Grammatical modifier

In linguistics, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure^[1] 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.^[2]

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Hi. Welcome again to www.engvid.com. My name's Adam. Today's lesson is a little bit more advanced. It's actually very useful for native English speakers as well, not only ESL learners. Today we're talking about misplaced modifiers. Now, this is a very important grammar point, plus it's also very, very important for those of you who need to do English writing. Okay? This is a very common mistake that people will see in all kinds of writing. It could be very, very embarrassing sometimes because... You'll understand in a minute why. But I'll show you the different types and we'll figure out a way to fix it as much as we can. So, first of all, what is a "modifier"? A modifier is anything in a sentence, it could be an adjective or an adverb, a clause, a phrase, anything that modifies something else in the sentence. What does "modify" mean? Means to change, change the meaning of, change the idea of. Okay? So, for example: if you say: "A car", you have an idea of a car. You say: "A red car", you have a different idea of the car probably. So "red" modifies "car". Okay, so what we're looking at is misplaced modifiers. We have misplaced modifiers, dangling modifiers, squinting modifiers. Don't worry about the technical words. Worry about what is actually happening here. So I'm going to start with these examples, and we'll look at a few others in a minute. So look at these two sentences: "I call only my mother when I'm sick." "I only call my mother when I'm sick." Now, this word: "only" is the modifier we're looking at. It is very, very often misplaced; people don't realize that this word doesn't necessarily go where it should go half the time. It's amazing how many people misplace it. So what does this sentence mean: "I call only my mother when I'm sick"? It means: when I'm sick, I don't call my friends, I don't call my girlfriend or boyfriend, I don't call my aunt or uncle; only my mother. I'm sick: "Mom, come make me some soup, please." You have to be polite, of course. "I only call my mother when I'm sick." It means: when I'm healthy, I don't call her. I never speak to her, only when I'm sick do I call her. She gets very angry at me, she thinks I'm using her. But according to this sentence, I am, because I only call her when I'm sick. So you understand what this word does to the sentence. Okay? Very, very important where you place it to know which word it's going to modify. The secret about modifiers: place them close to the word you're trying to modify. But that also doesn't always work. "People who whistle quickly become annoying." Now, you're thinking: "This sentence looks okay." The problem is: what does it mean? Is it: "People who whistle quickly, become annoying"? Or: "People who whistle, quickly become annoying"? Which one do you mean? All people who whistle or just people who whistle quickly? I don't think I should whistle, I'll probably blow the mic, but very fast whistling. Right? So, this is called a squinting modifier; you're not sure which word the modifier is going with. How can I fix this? You can probably cut it into two sentences. "I get quickly annoyed by people who whistle." Or: "People who whistle become annoying quickly." Or just change the location or again, just split it into two different sentences, that's another solution. Here's another one, this is called more... This is more of a dangling modifier: "I went to see a movie last night with my friend, which was really boring." Okay, maybe you understand the sentence. I don't. What was boring, the movie or the going out with the friend? This is called a dangling modifier because I don't actually know what it is modifying. I'm not sure what this "which" is, the situation or the movie. So again, to fix it, just bring it closer to the actual thing. I'm going to assume you're talking about the movie. "I went to see a movie last night which was really boring, with my friend." No, that's not a very good way to fix it either. "I went to see a movie which was really boring last night with my friend." That's much better, it's right next to the thing you're modifying. So you want to put this right here, so it modifies the movie itself. Okay? So here're three different examples of misplaced