OCG533, Fall 2002
Restrictive vs. nonrestrictive modification
Summary of restrictive vs. nonrestrictive modification
· Holds for adjectival and adverbial modification.
· Synonyms are essential and inessential (nonessential), respectively.
· Restrictive modification narrows or identifies a thing or an act; nonrestrictive modification adds information on a thing or an act that is already fully identified.
· Restrictive and nonrestrictive modifiers can be words, phrases, or clauses.
· Nonrestrictive phrases and clauses are generally set off by commas that can be considered as little “handles” that can be used to lift the words from the sentence without changing its core meaning.
· In noun phrases, premodifiers are significantly less restrictive than postmodifiers.
· In verb phrases, both types of modifies are restrictive unless indicated by commas.
· As a corollary of the last two points, series of unpunctuated postmodifiers are restrictive in verb phrases and noun phrases, while unpunctuated premodifiers in noun phrases are much more nonrestrictive.