Adjective Phrase

In English grammar, an adjective phrase is a group of words that functions as an adjective in a sentence. An
adjective headword may be accompanied by modifiers, determiners, and/or qualifiers (all of which are
called dependents). Also known as an adjectival phrase.

Adjective phrases modify nouns. They may be attributive (appearing before the noun) or predicative (appearing
after a linking verb), but not all adjectives can be used in both positions.

EXAMPLES AND OBSERVATIONS

 "The prototypical adjective phrase consists of a single adjective, tall in Sally is tall, or an adjective
headword and a qualifier, very tall. Even taller than the woman who coaches her volleyball team is
more elaborate, but because it can substitute for the single adjective tall (Sally is even taller than the
woman who coaches her volleyball team), you can recognize it as an adjective phrase."
(Thomas P. Klammer et al., Analyzing English Grammar, 5th ed. Pearson, 2007)
 "Humans can be fairly ridiculous animals."
(Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, 2007)
 "The unicorn blinked and swished its tail and looked fairly ridiculous on the folding tabletop."
(Steven R. Boyett, Elegy Beach, 2009)
 Tina lost her dark brown briefcase.
 "Mr. Sweet was a tall, thinnish man with thick kinky hair going dead white. He was dark brown, his eyes
were very squinty and sort of bluish, and he chewed Brown Mule tobacco."(Alice Walker, "To Hell With
Dying," 1967)

 After Don's accident, his behavior grew stranger and stranger.

 "'You want a second opinion? O.K.' says the doctor. 'You're ugly, too.' She liked that joke. She
thought it was terribly, terribly funny."(Lorrie Moore, "You're Ugly, Too," 1990)

PREMODIFIERS, POSTMODIFIERS, AND DISCONTINUOUS MODIFIERS

"An adjective phrase consists of an adjective which may be preceded and/or followed by other words.

The premodifier is always an adverb phrase, but the post-modifiers can be an adverb phrase, a prepositional
phrase, or even a clause. It is also possible to have a modifier that is partly in front and partly behind the head,
called a discontinuous modifier, abbreviated as disc-mod." (Marjolijn Verspoor and Kim Sauter, English
Sentence Analysis: An Introductory Course. John Benjamins, 2000)

NOUN PHRASES AND ADJECTIVE PHRASES

"There may be very little difference between a noun phrase and an adjective phrase in structures where the
adjectives occur before the word it qualifies. Most noun phrases consist of a head noun plus one or more
adjectives, or indeed an adjective phrase itself. Consider the examples in a, below.

a. [ADJECTIVE PHRASES]
'It was cold, bleak, biting weather.'

'He's an extraordinary looking man, and yet I can really name nothing out of the way.'

'In Beijing these days, one of the fastest-growing fortunes the world has ever seen is managed by fewer
than two-dozen traders.'

'This was a hearty, healthy, dapper, red-faced gentleman, with a shock of hair prematurely white, and a
boisterous and decided manner.'
In each of these examples, if we include the italicized head nouns, we have noun phrases with embedded
adjective phrases; without the head nouns, we have adjective phrases.

Adverb (ial) Phrase (AdvP)

PHRASES WITHIN PHRASES

"[C]onsider . . . our example:

The young man picked the best bloom from the very delicate orchid.

The sequence from the very delicate orchid is a prepositional phrase. The prepositional phrase consists of a
noun phrase and a preposition. One can demonstrate that the sequence from the very delicate orchid is a
coherent group of words by moving it as in:

From the very delicate orchid the young man picked the best bloom.

The word very is an intensifying adverb and it modifies delicate to form an adjective phrase within the noun
phrase within the prepositional phrase. This phrase-within-a-phrase structure is shown by bracketing below:

[The young man] picked the best bloom [from [the [very delicate] orchid]].

We could add very carefully to this sentence. Since carefully is an adverb and veryis an intensifying adverb
modifying it, very carefully would be an adverb phrase."

An adverb phrase (or adverbial phrase) is a word group with an adverb as its head. This adverb may be
accompanied by modifiers or qualifiers.

An adverb phrase can modify a verb, an adjective, another adverb, or even an entire sentence or main clause.
As show below, it can appear in a number of different positions in a sentence.

EXAMPLES AND OBSERVATIONS

 The Cheshire Cat vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of its tail.

 The players responded surprisingly well to all the pressures of the playoffs.
 The best way to preserve the flavor and texture of fresh vegetables is to cook them as quickly as
possible.
 As quickly as possible we cleaned the fish and placed them in coolers.
 The air was warm, stirred only occasionally by a breeze.
 Only occasionally is there a rumble in the sky or a hint of rain.
 "If youth be a defect, it is one that we outgrow only too soon." (James Russell Lowell)
 Snow fell much earlier than usual.
 "Bernie watched Jim's face for a reaction. Surprisingly enough, he grinned." (Beverly Barton, Close
Enough to Kill. Kensington, 2011)
 My daughter's choice of driving music is, surprisingly enough, classic rock.

ADVERBIAL PHRASES WITHOUT ADVERBS

Adverbial phrases are so-called because they can occur in the same range of positions as single adverbs; but
many such adverbial phrases, paradoxically, do not contain an adverb.

Such adverb-less adverbial phrases are typically prepositional phrases, as [italicized] in the examples below:
- On Friday night, I'm playing squash.
- Their marriage broke up in the most painful way.
- May I, on behalf of the shareholders, congratulate you?

(Jame R. Hurford, Grammar: A Student's Guide.

Cambridge University Press, 1994)

POSITIONING ADVERB PHRASES

"Like adverbs, adverb phrases can cause confusion because there is some flexibility in where they occur
within sentences, and even in modifying the sentence structure. As well, adverb phrases are sometimes
embedded into other phrases.

"Examples are:

a. 'Laura, a better, gentler, more beautiful Laura, whom everybody, everybody loved dearly and tenderly.'
[Norris]
[ADVERB PHRASE]

b. 'He had taken her hand sympathizingly, forgivingly, but his silence made me curious.' [Michelson]
[ADVERB PHRASE]

c. 'David, on the lowest step, was very evidently not hearing a word of what was being said.' [Porter]
[ADVERB PHRASE EMBEDDED INTO VERB PHRASE]

Our first example identifies an adverb phrase following the verb loved; the next example shows an adverb
phrase following the noun hand and removed from the verb it modifies; the third example has an adverb
phrase embedded into a verb phrase was . . . hearing. Such flexibility makes it more difficult to identify these
phrases; therefore, noting the head adverb can be of help."