modifiers. Let's look at a few more. Okay, let's look at a few more examples, and eventually, we'll get to some funny ones that you'll understand why it could be embarrassing. First, let's look at these two: "The doctor had to cancel the appointment, but the patient came anyway because he was sick." Okay, makes sense, no problem. It doesn't make sense in terms of the context because if the doctor cancelled the appointment, the patient shouldn't come. But... "The doctor had to cancel the appointment because he was sick, but the patient came anyway." Also okay. Now, technically, both of these sentences are okay. The question is: which do you mean? So this is the modifier. Okay? "Because he was sick". First of all, who was sick, the doctor or the patient? We can assume the patient was sick, but we also want to know why the doctor cancelled the appointment. Okay? So be very, very careful where you place your modifier to make sure that you get across the meaning that you want to get across. Okay? I'm going to assume that this is the correct sentence because I want to know why he cancelled an appointment when he has a patient coming. Okay? So... Next: "Covered in dirt" - this should be a capital, sorry it doesn't look like a capital - "Covered in dirt, I didn't want to eat the apple." Now you're thinking: "Okay, great. No problem. A dirty apple, you don't want to eat it." The only problem is that you're starting your sentence with a participle. When you start a sentence with a participle, the subject of the participle must be the same as the subject of the next clause. Right? So technically, you are covered in dirt, not the apple. "Covered in dirt, I didn't want to eat the apple.", "Oh, I'm so dirty, I don't want to eat this apple." Does that make sense? No, not really. You can eat an apple even if you're dirty. Right? Maybe it'll clean you up a little bit inside. How can I fix this? You can say: "I didn't want to eat the apple that was dirty.", "I didn't want to eat the apple which was dirty." Depending on the situation. Right? Or: "Covered in dirt, the apple didn't seem so appetizing anymore." Just make sure you match your subjects. Okay. "She saw dark rain clouds on the way to the park." So you think: "Oh, yeah, she's going to the park and there're clouds." She's going to get a... Maybe a little bit bummed out. The only problem is she's not on the way to the park, the clouds are on the way to the park because that's the way you placed them. The clouds are going to the park. "Oh wow, have a good time at the park, clouds." Doesn't really work. Right? So you would say: "On the way to the park, she saw dark rain clouds." So I understand that it's she who is on the way to the park. Now, remember: all you have to do is put the modifier next to the thing you're trying to modify. She was on the way to the park, not the rain clouds. I have to admit: I borrowed this last example. I made it up, but I borrowed the idea from Groucho Marx. He said: "Once in the... Once, I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How it got into my pajamas, I have no idea." So that's a funny joke if you understand what he's talking about. So let's look at this one: "Jeremy ran away from the bear in his underwear." You're thinking: "Yeah, bear, I don't care. I'm wearing underwear, I'm still running." Like you're camping, whatever, you come out of your tent in your underwear, there is a bear, you're running. But no, what you said here or what I wrote here anyway is that the bear is wearing the underwear, and Jeremy's running because the bear is wearing the underwear. Maybe he thinks the bear has some strange intentions or something like that. So: "Jeremy ran away from the bear while in his underwear." would make a bit more sense. But then: "While in... While still in his underwear, Jeremy ran away from the bear." That would be the best solution. Okay? So, again, lots of ways to use modifiers, lots of different types of modifiers. Make sure you're putting them as close as possible to the thing you're modifying. This way, you avoid misunderstandings and you avoid very embarrassing sentences that could be. Okay? Again, this needs practice, it needs a little bit of looking very carefully at what you've written. Go to www.engvid.com. There's a quiz there, you can practice this a little bit more. Please check out my channel on YouTube and subscribe to it. And I'll see you again very soon. Bye.

