This article looks at the Position of Adjectives in a phrase.
In English, unlike many other languages, adjectives generally come before the noun they describe:
{adjective} + {noun}
These are called attributive adjectives.
brown wall
young girl
And so on. We can also put adjectives after a verb. These are called predicative adjectives:
{verb} + {predicative adjective}
The wall is brown.
The girl is young.
Most adjectives can be used in either position, but some adjectives are either attributive or predicative, not both. For example, alone is a predicative adjective; it can only follow a verb:
The girl feels alone.
* She is an alone girl.
* an asterisk shows the sentence is not good English
With the example above if we want to describe the girl we have to use an attributive adjective instead and say:
She is a lonely girl.
Nouns as Adjectives
When we use a noun as an adjective, it is usually attributive only:
{noun as attributive adjective} + {noun}
a table leg
football hooligans
For more on nouns used as adjectives, see Adjectives as Nouns & Vice Versa.
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