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English adjectives can take clauses, preposition phrases, and noun phrases as complements. Clause complements in adjective phrases can be either finite or nonfinite. Finite clause complements can be declarative (e.g., very pleased that I had bought his book) or interrogative (e.g., not sure whether I want to keep reading).
Adjectives make the meaning of another word (noun) more precise. Verb (states action or being) a word denoting an action (walk), occurrence (happen), or state of being (be). Without a verb, a group of words cannot be a clause or sentence. Adverb (describes, limits) a modifier of an adjective, verb, or another adverb (very, quite). Adverbs make ...
In linguistics, an absolute construction is a grammatical construction standing apart from a normal or usual syntactical relation with other words or sentence elements. It can be a non-finite clause that is subordinate in form and modifies an entire sentence, an adjective or possessive pronoun standing alone without a modified substantive, or a transitive verb when its object is implied but ...
A clause is often said to be the smallest grammatical unit that can express a complete proposition. [1] But this semantic idea of a clause leaves out much of English clause syntax. For example, clauses can be questions, [2]: 161 but questions are not propositions. [3] A syntactic description of an English clause is that it is a subject and a ...
For example, because martial is a postpositive adjective in the phrase court-martial, the plural is courts-martial, the suffix being attached to the noun rather than the adjective. This pattern holds for most postpositive adjectives, with the few exceptions reflecting overriding linguistic processes such as rebracketing.
An adjective preceding a noun to which -d or -ed has been added as a past-participle construction, used before a noun: "loud-mouthed hooligan" "middle-aged lady" "rose-tinted glasses" A noun, adjective, or adverb preceding a present participle: "an awe-inspiring personality" "a long-lasting affair" "a far-reaching decision"
An important aspect of phrase structure rules is that they view sentence structure from the top down. The category on the left of the arrow is a greater constituent and the immediate constituents to the right of the arrow are lesser constituents.
Some types of non-finite clause have zero in one of the object or complement positions; the gap is usually understood to be filled by a noun from the larger clause in which the non-zero clause appears (as is the subject "gap" in most non-finite clauses). These clauses are also called hollow non-finite clauses. [5] Some examples: He is the man ...