Adjectives (Adj) and Adjective Phrases (AdjP); Determiners (D) and Determiner Phrases (DP)

This chapter discusses adjectives and adjective phrases, and determiners and determiner phrases. Adjectives are content words that, in form, may be gradable (e.g. big , bigger , biggest ) or non-gradable (e.g. main ). Non-White Mainstream English varieties often regularize irregular forms (e.g. baddest ). An adjective functions as the head of an adjective phrase, which may include a pre-modifying adverb phrase and/or a post-modifying adverbial prepositional phrase. An adjective phrase may function as a modifier of a noun or a complement of a verb. As a modifier of a noun, an adjective phrase tells which or what kind of and is placed immediately before the noun. Determiners are a closed class of function words that function only as specifiers of nouns and appear only at the beginning of a noun phrase. A determiner phrase may comprise one or more determiners, the most common being the . Like adjectives, determiners provide information about the noun, marking specificity, possession, quantity, or precedence. Unlike adjectives, determiners are rarely gradable; are rarely modified by an intensifying adverb; and are not modifiers because they are not always optional. A noun phrase with the possessive suffix ’s becomes a determiner. In several varieties, them is used as a determiner (e.g. them books ).