Premodifiers and postmodifiers

Modifiers may come either before or after the modified element (the head), depending on the type of modifier and the rules of syntax for the language in question. A modifier placed before the head is called a premodifier; one placed after the head is called a postmodifier. For example, in land mines, the word land is a premodifier of mines, whereas in the phrase mines in wartime, the phrase in wartime is a postmodifier of mines. A head may have a number of modifiers, and these may include both premodifiers and postmodifiers. For example:

that nice tall man from Canada whom you met

In this noun phrase, man is the head, nice and tall are premodifiers, and from Canada and whom you met are postmodifiers.

Notice that in English, simple adjectives are usually used as premodifiers, with occasional exceptions such as galore (which always appears after the noun, coming from Irish in which most adjectives are postmodifiers) or the adjectives immemorial and martial in the phrases time immemorial and court martial (the latter comes from French, where most adjectives are postmodifiers). Sometimes placement of the adjective after the noun entails a change of meaning: compare a responsible person and the person responsible, or the proper town (the appropriate town) and the town proper (the area of the town as properly defined).

It is possible in English (and other languages) for a modifier to be separated from its head by other modifiers, making the phrase discontinuous, as in The man here whom you bumped into in the street yesterday, where the relative clause who...yesterday is separated from the word it modifies (man) by the modifier here. In some other languages, words other than modifiers may occur in between, this type of situation is especially likely in languages with free word order, and often agreement between the grammatical gender, number or other feature of the modifier and its head is used to indicate the relationship. In English, modifiers may sometimes even be interposed between component words or syllables of the head, such as in split infinitives (to boldly go) or infixation, most commonly expletive infixation (in-fucking-credible).^[3]

Types

Formal types

Two common parts of speech used for modification are adjectives (and adjectival phrases and adjectival clauses), which modify nouns; and adverbs (and adverbial phrases and adverbial clauses), which modify other parts of speech, particularly verbs, adjectives and other adverbs, as well as whole phrases or clauses. Not all adjectives and adverbs are necessarily modifiers, however; an adjective will normally be considered a modifier when used attributively, but not when used predicatively – compare the examples with the adjective red at the start of this article.

Another type of modifier in some languages, including English, is the noun adjunct, which is a noun modifying another noun (or occasionally another part of speech). An example is land in the phrase land mines given above.

Examples of the above types of modifiers, in English, are given below.

It was [a nice house]. (adjective modifying a noun, in a noun phrase)
[The swiftly flowing waters] carried it away. (adjectival phrase, in this case a participial phrase, modifying a noun in a noun phrase)
She's [the woman with the hat]. (adjectival phrase, in this case a prepositional phrase, modifying a noun in a noun phrase)
I saw [the man whom we met yesterday]. (adjectival clause, in this case a relative clause, modifying a noun in a noun phrase)
His desk was in [the faculty office]. (noun adjunct modifying a noun in a noun phrase)
[Put it gently in the drawer]. (adverb in verb phrase)
He was [very gentle]. (adverb in adjective phrase)
She set it down [very gently]. (adverb in adverb phrase)
[Even more] people were there. (adverb modifying a determiner)
It ran [right up the tree]. (adverb modifying a prepositional phrase)
[Only the dog] was saved. (adverb modifying a noun phrase)

In some cases, noun phrases or quantifiers can act as modifiers:

[A few more] workers are needed. (quantifier modifying a determiner)
She's [two inches taller than her sister]. (noun phrase modifying an adjective)

Functional types

Modifiers of all types of forms may be used for certain function with different semantic features. The grammar of a language determines which morpho-syntactic forms are used for which function, as it varies from language to language. The functions of modification can be grouped into five such types:^[2]

Classifying modification further specifies the kind of a referent: e.g. solar energy, departmental meeting.
Qualifying modificiation further specifies some quality of a referent: e.g. black cars, a heavy box.
Quantifying modification specifies the quantity (or number/cardinality) of a referent: e.g. two boxes, several cars.
Localizing (or anchoring) modification specifies the location of a referent: e.g. this car, the house on the corner.
Discourse-referential modification specifies the status of the referent in the discourse universe: e.g. the/a car.

Ambiguous and dangling modifiers

Sometimes it is not clear which element of the sentence a modifier is intended to modify. In many cases this is not important, but in some cases it can lead to genuine ambiguity. For example:

He painted her sitting on the step.

Here the participial phrase sitting on the step may be intended to modify her (meaning that the painting's subject was sitting on the step), or it may be intended to modify the verb phrase painted her or the whole clause he painted her (or just he), meaning in effect that it was the painter who was sitting on the step.

Sometimes the element which the modifier is intended to modify does not in fact appear in the sentence, or is not in an appropriate position to be associated with that modifier. This is often considered a grammatical or stylistic error. For example:

Walking along the road, a vulture loomed overhead.

Here whoever was "walking along the road" is not mentioned in the sentence, so the modifier (walking along the road) has nothing to modify, except a vulture, which is clearly not the intention. Such a case is called a "dangling modifier", or more specifically, in the common case where (as here) the modifier is a participial phrase, a "dangling participle"

References

^ Huddleston, Rodney; Pullum, Geoffrey K. (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-43146-8.
^ ^a ^b Rijkhoff, Jan (2014). "Modification as a propositional act in Functional Discourse Grammar". In de los Ángeles Gómez González, María; de Mendoza Ibáñez, Francisco José Ruiz; Gonzálvez-García, Francisco (eds.). Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 129–150. doi:10.1075/sfsl.68.06rij. ISSN 1385-7916.
^ Melly, Bethanie (2020-11-10). "Infixes - The English grammar rule you don't know you know". STAR UK. Retrieved 2023-02-17.

This page was last edited on 26 September 2023, at 10:19

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