Syntactic Roles of Adjectives
The Various Syntactic Roles of Adjectives
Adjectives are found in various syntactic roles. The main division is whether they are attributive or predicative. But adjectives may also act as a postmodifier of a noun (rather than the normal premodifier), as a noun phrase heads, as clause links, plus other roles rarely found in academic writing.
Attributive Adjectives
Attributive adjectives modify noun phrases and precede the head noun or pronoun (see the noun phrases page for examples of where an adjective may occur in a noun phrase.)
"My results show that bees rely on a wide variety of both indigenous and exotic forage." (Masehela 2017). Example
The adjective wide modifies the noun variety and the adjectives indigenous and exotic modify the noun forage. See more information on the attributive adjectives page.
Predicative Adjectives
Predicative adjectives may be rel="tooltip" class="nowrap" or object predicatives. Subject predicatives are the complements of copular verbs; object predicatives follow a direct object and describe that object.
Example
Subject Predicative: "For its first half-century, Einstein’s theory was controversial" (Blair, Henriksen, and Hendry 2016).
Einstein’s theory is the subject, was is the copular verb, and controversial is the adjective - a subject predicative.
Object Predicative: "But our new research found something different." (Bennett and Reynolds 2023) The noun something is the object and different is the object predicative. The adjective different is an example of a postposed adjective; it follows the pronoun rather than preceding it. See more information on the predicative adjectives page.
Postposed Adjectives
A postposed adjective is the postmodifier of a noun (it follows the noun).
"It’s your brain telling you something helpful" (Grové 2019). Example
The adjective helpful postmodifies the pronoun something. Postposed adjectives often occur with indefinite pronouns
Noun Phrase Heads
Some adjectives may be used as the head of a noun phrase.
"Which, if any, of the following have you used for news in the last week?" (Addicoat 2023). The adjective following is here used as a noun. This construction is normally followed by a list. See more examples on the Adjectives as Noun Phrase Heads page.Example
Adjectives as Clause Linkers
Adjectives are occasionally used, like linking adverbials, to link clauses.
"The mayor of New York got rid of the ban on mobile phones with an argument that this would reduce inequalities. However, as our research shows, the exact opposite result is likely. Worse, allowing phones into schools would harm the lowest achieving and low income students the most." (Beland and Murphy 2015). "The county also happens to be sitting on enough lithium to produce nearly 400 million batteries, sufficient to completely revamp the American auto fleet to electric propulsion. Even better, that lithium could be extracted in a way consistent with broader goals to reduce pollution." (Benner and Pastor 2024). Example
The adjective worse links the comment to the previous sentence by making a comparison.
The adjective better links the comment to the previous sentence by making a comparison.
Other Uses of Adjectives
Adjectives may be used in exclamations (Brilliant!) and as detached predicatives (Confusing, I know!).
"Viruses are like that, unpredictable!" (Roossinck 2020) Example
The adjective unpredictable is a detached predicative. These can appear initially (more usual) or finally (as in this example) in a sentence.
Detached predicatives are not common in academic writing; exclamations are extremely rare.