By. Amhar Maulana Arifin
the example Modifier.,.
Abstract
This paper describes the modifier and its use in daily activities. It is important for students to use it in writing an article, composing a good sentence, writing scientific papers and others.
Introduction
Modifier is a word, phrase, or clause that functions as an adjective or adverb to limit or qualify the meaning of another word or word group.
Modifiers that appear before the head are called pre-modifiers. Modifiers that appear after the head are called post-modifiers.
Modifiers can be adjectives, adjective clauses, adverbs, adverb clauses, absolute phrases, infinitive phrases, participle phrases, and prepositional phrases.
In grammar, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure. The removal of the modifier typically doesn’t affect the grammaticality of the sentence.
In English, adverbs and adjectives prototypically function as modifiers, but they also have other functions.
Method
In this paper, we divide the modifier into three part;
- Basic Modifier
1.1 Adjective
Adjective is the part of speech (or word class) that modifies a noun or a pronoun.
In addition to their basic (or positive) forms, most descriptive adjectives have two other forms: comparative and superlative.
Adjective taken from the Latin word, “to add” and “to throw”
The example of adjective:
“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
“Good men are gruff and grumpy, cranky, crabbed, and cross. I am also acerbic, waspish, sour, belligerent, and very occasionally shrewish.”
“He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.”
“All things bright and beautiful,
Most common adjectives form pairs which contrast in terms of meaning: good – bad, wide -narrow, useful – useless, and so on. Many adjectives are derived from other words (especially nouns), and are easy to recognize by their suffixes. Some of the most common adjective suffixes are: -al (as in equal), -ous (as in famous), -ic (as in basic), -y (as in sleepy),-ful (as in beautiful and -less (as in hopeless).”
1.2 Adverb
Adverb is the part of speech (or word class) that is primarily used to modify a verb, adjective, or other adverb. Adverbs can also modify prepositional phrases, subordinate clauses, and complete sentences. Adjective: adverbial.
- Position of Adverb
An adverb that modifies an adjective “quite sad” or another adverb “very carelessly” appears immediately in front of the word it modifies. An adverb that modifies a verb is generally more flexible: it may appear before or after the verb it modifies “softly sang” or “sang softly”, or it may appear at the beginning of the sentence “Softly she sang to the baby”. The position of the adverb may have an effect on the meaning of the sentence.
- Functions of an Adverb
Adverbs typically add information about time (rarely, frequently, tomorrow), manner (slowly, quickly, willingly), or place (here, there, everywhere).
Forms of an Adverb:
Many adverbs (especially adverbs of manner) are formed from adjectives by the addition of the ending -ly (easily, dependably). But many common adverbs (just, still, almost, not) do not end in -ly, and not all words that end in –ly (friendly, neighborly) are adverbs.
The word “adverb” taken From the Latin, “in relation to” + “word”
The example:
- “To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.”
- “War puts its questions stupidly, peace mysteriously.”
- “Life is that which–pressingly, persistently, unfailingly, imperially–interrupts.”
How to distinguish between adverb and adjective? Sometimes the same word can be both an adjective and an adverb. In order to distinguish between them, it is important to look at the context of the word and its function in a sentence.
The fast train from London to Cardiff leaves at three o’clock.
The sprinter took the bend fast.
The bed was hard and gave me a bad night’s sleep.
After faltering, the horses hit the fence hard.
In the first and third sentences, the words fast and hard modify nouns. The first is an attribute adjective, coming before the noun it modifies; the second is a predicable adjective, coming after the verb to be. In the second and fourth sentences, the words fast and hard modify verbs. These are both circumstance adverbs which are in the end position.
The comparative and superlative inflections, -er and -est, combine with adverbs as well as with adjectives, although in a much more limited way. The comparative form of -ly adverbs, usually formed by adding more rather than -er, is fairly common. The superlative degree–most suddenly, most favorably–is rare enough in both speech and writing to have impact when used; it invariably calls attention to itself, and in most cases will have the main focus and main stress of the sentence: The committee was most favorably impressed with the proposal.”
1.3 Prepositional Phrase
Prepositional Phrase is a group of words made up of a preposition, its object, and any of the object’s modifiers.
- “I will not obey the voices in my head.”
- “On the counter near the stove in a silvery pan was a deep-dish berry cobbler.”
- Puzzling Modifier
2.1 Squinting Modifier
Squinting modifier is an ambiguous modifier (usually an adverb, such as only) that appears to qualify the words both before and after it.
A squinting modifier can usually be corrected by changing its position in the sentence.
The example:
- What you hear often you will believe.
- Instructors who cancel classes rarely are reprimanded.
- We agreed at our first meeting to implement the new procedures.
- The governor threatened after his reelection to increase motor vehicle license fees.
- I told Merdine when the game was over I would drive her to the bingo hall.
We can’t accept completely abstract logic is ambiguous. The adverb completely could modify either the verb preceding it or the adjective following it. Such a modifier is sometimes called a squinting modifier–it seems to look in two directions at once. Squinting modifiers can be hard to find when we’re looking over what we’ve written, because we ourselves, of course, know what we mean, and the grammar is not incorrect, just ambiguous. The example could be made unambiguous by making it either We can’t completely accept abstract logic or We can’t accept logic that is completely abstract. For the second meaning, we have to make the sentence more complicated and use a relative clause, because in the original sentence there is no position for completely that will make it unambiguously the modifier of abstract.
2.2 Dagling Modifiers
Dagling Modifier is a word or phrase (commonly a participle or a participial phrase) that modifies a word that does not appear in the sentence.
One way to correct a dangling modifier is to add a noun phrase that the modifier can logically describe. Another way to correct a dangling modifier is to make the modifier part of a dependent clause.
A dangling modifier is a phrase or clause which says something different from what is meant because words are left out. The meaning of the sentence, therefore, is left “dangling.”
Incorrect: While driving on Greenwood Avenue yesterday afternoon, a tree began to fall toward Wendy H’s car.
(It sounds like the tree was driving! This actually appeared in a newspaper article. An alert reader wrote, “Is the Department of Motor Vehicles branching out and issuing licenses to hardwoods? Have they taken leaf of their senses?”)
Adding a word or two makes the sentence clear.
Correct: While Wendy H was driving on Greenwood Avenue yesterday afternoon, a tree began to fall toward her car. Danglers come in many forms. Most often, the problem involves a descriptive phrase at the beginning of a sentence, referring to a noun or pronoun that follows. Here’s the key: that noun or pronoun should come immediately after the descriptive phrase. If not, the description ‘dangles,’ the connection is sloppy or obscure, and the reader may be momentarily confused.
“Once recognized, a writer or editor can easily fix the dangler, and the result is a clearer, sharper sentence.
“WAIT! IT’S A TRICK! That sentence has a classic dangler! The participle phrase ‘once recognized’ doesn’t refer to what immediately follows, ‘a writer or editor.’ One solution: Once recognized, a dangler is usually easy to fix, and the result is a clearer, sharper sentence.”
Dagling modifier also known as: a floater, hanging modifier, floating modifier.
2.3 Misplaced Modifier
Misplaced Modifier is a word, a phrase, or a clause that do not clearly relate to the word or phrase they are intended to modify.
A misplaced modifier can usually be corrected by moving it closer to the word or phrase it should be describing.
The example:
- “Plastic bags are a favorite of grocers because of their price, about 2 cents per bag compared to 5 cents for paper. Used widely since the 1970s, environmentalists now estimate between 500 billion to a trillion bags are produced annually worldwide.”
- “Princess Beatrice, who is starting a history degree at Goldsmiths College, London, later this year, was photographed running in the surf on the island of St Barts with her American boyfriend Dave Clark dressed in a blue bikini last month.”
- Other Modifiers
3.1 Degree Modifiers
Degree modifier is a word (such as very, rather, quite, somewhat, pretty, and too) that can precede adjectives and adverbs to indicate the degree to which they apply.
The degree modifiers are adverbs that normally modify gradable words and answer the question “How?” “How far?” or “How much?”
The example:
- “Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep-burning, unquenchable.”
Degree modifiers also known as: degree adverb, degree adverbial, degree word.
3.2 Resumptive Modifier
A modifier that repeats a key word at the end of a sentence and then adds informative or descriptive details related to that word.
- “For there we loved, and where we love is home, Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts . . ..”
- “The practice of spiritual exercise must begin with desire, the desire that the phenomenal world may become diaphanous and that true Being may shine through.”
To create a resumptive modifier find a key word, usually a noun, then pause after it with a comma, . . . then repeat it, . . . [and then] add a relative clause:
Since mature writers often use resumptive modifiers to extend a sentence, we need a word to name what I am about to do in this sentence, a sentence that I could have ended at that comma, but extended to show how resumptive modifiers work.
3.3 Sub-modifier
An adverb (such as really, very, pretty, or entirely) used in front of an adjective to heighten its meaning.
The Example:
- “Do you really think any country could truly have a civil war? ‘Say, pardon me. [Pantomimes firing a machine gun at someone] I’m awfully sorry. Awfully sorry.'”
- “The buffalo is a surprisingly stupid animal.”
- “It’s like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none.”
Sub-modifier also known as emphasizer.
3.4 Summative Modifier
A modifier (usually a noun phrase) that appears at the end of a sentence and serves to summarize the idea of the main clause.
The example
- “The lane climbs up Hart’s Hill to a view across Berkshire that could have been a frontispiece for Morton’s book–lush, small, irregular fields, black cattle lying in ear-tagged ease, their legs folded, the vegetative green fading with distance into some darker namelessness of colour, patches of woodland, rooks in the air like wheeling black smuts, the light softly diffused, the air somehow afternoon rich and heavy and over-oxygenated, almost cloying–a small-scale, domesticated, inimitable landscape.”
Result
Modifier are devided into basic modifier, puzzling modifier and other modifier that contains of: degree modifier, resumptive modifier, summative modifier, and sub-modifier.
Conclusion
In many source, there are a lot of discussion about the modifier that use the difference method and elaboration. Essentially, modifiers can be adjectives, adjective clauses, adverbs, adverb clauses, absolute phrases, infinitive phrases, participle phrases, and prepositional phrases that limit or qualify the meaning of another word or word group.
References
- Nordquist, Richard, Modifier, http://grammar.about.com/od/mo/g/modterm.htm accessed on February, 26 2012
- Anonymous, The Modifier, http://www.chompchomp.com/terms/modifier.htm accessed on February, 27, 2012
Amhard Insight 