2.5 Modifiers

The modifier is a word or phrase that qualifies the sense of another word; for example, the noun alarm is a modifier of clock in alarm clock and the phrase every day is an adverbial modifier of walks in he walks every day. Thus, there are:

- modifiers to a noun (attributes), and

- adverbial modifiers.

ATTRIBUTE are modifiers to a noun which can be expressed by

a) an adjective (pre-position: difficult task, slow neutrons; post-position (an adj.+ a group of words): military units famous for their heroic deeds, the evidence available today),

b) noun (typical of the English language): in pre-position (professor's opinion, a public supply power system), in post-position (N+Preposition: the state of rest bodies in equilibrium, the gas under investigation); noun apposition:

The term apposition is used to denote an adnominal modifier that is itself a noun (or noun phrase) and is co-referential with the head noun. The paradigm case of apposition is exemplified in It shows Robert Burns, the poet, where a noun phrase the poet is apposed to a preceding noun phrase Robert Burns, which in turn is the object of shows. The relationship is realised by the sequence alone, with no construction marker.

The scientific style is also known for the wide use of several adjectives or nouns in a sequence as attributes to some noun. These sequences are sometimes called the Germanic constructions, after the German practice of concatenating several adjectives and nouns to form a single, very long word. They can either make sentences concise or ambiguous. One must be very careful choosing the right variant, sometimes a few extra words (prepositions, for instance) or punctuation marks can help to achieve clarity: Simian virus transformed fatal mammalian heart fibroblast // Simian virus-transformed fibroblast from fatal mammalian heart.

c) pronoun (possessive: оur Institute, demonstrative: this (these), that (those), indefinite: some, any, no, every). Besides, the pronoun that / those can be used as a part of an attributive group: as that of the other bank, as those obtained by ….

d) both ordinal and cardinal numerals (first chapter, three newspapers),

e) Past/Present Participle (pre-/post-position),

boiling water

illustrated edition

heated air

Pat could dimly make out the slopes of four men  standing at the threshold.

The bet-rays are negative electrons moving with high velocity.

The term "speed" means the ratio of the distance travelled by an object to the period of time.

f) Gerund in a post-position after a preposition (of, for, in) :

the possibility of using

the process of stamping

the capacity for doing work

g) Infinitive (post-position, construction “for+infinitive):

Since heat and work are convertible the most important thing to know about  any device is its efficiency

Тhe first thing for you to do is to go to the library and look up a series of papers.

h) artictle (a (an) «один», «будь-який», «якийсь», «певний», «відомий», тощо, the, «цей», «такий», «всі ці»).

i) the Subordinate Clause Attribute, usually in post-position and introduced by the words which, that, whom, who, when, where etc, or with no conjunctions.

ADVERBIAL MODIFIER can be of different types: