The Attribute. Types of attribute. The attribute and the adverbial modifier

The attribute is a secondary part of the sentence modifying a part of the sentence expressed by a noun, a substantivized pronoun, a cardinal numeral, and any substantivized word, and characterizing the thing named by these words as to its quality or property.

The attribute can either precede or follow the noun it modifies. Accordingly we use terms prepositive and postpositive attribute. The position of an attribute with respect to its head-word depends partly on the morphological peculiarities of the attribute itself, and partly on stylistic factors.

The size of the prepositive attributive phrase can be large in ME. Whatever is included between the article and the noun, is apprehended as an attribute.

The qualificative relationship can be actualised by the attributive bond. The paradigm of these linguistic means is rather manifold. We find here:

1)adjectives: the new house; a valuable thing;

2)nouns in the Possessive Case: my brother's book;

3)noun-adjunct groups (N + N): world peace, spring time;

4)prepositional noun-groups: the daughter of my friend;

5)pronouns (possessive, demonstrative, indefinite): my joy, such flowers, every morning, a friend of his, little time;

6)infinitives and infinitival groups: an example to follow, a thing to do;

7)gerunds and participles: (a) walking distance, swimming suit;

(b) a smiling face, a singing bird;

8)numerals: two friends, the first task;

9)words of the category of state: faces alight with happiness;

10) idiomatic phrases: a love of a child, a jewel of a nature, etc.

If an adjective is modified by several adverbs the latter are generally placed as follows: adverbs of degree and qualitative adverbs stand first and next come modal adverbs, adverbs denoting purpose, time and place, e. g.:

usually intentionally very active

politically and socially

It comes quite natural that the collocability of adverbs with adjectives is conditioned by the semantic peculiarities of both. Some adverbs of degree, for instance, are freely employed with all qualitative adjectives (absolutely, almost, extremely, quite, etc.), others are contextually restricted in their use. Thus, for instance, the adverb seriously will generally modify adjectives denoting physical or mental state, the adverb vaguely (—not clearly expressed) goes patterning with adjectives associated with physical or mental perception.

The parentheses. Its relation to the main body of the sentence.

Besides the direct address, there are other syntactical elements which are usually said to be outside the sentence. Until recently, they used to be all taken together under the name of parenthesis. This term would then, cover a considerable variety of syntactical elements.

The Academy's Grammar deviated from the usual view and introduced a new category, that of insertions, as distinct from parentheses. According to this grammar, a parenthesis should be defined as follows: words and phrases which have no syntactical ties with the sentence, and express the speaker’s attitude towards what he says, a general assessment of the statement, or an indication of its sources, its connection with other statements, or with a wider context in speech.

In a vast majority of cases, a parenthesis refers to the sentence or clause as a whole. Sometimes, however, it refers only to a secondary part of the sentence.

Parentheses are described as having no syntactical connection with the sentence.

Parentheses are rather close to adverbial modifiers in their relation to the rest of the sentence. They are a part of the sentence and so they cannot be said to have no connection at all with it.

A parenthesis can also be at the beginning or at the end of a sentence, is an important point of grammatical difference between the two.

Loose Parentheses

Besides those parentheses which consist of one word or of a short phrase and are not separated from the main body of the sentence either in speech or in writing (e. g. perhaps, probably, no doubt, etc.), there are also parentheses consisting of a larger number of words and necessarily separated from the main body of the sentence. Their semantic relation to the sentence is basically the same as with parentheses of the first kind. A few examples will be enough to illustrate the point: They know already, to be sure, and everybody knows of our disgrace. At all events, I've got as far as that. Extensive loose parentheses do not appear to be frequent in modern texts.