Which word does this modify?

Question

“It’s not any old broomstick.” In this sentence, which word does ‘any’ modify, 'is not' or 'broomstick'?

BillJ · Accepted Answer

"Any" is a determiner. It doesn't modify the noun "broomstick", but marks it as indefinite.

BillJ

Eipjoo · Answer

It's a very plain and clear explanation. Thank you.

Enoon · Answer

eipjoo“It’s not any old broomstick.” In this sentence, which word does ‘any’ modify, 'is not' or 'broomstick'?

"Any" is an adjective modifying "broomstick". Sort of.

Your confusion comes from trying to parse a negative copulative sentence with an expletive "it" for a subject and a predicate adjective. You will get as many versions of this grammar as there are grammarians, but essentially, "any" is a predicate adjective that modifies "broomstick" only indirectly, by being equated with "it" by "is". It is the copula that had you thinking adverb.

Eipjoo · Answer

When you said:
“It is the copula that had you thinking adverb,” which is ‘It,’ ‘any’? Then is it not a adjective but a adverb although it modifies a noun?

Enoon · Answer

eipjooWhen you said:“It is the copula that had you thinking adverb,” which is ‘It,’ ‘any’? Then is it not a adjective but a adverb although it modifies a noun?

No. I guess I was unclear. "Any" is not an adverb. Read it again.

A copula is a type of verb, a copulative verb or "linking" verb, which creates an identity between the subject and what comes after it, in this case, removing extra bits, "it is any".

Eipjoo · Answer

Yes. I understand your words. They indicate exactly why I was confused, and also say for getting more exact meanings I need to learn grammar to learn a foreign language. Thank you very much.

BillJ · Answer

enoon"Any" is an adjective modifying "broomstick". Sort of.

Sort of? What kind of answer is that, enoon? Either it's a modifier or it isn't. And it isn't, at least not according to modern grammar and the Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries:

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/any?q=any

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/any_1?q=any

We stopped calling quantificational words like "any" (along with "some", "every", "another, "many", etc) adjectives some years ago. 'Determiner' is universally accepted as a word category (part of speech). You will still find the odd reference to "any" as an adjective in some grammars/dictionaries - the kind that doesn't exactly work like greased lightning when it comes to change.

enoon a negative copulative sentence with an expletive "it" for a subject

An expletive has no real meaning; it is just a dummy pronoun, or placeholder (e.g. "It is raining".). In the OP's example, I'd say that "it" is a pro-form, and thus has a meaning that is interpreted anaphorically from something mentioned earlier in the discourse. For example "Why are you keeping that old broomstick?" - "Ah well, you see, it's not any old broomstick", where "it" clearly refers to "that old broomstick".

enoonYour confusion comes from trying to parse a negative copulative sentence with an expletive "it" for a subject and a predicate adjective.

The fact that it's a negative copular clause needn't cause confusion. I'd say it was a straightforward example of "be" being used in its specifying sense, where there is a relation of identity between the two elements, i.e. the subject "it" and the predicative complement "any old broomstick", where "any" is determiner and "old" is an adjective.

BillJ

RandomGuy · Answer

I agree with you on nearly all points, BillJ, but it is my understanding that a determiner is essentially a noun modifier, yet you say that it isn’t. Why is that?

By the way, both of the dictionaries that you cited indicate that any can also be a pronoun. Your grammar, I presume, would disagree with that, right?

BillJ · Answer

Aspara Gusbut it is my understanding that a determiner is essentially a noun modifier, yet you say that it isn’t. Why is that?

Adjectives are modifiers in that they typically denote properties of persons or objects. Grammar parlance has it that they 'delimit' the meaning of the noun they are a dependent of, which effectively is what 'modify' means. Even in trad grammar, those words that we now call determiners were classed as 'limiting adjectives' as opposed to 'descriptive adjectives' (i.e. modifiers). By contrast, in most cases the indefinite determiners like "any" and the others I mentioned have to do with quantification, not meaning, and hence are not modifiers in the sense just described. To say that the determiner "a" in "I have a new car" is a modifier doesn't really make much sense, not to me anyway.

Aspara GusBy the way, both of the dictionaries that you cited indicate that any can also be a pronoun

Yes, but the examples they give of "any" as a pronoun have different constructions, for example the partitive "You don't know any of my friends" (cf."You don't have any friends".).

BillJ

CalifJim · Answer

Aspara Gusit is my understanding that a determiner is essentially a noun modifier

I know you didn't ask me, but a really simple way to see it is this:

Think of "a red car". You ask, "What kind of car is it?" and you can say "red". "red" changes the meaning of "car" (by making it more specific).
On the other hand, if you ask "What kind of car is it?", you can't say "a". It's not an "a" kind of car.

In that sense "a" can't possibly modify (change the meaning of) "car", even though it "goes with" the noun like modifiers do. Just because a word "goes with" another is not enough reason to say you've got a case of one word modifying the other. At least not anymore. In older grammar books anything that looked like it "went with" a noun was called an adjective and a modifier, blurring all sorts of linguistic phenomena into one.

CJ

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