Types of Premodification in English Grammar
Types of Premodification
Major Structural Types
- General Adjective: big house
- -ed Participial Modifier: painted house
- -ing Participial Modifier: boarding house
- Noun: coffee house
Premodifiers use fewer words than postmodifiers to communicate similar information. Most adjectival and participial premodifiers can be rephrased as longer, postmodifying relative clauses. For example: a big house / a house which is big.
Nouns are very common as premodifiers. To rephrase a noun+noun series as postmodifiers, we need a wider range of function words (prepositions and relative pronouns). For example: brick houses / houses made from bricks.
Meaning Relationships Expressed by Noun + Noun Sequences
Noun + noun sequences contain only lexical words without a function word that shows the meaning relationship between both parts. These sequences rely on implicit meaning. Some categories of noun + noun sequences are the following (the premodifying noun is labeled N1 and the head noun N2):
- Content: N2 is about N1; N2 deals with N1: photography book = a book about photography.
- Identity: N2 has the same referent as N1 but classifies it in terms of different attributes: bus drivers = people who drive buses.
- Institution: N2 identifies an institution for N1: teaching academies = academies for teaching.
- Location: N2 is found or takes place in the location given by N1: table tennis = tennis that is played on a table.
- Objective: The object of the process described in the head noun is the premodifying noun. In addition, it can be the action performed by the agent in the head noun. For example: air traffic controller = someone who controls air traffic.
- Partitive: N2 identifies parts of N1: flower petal = petals of a flower.
- Purpose: N2 is for the purpose of N1; N2 is used for N1: picnic set = set for a picnic; paper knife = knife for paper.
- Specialization: N1 identifies an area of specialization for the person or occupation given in N2; N2 is animate: press secretary = a secretary who gives information to the press.
- Subjective: N1 is the subject of the process described in N2; N2 is normally a nominalization of an intransitive verb: cake baking = cakes are baked.
- Time: N2 is found or takes place at the time given by N1: Pancake Day = the day when pancakes are eaten.
Premodifying Nouns that Occur with Many Head Nouns
Some premodifying nouns, such as family, are very productive as they combine with many different head nouns: family doctor, family car, family name, family tree, etc.
Only a few nouns are productive as premodifiers in conversation. They reflect everyday-life topics. For example: school + children, high, nursery…; car + park, wash…
Newspaper language makes vast use of noun+noun sequences. Most of these premodifying nouns refer to major institutions, businesses, media, and government. For example: TV + documentary, channel, cable, breakfast, ads. The effect of these noun + noun sequences is a very dense presentation of information. Although it saves space because the meaning is compacted, it can be challenging for readers since they must infer the intended meaning relationship.
Other premodifiers are productive both in conversation and in news: water + down, hot, industry, bill…
Plural Nouns as Premodifiers
While the singular form is more common for premodifying nouns, the plural can also be used. Plural noun + noun sequences are more common in newspaper language and are used more in British English than in American English (e.g., drugs + dealers, trade, problem…; jobs, animals, etc.). Yet, there are a few nouns common in both varieties: arms + race, supplier, treaty…; sales + man, tax, increases…; savings + banks, deposits…; women + ministers, drivers…
Two factors explain the use of premodifying plural nouns:
- The noun premodifier has only a plural form, or when this plural has a special meaning: explosives factory. However, some plurals can lose their endings in noun + noun constructions: trouser leg.
- The noun modifier itself contains more than one word: My mother cooked two trays of [spicy sausage rolls].
Some plural nouns such as affairs, relations, resources, rights, and services are more or less always premodified themselves and preserve the plural form when used in premodification: Coal resources are starting to drop.
Noun Phrases with Multiple Premodifiers
Many noun phrases in written registers contain several premodifiers. These premodifying sequences normally have fixed relationships. Some words modify other premodifiers instead of the head noun, for example: The windows were widely open. (The adverb widely modifies the adjective open, and open modifies the head noun windows).
The meaning relationships among constituents can be ambiguous out of context, for example: two more good workers (two more of them, or two that are better workers).
By adding more premodifiers, the number of possible meaning relationships increases, as in: widely open, dirty, broken windows (widely modifies the adjective open, and the adjectives open, dirty, and broken modify the head noun windows).
The Order of Multiple Premodifiers
General tendencies:
- Adverb + Adjective + Head: Since adverbs normally modify the following adjective rather than the head noun, they almost always precede adjectives. For example: quite long hair.
- Adjective + Noun + Head: The adjective normally precedes the noun. The position next to the head noun is filled by modifiers that are further included with the meaning of the head noun. Adjective + Noun + Head: dirty plastic bottle. Colour Adjective + Noun + Head: red plastic bottle. Participial Adjective + Noun + Head: broken plastic bottle. Especially with participial adjectives, this order can be reversed when the premodifying noun modifies the participial adjective: Noun + Participial Adjective + Head Noun: plastic recycling centre. This kind of sequence is generally hyphenated: channel-hopping habit is very frequent.
- Adjective + Adjective + Head: Descriptors (adjectives that describe color, size, weight, chronology, age, emotion, and other characteristics; they are typically gradable) tend to precede classifiers (which limit or restrict a noun’s referent rather than describe it). For example: young political parties / cold English weather. Adjective + Colour Adjective + Head Noun: Colour adjectives tend to follow other adjectives. For example: thick black stripes.
Coordinated Premodifiers
Each part directly modifies the head noun, for example: black and white stripes.
Premodifiers coordinated with and are used to identify two separate attributes that are qualities of a single referent, for example: nice and fresh water. Yet, when used with plural and uncountable heads, and-coordinated premodifiers can also be used to recognize two different (reciprocally exclusive) referents. For example: Spanish and English citizens.
Or-Coordinated Premodifiers: These have two possible interpretations: either one or both of the features can be applied to a given referent: single or married people. In the same way as and-coordination, or-coordination connects two attributes that are mutually exclusive; only one of them can characterize a given referent, for example: electric or petrol propelled motors.
The most common register for coordinated premodifiers is academic writing. Certain adjective + adjective combinations referring to demographic or institutional characteristics are especially common. In fiction, certain adjectives are common in order to add more descriptive details about the noun: orange and yellow spacecrafts.