels or thinks about the referent, not to relate it to an objective point of reference. Thus if I say that something is "old" you will understand this with reference to some norm of what constitutes the feature "oldness", but if I say that something is "beautiful" you will understand this as an expression of my own feelings towards the thing. Two of the most common types of experiential epithets are those which refer to age, and those which refer to size. These often occur together in the same group, and when this is so there is a tendency for size epithets to precede those concerning age.
e.g.	a little old village
	a big new Cadillac
If we then add an attitudinal epithet to the above examples we get:-
	a charming little old village
	a splendid big new Cadillac