The attribute is a secondary part of the sentence which denotes the quality of a person or thing expressed by a noun (or pronoun) in any of its function in the sentence.
An attribute may be expressed by:
- An adjective:
- an adjective used as an attribute usually precedes the head-noun.
E.g. A little, round clock ticked solemnly.
- an adjective with suffixes –able, –ible derived from verbs are placed in post-position (owing to the predicative character)
E.g. It is the only thing notable.
NOTE: the adjective possible (which isn’t derived from the verb has the same predicative force: It’s the only situation possible)
- an adjective used as an attribute to a pronoun
E.g. I’d like to have something interesting to read.
- an adjective which has the prefix a-, such as alive, awake, asleep, afraid follows the head-noun
E.g. I’m the most happy man alive.
- A participle. Then it may stand before the head-noun, but usually is placed in the post-position in the function of detached attribute:
E.g. I see trees laden with ripening fruit.
- A pronoun. Then it is placed before the head-noun which it modifies:
E.g. Her face was close to the window pane.
- A numeral:
E.g. Two or three days went by.
- A noun in the possessive case. The it precedes the head-noun it modifies:
E.g. There were no words for Caleb’s emotion.
- An adjectived noun:
E.g. It was a delicious winter night.
- A noun (or a pronoun) with a preposition (a prepositional phrase), which usually follows the head-noun it modifies:
E.g. The bough of an apple-tree below the window was broken.
- An attributive group of words ( usu. precedes the noun it modifies):
E.g. John was of the look-before-you-leap, the think-before-you-speak sort.
- An infinitive. Then it follows the head-noun:
E.g. There’s only one thing to be done.
- A gerund with a preposition, which follows the head-noun:
E.g. The pleasure of seeing her again was intensified extraordinary by the welcome in his eyes.
- An adverb, which follows the head-noun:
E.g. There came the sound of a motor-car in the little street below.
- A Complex Attribute (i.e. an infinitival/a gerundial complex or a complex introduced by the preposition with):
E.g. He spread a rug for his wife to sit on.
The Apposition
The apposition is a special kind of attribute expressed by a noun (sometimes a pronoun), which denotes the same person or thing as the head-noun.
There are two kinds of appositions: a detached (loose) apposition and an undetached (close) apposition.
- a detached (loose) apposition (обособленное приложение) follows the head-noun in a rather loose connection and has the farce of a descriptive attribute. It may modify a common noun, a proper noun and sometimes a pronoun:
E.g. All over the wall below his window white jessamine was in flower – stars, not only in the sky. (Galsworthy)
E.g. She was dressed in grey, the colour of pigeon’s feathers. (Galsworthy)
E.g. An aeroplane droned its way over the north, a high, silvery, noisy shape. (Galsworthy)
E.g. Below the window the river in spring flood rushed down the valley, a stream of molten bronze. (Galsworthy)
- an undetached (close) apposition (необособленное приложение) enters into such close relation with its head-noun that they form a group with one stress. The head-noun is often a proper noun, the name of a person. Then the apposition denotes a rank, profession, relationship, etc.
The undetached/close apposition precedes the head-noun (e.g. Aunt Augusta, Colonel Green, Doctor Manson, etc.), except in some phraseological combinations where the apposition follows the head-noun: e.g. William the Conqueror, Richard the Lion Heart, etc. then the stress is on the head-noun.
In geographical names the apposition follows the head-noun and the stress is on the apposition: The River Thames, Lake Leman, Mount Everest, etc. A special case present those instances when the head-noun – a common noun such as city, town, isle, lake, straits, etc. – is followed by an apposition – a geographical proper name – preceded by the preposition of: the City of London, the isle of Man, the Straits of Dover.