Noun Modifiers in
Daughter of Smoke and Bone
by Laini Taylor
Emily Ward
WOU Academic Excellence Showcase
May 30, 2013
Noun Modifiers
Adding words, phrases, or clauses to a noun phrase
in order to describe or specify the head noun
•Adds maturity to the writing
•Directs reader’s attention
•Creates a hierarchy of information
Registers
From most frequent
use of modifiers to
least:
•Academic Writing
•Newspaper
•Fiction
•Conversation
Biber, Conrad, and Leech. (2002). Longman
Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English.
Example from Fiction
Portion of the text with noun modifiers removed:
Two moons. Neither was full. One was a disc, the
other a crescent.
Example from Fiction
Original portion of the text:
Two moons. Neither was full. One was a radiant
half disc high overhead, the other a pale
crescent just rising to clear a crust of mountain.
Premodifiers
•Adjective: her bare feet
•Participle: a narrow, barred niche
•Noun: the dead man’s chest
Postmodifying Clauses
•Relative clause: a gesture Karou couldn’t decipher
•To-infinitive clause: elephants to haul them there
•Ing-clause:
a pale crescent just rising to clear a crust of mountain
•Ed-clause:
lantern suspended from a hook above his head
Postmodifying Phrases
•Prepositional phrase:
the smug smiles of connoisseurs
•Appositive noun phrase:
an entire world, a world with two moons
•Adjective phrase:
a tattooed eye identical to her own
Text Chosen
•2060 words
•Very descriptive scene
•Young Adult Fantasy
•Why did I choose this
passage?
•Vivid writing
•Fiction writer myself
Analysis
•Color-coded
modifiers
•Possessives?
•Determiners
•Second time for this
presentation
Results
•209 noun modifiers
Postmodifers
Premodifiers
Premodifiers
Postmodifiers
•Most common: Premodifying
adjectives (41.6%)
•Second most common:
Postmodifying prepositional
phrases (24%)
•For every 100 words, about
10 modifiers were used
44%
56%
Premodifiers
No.
% of all
modifiers
(approx.)
Adj/Adj.
Phrase
87
41.6%
Participle
17
8.1%
Noun
14
6.7%
Nouns
Participles
Adjectives
Postmodifiers
No.
% of all
modifiers
(approx)
Prep. Phrase
50
24%
Adj/Adj. Phrase
20
9.5%
Rel. Clause
8
3.8%
Ing-clause
6
2.8%
Ed-clause
4
2%
App. Noun Phrase
2
1%
To clause
1
0.5%
Discussion
•Two most common modifiers were not surprising
•High number of postmodifying adjectives and
adjective phrases is rare
•a world apart, complete with its own
mountains, continents, moons
•an iguana-thing so huge it could only be called
a dragon
Discussion
•Vivid choice of words
•Place in fiction
•Common in description, not in dialogue
Conclusion
•As a reader
•Missed the richness of the writing the first time I
read it
•As a writer
•Choosing each word carefully
•Evocative images
Works Cited
•Taylor, Laini. Chapter 17 “World Apart” Daughter
of Smoke & Bone. New York: Little, Brown, 2011.
108-15. Print.
•Biber, Douglas, Susan Conrad, and Geoffrey N.
Leech. Longman Student Grammar of Spoken
and Written English. Harlow, Essex: Longman,
2002. Print.