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261
He was not a man to experiment with acquaintance.
There was nothing in the look of him to show the courage of the man (nothing which could show
courage).
He was the last to tell of this extraordinary raid from the deeper sea (who could tell).
c) This is a problem for you to solve. (which you could/must solve).
10. By (a) adverbs
or (b) adverbial phrases, which characterize a person or non-
person through spatial or temporal characteristics, or through circumstances or facts concerning this person or
non-person.
a) No sounds came from the quarters above.
The then Government did not respond to this just claim.
Somebody appeared on the upstairs balcony.
“I see that woman downstairs has a couple of sailors sitting there.”
An immense effort of imagination was needed to link himself now with himself then.
The most usual position of such attributes is to follow the headword.
b) Most people living in out of the way places expect the latest news from home with impatience.
11. By sentences used as a whole (the so-called “quotation nouns”).
These are used mainly as hyphenated chains before the headword.
She looked at me with a kind of don’t-touch-me-or-I’ll-slap-you air.
It was a ‘You-must-take-us-as-you-find-its’ attitude to things, and it saved me a lot of trouble... In this ‘a-
place-for-everything-and-everything-in-its-place’ kitchen he felt ill at ease.
12. By a clause (then called an attributive clause) which makes the whole sentence a complex one.
Some called me by the name which no one here knew.
The position of attributes
§ 86. The position of an attribute depends on the following:
1. The morphological nature of the attribute. Adjectives, participles, gerunds,
nouns in the common and the possessive cases, pronouns, ordinal numerals, and quotation nouns generally
premodify the headword.
He was a little man, with a thin voice.
Val had just changed out of riding clothes and was on his way to the party.
The apple trees were in blossom.
It’s not always easy to understand a child’s language.
The third attempt gave no result.
His eyes travelled over the landscape at their feet.
Adverbs, statives, cardinal numerals and infinitives are generally postmodifying attributes.
Participles II, statives, and adjectives of verbal origin used as attributes also tend to occupy the position after
the headword.
The people involved were reported to the police.
When we build cities we think about generations unborn.
Adjectives ending in -able, -ible are mostly postpositive as attributes. They often follow a headword