In linguistics, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure which modifies the meaning of another element in the structure. For instance, the adjective "red" acts as a modifier in the noun phrase "red ball", providing extra details about which particular ball is being referred to. Similarly, the adverb "quickly" acts as a modifier in the verb phrase "run quickly". Modification can be considered a high-level domain of the functions of language, on par with predication and reference.
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Modifier (linguistics) in the context of Analytic language
An analytic language is a type of natural language that uses affixes very rarely but in which a series of root/stem words is accompanied by prepositions, postpositions, particles, and modifiers. This is opposed to synthetic languages, which synthesize many concepts into a single word, using affixes regularly.
Syntactic roles are assigned to words primarily by word order. For example, by changing the individual words in the Latin phrase "fēl-is pisc-em cēpit" ("the cat caught the fish") to "fēl-em pisc-is cēpit" ("the fish caught the cat"), the fish becomes the subject, while the cat becomes the object. This transformation is not possible in an analytic language without altering the word order. Typically, analytic languages have a low morpheme-per-word ratio, especially with respect to inflectional morphemes.