Modification: the essentials

modified

One dictionary definition of modify is:

to change something ... usually to improve it or make it more acceptable
Proctor, P (Ed.), 1995, Cambridge International Dictionary of English, Cambridge: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge

That's almost good enough for our purposes but in the analysis of language, the term is used in a slightly more technical sense. Modification involves altering or adding to the meaning of an element of the language to make it fuller, more acceptable or more accurate. It is an alteration to form which results in an alteration to the meaning of what we say.

This is an essential guide. For more detail, use the in-service guides, linked from the syntax index.
There is also an overview of modification which you can access here.
Both links open in new tabs.

The two main categories of modification

Here's an example of an unmodified sentence in English:
A man went

While we understand the meaning of that, it tells us very little about any of the elements of the clause. We don't know which man, or where, when or how he went. We do know that the going happened before now and that the person who went is a single, male adult and that's about it. In fact, the noun is modified by the indefinite article, a, but that is a quirk of English grammar which does not tell us much more about the man except that he is not (probably) known to the hearer or the speaker.

Here's the same sentence in which the elements are modified to provide the information a hearer needs to make much sense of it:

That young man in a red jacket quickly went to the window when he heard the crash
That young man in a red jacket quickly went to the window when he heard the crash

The sentence is repeated here to show the two fundamental kinds of modification.
In the first, the modifiers are highlighted in red and in the second the modifiers are highlighted in black.

The two main categories of modification are:

Pre-modification:
1. The word that, a demonstrative determiner in the jargon, tells us which man and also indicates that he is not near us now. If we say this young man, we would imply that he is here with us.
2. The word young, a gradable adjective, tells us something more about the man.
3. The word red, a usually ungradable adjective, provides the identifying characteristic of the jacket.
4. The words a and the are articles, a kind of determiner:
  1. The first, a, is an indefinite article and tells us that the jacket is not known to the hearer. If we say in the red jacket, that would imply that the jacket has been seen or referred to before by both the speaker and the hearer.
  2. The second, the, is the definite article and implies strongly that the fact of the crash is already known to the hearer and the speaker knows this. It is not new information. It also occurs in the window and suggests that there was only one window in question (or, indeed, that there was only one window in the room).
5. The word quickly, a gradable adverb, tells us the manner of the man's going. It could come after the verb, went quickly, and would then fall into the next category although the meaning would not change.
Post-modification:
1. The words in a red jacket, a prepositional phrase, allow us further to identify the man.
2. The words to the window, another prepositional phrase, tell us the direction and destination of the going.
3. The words when he heard the crash form a subordinate clause and tell us two things:
  1. when the man went to the window and
  2. why he went to the window (probably)

There are still some elements of the sentence that remain unmodified or which could be further modified. For example:

We could add an adjective to the noun crash and have:
a terrible / loud / sudden crash
etc.
We could post-modify the noun, crash, too, and have:
a crash in the street / outside the house
etc.
We could pre-modify and post-modify the noun window and have:
the open window by the door / the corner window near the bookcase
etc.
We can add prepositional phrases, adverbs and adjectives indefinitely to the other elements, too, and have:
the red leather jacket with brass buttons
quickly and determinedly went across the crowded living room
etc.

In theory at least that is no limit to the amount of modification we can use to elaborate the sentence. In practice, naturally, modification is limited to the amount the hearer or reader can readily understand and the important information we want to convey.

What do we modify and how do we do it?

In order for you to understand what follows, we need to do a little phrase analysis.

A phrase in language analysis refers to an element of a clause or sentence which performs a recognisable grammatical function. It can be a single word or a group of words.
Here is how:

The sentence:	My	father	carefully	drove	the	recently	repaired	car	into	the	garage
The word classes:	possessive determiner	noun	adverb	verb	definite article	adverb	adjective	noun	preposition	definite article	noun
The phrases:	noun phrase		verb phrase		noun phrase				prepositional phrase

To explain:

The top row contains the sentence, broken down into the eleven words that make it up
The second row identifies the classes of the eleven words
The third row groups the words into the 4 main phrases that make up the sentence. We could include a fifth phrase, the adjectival phrase recently repaired but it is embedded in the second noun phrase. The adverb phrase, carefully, is also embedded in the verb phrase and technically not part of it.

Even in a sentence with no modification such as:
Birds have wings
we still have a noun phrase (birds), a verb phrase (have) and another noun phrase (wings).
For the purposes of analysing modification, it is not necessary to distinguish between a constituent of the sentence made up of a single word or one made up of multiple words. They are phrases in both cases.
So, for example, when we say that the noun phrase father is pre-modified by the possessive determiner my to become the noun phrase my father, we are simply stating something true about the phenomenon, not making a distinction between a word and a phrase.

In our example, the following are the grammatical functions of each phrase:

My father: the subject noun phrase
carefully drove: the transitive (i.e., taking an object) verb phrase with a pre-modifying adverb phrase, carefully. The adverb is not, technically speaking, part of the verb phrase.
recently repaired: an adjective phrase which is part of the next noun phrase (and the adverb phrase, recently, is embedded in the adjective phrase)
the recently repaired car: the object noun phrase which includes the adjective phrase
into the garage: the prepositional phrase post-modifying the verb phrase (it is, in the jargon, an adverbial, not an adverb)

The following concerns, in outline only, how we can modify each of these main constituents of a sentence.

