What rule of English is violated in the following example?
What rule of English is violated in the following example?
"Today's race featured two, difficult climbs."
As a native English speaker, I know that the previous sentence should read "today's race featured two difficult climbs," excluding the comma. However, I cannot satisfy my urge to explain why the example in question is incorrect. After-all, in English we use a comma to separate two adjectives modifying the same noun as in ". . . long, difficult climbs," and "two" is an adjective.
It seems we don't consider cardinal adjectives to be a part of the list of adjectives modifying the noun . . . why not?
Top answer
Today's race featured two, difficult climbs . "Two" is not an adjective but a determinative functioning as a determiner, and "difficult" is an adjective modifying "climbs". There is no reason to separate with a comma the determiner and the noun phrase that it determines.
- Today's race featured two, difficult climbs .
- "Two" is not an adjective but a determinative functioning as a determiner, and "difficult" is an adjective modifying "climbs".
- There is no reason to separate with a comma the determiner and the noun phrase that it determines.
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Today's race featured two, difficult climbs.
"Two" is not an adjective but a determinative functioning as a determiner, and "difficult" is an adjective modifying "climbs".
There is no reason to separate with a comma the determiner and the noun phrase that it determines.
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