Post-head modifier

Question

Yesterday I encountered with this phrase :

If I play against a player my level, I might have a chance to win.

...then i got confused.
Because I had never seen something like that before.
Dear Aspara Gus said My level is a noun phrase. Its function in a player my level is post-head modifier.
After that i have searched internet to find an appropriate topic or source which cover this kind of post-head modifier.

There is many topic about other kinds of post-head modifier like, prepositional phrases, relative clauses, non-finite clauses but nothing about "modifying NP"".

Would someone please teach me how to make and use this kind of post-head modifier.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

You should be looking for "postmodifiers". See this: http://www.myenglishpages.com/site_php_files/grammar-lesson-possessive-adjectives.php#.UnEQTFOiqM8

Grammarfreak · Answer

MIGIf I play against a player [ of ] my level, I might have a chance to win.

If I am correct, "of " is omitted in the sentence. Without it, "my level " appears to be a noun phrase. However, the underlined is a preposition phrase, which otherwise is known as an adverbial phrase. Perhaps in spoken English, "of" may be omitted as this could be the case.

MIG · Answer

Hi grammarfreak.

If I am correct, "of " is omitted in the sentence

That was my first guess, but I was wrong.

Dear Anonymous

.
Thank you but that link is not what I want.

Anonymous · Answer

grammarfreak MIGIf I play against a player [ of ] my level, I might have a chance to win.If I am correct, "of " is omitted in the sentence. Without it, "my level " appears to be a noun phrase. However, the underlined is a preposition phrase, which otherwise is known as an adverbial phrase. Perhaps in spoken English, "of" may be omitted as this could be the case.

You can be sure of the omission, if indeed there is any. It could be "who is", the relative.

Grammarfreak · Answer

May I ask how you determined that is was wrong. " If I play with someone [ ] I have a good chance to win.
If one analyzes the sentence from a linguistic angle, without the missing words in the bracket. the sentence makes little sense. In the OP, "my level " is clearly a noun phrase which by rules cannot be a modifier as described by this website.

Modifiers can be adjectives, adjective clauses, adverbs, adverb clauses,absolute phrases, infinitive phrases, participle phrases, and prepositional phrases. The sentence above contains at least one example of each:

Therefore the only logical approach to the OP sentence is that an adverbial phrase of some sort is required. Here are a couple of examples that may fill the bracket and still make sense:

With less experience- prep phrase

Younger - adjective

RandomGuy · Answer

MIGIf I play against a player my level, I might have a chance to win....then i got confused.Because I had never seen something like that before.

That's probably because only a very limited number of nouns occur in non-appositive noun phrases, such as a woman my age, someone your own size, a rug this color. I can't even think of any more examples, really. In most cases, noun phrase modifiers are appositives (They invited my wife Lucy), which occur much more freely. These are distinguished from the non-appositive ones by their ability to stand alone in place of the whole NP: instead of They invited my wife Lucy we could have simply They invited Lucy.

MIG · Answer

Thank you Aspara Gus and  Grammarfreak.<img class='emoticon' style='Width:19px;Height:19px;' data-delaysrc='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' src='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' alt='Emotion: smile'/>

Post-head modifier

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions