grammatical modifier
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optional element in phrase structure or clause structure
Wikidata facts
- Subclass of
- sentence constituent
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- has characteristic
- government
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Encyclopedic overview
In linguistics, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure which modifies the meaning of another element in the structure. For instance, the adjective "red" acts as a modifier in the noun phrase "red ball", providing extra details about which particular ball is being referred to. Similarly, the adverb "quickly" acts as a modifier in the verb phrase "run quickly". Modification can be considered a high-level domain of the functions of language, on par with predication and reference.
Premodifiers and postmodifiers
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “grammatical modifier” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.