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GabrielR42 Posted 7 years ago
Grammar

Question about commas and cumulative/coordinate adjectives

Are the adjectives in the following sentence cumulative or coordinate? Should I place a comma between them?

"We sat down to a delicious lunch at the crowded open-air restaurant."

  

Top answer

There are three adjectives in the sentence: delicious, which modifies lunch (and is neither cumulative nor coordinate) crowded, which modifies restaurant open-air, which modifies restaurant In all the years that I studied and majored in English and spent as a writer and editor, I've never heard of adjectives being described as cumulative or coordinate. So I'm guessing that these are new descriptions or are used only when teaching English as a foreign language. Nonetheless, here are my thoughts: they are coordinate adjectives because both modify 'restaurant' and, because they are coordinate adjectives, there should not be a comma between them.

— Red modern 64

  • There are three adjectives in the sentence: delicious, which modifies lunch (and is neither cumulative nor coordinate) crowded, which modifies restaurant open-air, which modifies restaurant In all the years that I studied and majored in English and spent as a writer and editor, I've never heard of adjectives being described as cumulative or coordinate.
  • So I'm guessing that these are new descriptions or are used only when teaching English as a foreign language.
  • Nonetheless, here are my thoughts: they are coordinate adjectives because both modify 'restaurant' and, because they are coordinate adjectives, there should not be a comma between them.
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2 Answers
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There are three adjectives in the sentence:

delicious, which modifies lunch (and is neither cumulative nor coordinate)

crowded, which modifies restaurant

open-air, which modifies restaurant

In all the years that I studied and majored in English and spent as a writer and editor, I've never heard of adjectives being described as cumulative or coordinate. So I'm guessing

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[1] We sat down to a delicious lunch at the crowded open-air restaurant.

[2] We sat down to a delicious lunch at the crowded, open-air restaurant.


It's the comma that distinguishes 'coordination' from the 'stacking" of modifiers (your 'cumulative'), and there is a slight difference in meaning between the two.

The construction in [1] wit

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