Department of English,

Faculty of Letters and Human sciences,

Mohamed V University,
Rabat.

Semester 3
Groups: C and Education Track
Course: Grammar 3

Prof. Elhassan Souali

esouali@yahoo.com

The Adjective Phrase in English

In the last lecture, we dealt we two major phrases in English, namely the Noun
Phrase (NP) and the Verb Phrase (VP). We dealt with their internal grammatical
structure, analyzing them into their immediate constituents and describing
these constituents in terms of form/category, grammatical function and
grammatical relation. We also covered the major functions of these major
phrasal categories. Today, we shall deal another major phrasal category in
English, namely the Adjective Phrase, identifying and describing its internal
grammatical structure, and also stating its major grammatical functions in
English

I. Definition and examples of AdjP.

Adjective Phrases, like the ones put between brackets in the following
sentences, are phrases that are headed by an Adjective:

1. a. This [very clever] boy is [taller than his brother]

b. He is [quite skillful]
c. She is [afraid of dogs]
d. She is [aware of fer weaknesses]
e. I am [familiar with what you said]
f. She is [more clever than her brother]

Sentence (1a) above contains two adjective phrases, namely "very

clever", which is headed by the adjective "clever" and "taller than her
brother", which is headed by the adjective "taller". Sentence (1b)
contains only one Adjective phrase, namely "very skillful", which is
 headed by the adjective "skillful". Sentence (1c) contains one adjective
phrase, namely "afraid of dogs", whose head is the adjective "afraid". In
sentence (1d), the adjective phrase is "aware of her weaknesses",
headed by the adjective "aware". The adjective phrase in sentence (1e)
is "familiar with what you said", which is headed by the adjective
"familiar". And finally, sentence (1f) contains one adjective phrase,
namely "more clever than her brother", which is headed by the
adjective "clever".

II. The internal structure of the adjective phrase

Adjective phrases in English generally contain the following

constituents:

A. Head of the adjective phrase

The main constituent of an adjective phrase is the head, as is the case

with all phrasal categories. Since we are dealing with adjective phrases,
the head must obviously by an Adjective, since each phrase must have a
head of the same type (N for NP, V for VP, P for PP, ...). For examples,
see (1a-e) above.

What is worth noting here is that adjective phrases may be realized in

English only as single adjectives, given the fact that the Head is the only
constituent of a phrase which must always be realized. Thus, in the
following example, each of the two adjective phrases is realized as a
non-modified adjective:

2) This [AdjP[Adj happy] girl is [AdjP[Adj generous]

In this example, the adjective "happy" is the head of the adjective

phrase "happy", which functions as the premodifier of the Noun "girl".
The other Adjective Phrase in this sentence is "generous", which
consists of one (obligatory) constituent, namely the adjective
"generous", which functions as the head of this Adjective phrase. The
whole Adjective phrase functions as a Subject Complement (See below
for a presentation of the grammatical functions of adjective phrases).

It is also worth pointing out that the number of Adjective Phrases

that we have in a noun phrase or in a sentence depends on the number
of adjective phrases we have in that noun phrase or sentence, since
each Adjective gives us one and only one adjective phrase and each
adjective phrase must have one and only one Adjective head (Actually
 this applies to all phrases). For example, in the following sentence, we
should have five adjective phrases since we have five adjectives:

3) This [quite young] lady and her [honest] and [helpful] and husband
have bought a [very large] car, though they have a [small] garage.

Concerning Adjectives in English, which function as the head of

Adjective phrases, we have dealt with them here as a general word-
level category or part of speech of the English language, namely the
category Adj, which, as we have already mentioned, always functions as
the head of its corresponding adjective phrase, even when it occurs
alone. However, we have not dealt with their different types ( e.g.
attributive vs predicative; gradable vs non-gradable, etc.), also we
haven't dealt with their morphological properties, e.g. with respect to
the kind of inflectional and derivational morphemes different adjectives
may involve in English. However, given the importance of these issues,
and even though you have already dealt with them in Grammar I and
Grammar II, you are still required to read about them in detail, first to
ensure that you have properly understood them, and second to be able
to answer any question about them in the exam. Concerning the
references you should consult, they include the grammar books I
shared with you and any other relevant English grammar book you
may come across.

B. Complements of Adjective

The next constituent (or function) in an English adjective phrase is

called the Complement of Adjective. This is the grammatical function of
any phrasal or clausal constituent that is selected or required by a
specific adjective, as in the following examples (normally this kind of
information is stated in a dictionary, next to adjective that takes a
specific complement):

4) a. He is [fond [of his wife]].

b. He is [afraid [of him]].
c. I am [proud [of her]]
d. I am [certain [that she has not understood your question]].
e. I am [doubtful [whether she has understood your question]]
f. I am [ready [to help him]

All the adjective phrases in sentences in (4a-f)) above contain a head,

namely the adjective, and a complement of this adjective. In sentences
(4a,b, c), the complement of the adjective is a prepositional phrase (PP)
("of his wife" in (4a), " "of him" in (4b), and "of her" in (4c)). In
 sentences (4d,e,f) the adjective phrases contain the adjective, which
functions as the head of the adjective phrase, and a clausal complement
(i.e. a clause functioning as the complement of the adjective selecting
it). Thus, in sentence (4d) the complement of the adjective "certain" is
the that-clause "that she has not understood your question". In
sentence (4e), the clausal complement of the adjective "doubtful" is the
wh-clause "whether she has understood your question"; and in the last
sentence (4f), the clausal complement of the adjective "ready" is the to-
infinitive clause "to help him". It should also be pointed out a
complement is always related to the head selecting it. For example, the
PP complement ("fond of his wife") in sentence (4a) above is
grammatically (and semantically) related to the adjective "fond".

C. Modifiers of Adjective

In addition to the Head (Adj) and its (phrasal or clausal) complement,

an adjective phrase in English may also optionally contain a phrasal or
clausal modifier, as in the following examples:

5) a. Peter is [[quite exceptionally] brave]

b. Mary is [[extremely] [happy]]
c. John is [clever [enough]]
d. John is [fond [of his wife] [in some ways]]
e. She is [so intelligent [that she answered all questions correctly]

Notice that in sentences (5a, b) the adjective phrase contains a head

("brave" in a and "happy" in b) and a premodifier, namely the adverb
phrase "quite" in (5a) and the adverb phrase "extremely in (5b). In
sentence (5c), the adjective phrase contains the head, namely the
adjective "clever" and a postmodifier, namely the adverb phrase
"enough". In sentences (5d), the (postmodifier) of the adjective is the
prepositional phrase "in some ways", whereas the prepositional phrase
"of his wife" is a complement (since it is required by the adjective
selecting it). And in sentence (5e), the adjective phrase "so intelligent
that she answered all questions correctly" contains two modifiers of the
adjective head "intelligent", which are the adverb phrase "so", serving
as the premodifier of the adjective "intelligent" and the that-clause
"that she answered all questions correctly", serving as the postmodifier
of the same adjective ("clever"). Concerning grammatical relation, we
say that a modifier is related to the specific head it modifies. For
example, in sentence (5a) above, the premodifier "quite exceptionally"
is the adjective "brave", which it modifies.
 III. The grammatical functions of the adjective phrase in English

Finally, we need to deal with the major grammatical functions of the

adjective phrase in English, which we can state and illustrate as follows:

a. Premodifier of N:
Ex.: A [very spacious] room
Here, the adjective phrase "very spacious" functions as a (pre-
)modifier of the noun "room". It is therefore related to it.

b. Postmodifier of N:
Ex.: The man [ready to help us]
The adjective phrase "Ready to help you" functions as a (post-
)modifier of the noun "man" . It is therefore related to this noun that
it modifies.

c. Subject complement
Ex. Mary is [taller than her sister]
We call this function "Subject Complement" because the adjective
phrase "taller than her sister" is related to the subject "Mary". Thus
Adjective phrase is therefore related to this subject NP.

d. Object complement
Ex. They consider Mary [very helpful]
Here, the adjective phrase "very helpful" functions as "Object
Complement", being grammatically (and semantically) related to the
direct object "Mary".

Exercises:

Exercise 1: Extract a paragraph from an English text of your choice,

then for each word in this paragraph, identify its category (i.e. part of
speech/word class).

Exercise 2:
Extract ten sentences from an English text of your choice, then for each
sentence, identify all the noun phrases it contains, and for each of these
noun phrases, do the following:
a) Identify its grammatical function in the sentence containing it and the
sentence element to which it is related..

b) Analyze it into its immediate grammatical constituents, stating the

grammatical form of each of these constituents, their grammatical
functions inside the noun phrase containing them and the sentence
element to which they are grammatically related.

Exercise 3:
Extract ten sentences from an English text of your choice, then for each
sentence, identify the verb phrases it contains, and for each of these
verb phrases, do the following:

a) Identify its grammatical function and the sentence element to which it

is related.

b) Analyze it into its immediate grammatical constituents, stating the

grammatical form of each of these constituents, their grammatical
functions inside the verb phrase containing them and the sentence
element to which they are grammatically related.

Exercise 4:

Extract ten sentences containing adjective phrases from an English

text of your choice, then for each sentence, identify the Adjective
phrase(s) it contains, and for each of these adjective phrases, identify
their grammatical function and analyze them into their immediate
constituents, describing these constituents in terms of grammatical
form/category, grammatical function and grammatical relation.

Finally, needless to remind you that you should read and summarize
my written lectures as well as the relevant chapters in the grammar
books I shared with you, both concerning the grammatical constituents
I have already covered and the constituents I will cover in my next
lecture, namely the Adverb Phrase, the Prepositional Phrase, and
clauses in English.

Good luck.

Prof. Elhassan Souali