	Modifying noun phrases
the old man in the hat with the fishing rod

You may see noun modifiers referred to as qualifiers and, although there is a technical difference and grammarians vary in how the analysis is done, that does not matter for our purposes.

When we modify noun phrases, we are usually concerned with identifying which (or what), the characteristics of the noun, and where the noun is. Here are some examples of both:

determiners (telling us which):
    that man
    the man
    some men
    one man
etc.
In English determiners almost always precede the noun. Other languages do things differently.
adjectives and adjective phrases (telling us about the characteristics):
    old man
    tired man
    very old man
etc.
In English, adjective phrases can precede the noun (as above) in which case, they are referred to as attributive. They can, however, also follow the noun and be linked to it with a verb such as be, seem, look, grow, become etc. In this case the adjective use is described as predicative. For example:
    The man was old
    The man looked tired
    He seemed very old
A few adjectives can follow the noun but they are still attributive uses because no linking verb is needed. For example:
    The people concerned
    The President elect
etc.
prepositional phrases (telling us where or what):
    the man with the fishing rod
    the man in the silly hat
    an old man on his own
    the man in the boat
    the house on the corner
etc.
In English, prepositional phrases almost always follow the noun phrase they modify.

These are simple examples but it is possible to get more complicated (at least, it looks that way) although the type of modification is, in principle, the same. For example:

The six men
with two determiners giving different information to identify men
The extremely tired and deeply unhappy people
with a complex adjective phrase modifying the noun
The man in the corner in the red coat with the dog
with three prepositional phrases telling us where, wearing what and with what.

In English, determiners and most adjectives come before the noun (i.e., they are pre-modifiers, in English) and prepositional phrases follow the noun or the verb (i.e., they are post-modifiers).
Other languages do things differently.

	Modifying verb phrases
quietly thinking carefully about a move

Anything that modifies a verb or verb phrase is, by definition an adverbial. Some are adverbs, all are adverbials.
When we modify verb phrases to make more complex phrases, we are usually concerned with one of the following:

Where the state or event takes place:
The two guys playing chess in the park (a prepositional phrase post-modifier)
The girl waiting outside (an adverb post-modifier)
How the event happens:
    She was thinking deeply (an adverb post-modifier)
    They were playing with great skill (a prepositional phrase post-modifier)
    Mistakenly driving into the water (an adverb pre-modifier)
When the action occurs
    The team playing yesterday lost all their games (an adverb post-modifier)
    Frequently losing my keys is something I am trying to avoid (a frequency adverb pre-modifier)
    Winning at the moment is the Mercedes driver (a prepositional phrase post-modifier)
The extent of the action:
The children were playing for hours (a prepositional phrase post-modifier)
The children were continually playing in the garden (an adverb pre-modifier with a prepositional phrase adverbial post modifier)

That is not the end of the possible ways of pre- and post-modifying verb phrases but this is an essential guide. For more, consult the in-service guides to the area.

	Modifying adjectives to make adjective phrases
an extremely ancient site

The usual way to modify an adjective is by inserting a pre-modifying adverb. These can amplify the meaning of the adjective, make it less strong or emphasise it. For example:

It is extremely ancient (an amplifier)
It is fairly old (a downtoner)
It is obviously old (an emphasiser)

We can also use some prepositional phrase post-modifiers to achieve a similar effect. For example:

It is ancient in some areas (diminishing or limiting the adjective)
It is old by all accounts (limiting the adjective)
It is old in general (making the adjective approximate)

	Modifying adverbs to make adverb phases
He explained extremely clearly

Just as we can amplify the strength of an adjective, we can do the same to an adverb and it is possible to amplify, emphasise and tone down the meaning. For example:

They arrived terribly late (emphasising)
It is very well made (amplifying)
She danced fantastically enthusiastically (amplifying)
He worked slightly carelessly (downtoning)

Modifying prepositional phrases

Prepositional phrases can be modified with adverbial phrases. The modification always precedes the phrase.
Prepositional phrases of time and place are most commonly (i.e., not solely) the ones we can modify.
The modifiers are adverbials and serve to amplify or tone down the phrase.
For example:

His explanation went completely over my head.
They were very nearly on time.
The bullet went clean through the window.
It's almost directly opposite the station.
The meeting started shortly after 6 o'clock.
The man spoke purely in his own interests.
That's a comment very much out of order here.
We looked all over the town for a replacement.
My house is right behind the school.
Wholly in my opinion, this is the wrong way to proceed.

For more, see the guide to prepositional phrases linked from the index below.

Try a short matching test.

For more, try
the in-service syntax index	which contains links to guides to various kinds of modification and much else
modification overview	this is the guide in the in-service section which introduces the area

Modification: the essentials

The two main categories of modification

What do we modify and how do we do it?

Modifying noun phrases

Modifying verb phrases

Modifying adjectives to make adjective phrases

Modifying adverbs to make adverb phases

Modifying prepositional phrases