Modifiers:
A modifier is a
word/phrase/clause which modifies other words in a sentence. To be specific, a
modifier is either an adjective or an adverb. The adjectives modify the nouns,
and the adverbs modify the verbs or the adjectives or the other adverbs. See
the details of adjectives and adverbs.
Example:
o Alex
bought a chocolate cake yesterday.
(Here, ‘a’ is an article which modifies the word ‘cake’ and the
word ‘chocolate’ is the direct adjective of the word ‘cake’. So both the words
‘a’ and ‘chocolate’ are adjectives which modify the noun ‘cake’. The word
‘yesterday’ announces the time of the action, i.e., the verb ‘bought’. So it is
an adverb which modifies the verb.)
o Murphy, the president’s daughter, is very sick.
(Here, the phrase ‘president’s daughter’ modifies the noun
‘Murphy’. In this phrase, ‘the president’s’ modifies the noun ‘daughter’ but
the whole phrase itself becomes an adjective when it modifies the noun
‘Murphy’. There is another adjective ‘sick’ which is modified by the adverb
‘very’.)
o The
brown(adjective) dog
was barking at me aggressively(adverb).
Generally, modifiers are of two types according to their
position to the words they modify:
1.1.1.1
Pre-modifiers:
Pre-modifiers are the modifiers which modify the words that
follow them in the sentence. Conventionally the adjectives are usually placed
before the nouns. So, most of the adjectives are pre-modifiers. Adverbs are
often placed before the words they modify.
Articles, determiners,
demonstratives, proper adjectives, descriptive adjectives, compound adjectives,
participles, etc. are the adjectives which come before the nouns and modify them.
Conjunctive adverbs, sentence
adverbs, and some other adverbs can work being placed before the
verbs/adjectives/other adverbs.
Example:
o Generally(adverb) the(article) brown(descriptive adjective) dogs are nice.
o Apparently(adverb), that(demonstrative) bank has a lot of(determiners) security(adjective) porcess.
o Give
me that(demonstrative) black(descriptive adjective) covered(past participle) shining(present participle) box.
o (In
the above sentence the noun ‘box’ has four pre-modifiers [adjectives].)
1.1.1.2
Post-modifiers
Post-modifiers are the modifiers which come after the words they
modify. Customarily, the adverbs come after the verbs and modify them. However,
some adjectives also come after the nouns and modify them.
Most of the adverbs of time, adverbs of
manner, adverbs of place/direction usually come after the verbs they
modify.
Appositives, prepositional
phrases (adjectives/adverbs), infinitives (adverbs/adjectives), dependent clause, etc. usually come
after the nouns they modify.
Example:
o Jason
Roy, a cricketer,(appositive) has been selected in the squad(adverb).
o Stark, our teacher, (appositive) gives
us tasks to do(infinitive - adjective) in the class(adverb of place).
o Ronaldo, the captain of Portugal team,(appositive) plays exceptionally(adverb of manner) well.