A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

120 Chapter 6 Adjectives and adverbs

1.8 Adjectives restricted to attributive or predicative function

Although most adjectives can be used both attributively and predicatively,

there are nevertheless many that are restricted to one or other of these two uses:

[24 ] ATTRIBUTIVE USE PREDICATIVE USE

a. a huUe hole

ii a. utter nonsense

iii a. *the asleep children

b. The hole was huUe.

b. *That nonsense was utter.

b. The children were asleep.

Huge illustrates the default case, where the adjective appears both attributively

and predicatively.

Utter is an exceptional case: an attributive-only adjective, which can't be used

predicatively (as shown in [iib)).

Asleep is the opposite kind of exception, as evident from [iii]; it can occur pred­

icatively but not attributively: it is a never-attributive adjective.

(a) Attributive-only adjectives

NPs containing a sample of other adjectives that are attributive-only are given in [25]:

[25] these damn budget cuts

our future prospects

the only drawback

the putative fa ther

the eventual winner

the main problem

their own fa ult

the sole survivor

(b) Never-attributive adjectives

her former husband

a mere child

the principal advantage

a veritable jungle

Here are some further examples of predicative uses of never-attributive adjectives:

[26] The house was ablaze.

Something was amiss.

It is liable to flood.

The boy seemed afraid.

It was devoid of interest.

The baby looked content.

Restrictions may apply to senses rather than lexemes

The child was alone.

Corruption was rik..

I was utterly bereft.

As with the gradable vs non-gradable distinction, the restrictions often apply just
to certain senses of a lexeme. In [27], for example, it is ONLY IN THE SENSES
ILLUSTRATED that the underlined adjectives in [i] are attributive-only, and those in
[ii] never-attributive:

[2 7] i a certain country

ii I fe el fa int

the late queen

He was Ulad to see her.

Structural restrictions on attributive adjectives

the lawful heir

I'm sorry you missed it.

Attributive AdjPs mostly cannot contain dependents that follow the head. The typi­
cal case is as in [2 8], where the underlined adjective licenses a post-head dependent
(double-underlined), and the AdjP is allowed only predicatively as in the [a] cases,
not attributively as in the [b] cases.