The 2 Syntactic Categories of Adjectives: Attributive and Predicative

The 2 Syntactic Categories of Adjectives

Attributive Adjectives

Attributive adjectives usually appear directly before the nouns or pronouns they describe or modify.

Example:

"The red dress fits Atina perfectly."

The word “red” is a color and an adjective describing the noun “dress”.

It is also possible to say:

"The beautiful dress fits Atina perfectly."

"The long dress fits Atina perfectly."

“Beautiful” and “long” are also adjectives describing the dress.

Notice that red, beautiful, and long all appear before the nouns they describe. This is why they are called attributive.

Any adjective appearing before the noun or pronoun it describes is an attributive adjective.

Attributive adjectives also appear after indefinite pronouns such as someone, anyone, nobody, and somebody.

Examples:

"Anybody good at math should join the competition."

"We should give this shirt to somebody tall."

Here, the adjectives “good” and “tall” directly follow the indefinite pronouns “anybody” and “somebody” without any linking verb in between.

Any adjective that appears before the noun or pronoun it describes, or appears after without a linking verb, is an attributive adjective.

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Predicative Adjectives

Predicative adjectives always appear after the noun or pronoun they describe, connected by a linking verb.

Examples:

"Kyle is tall."

"These students are smart."

"Cherry blossoms are fantastic."

The words “Kyle”, “students”, and “Cherry blossoms” are nouns. They are described by the adjectives “tall”, “smart”, and “fantastic”, connected with the linking verbs “is” and “are”.

Any adjective appearing after the noun or pronoun it describes, with a linking verb in between, is a predicative adjective.