A word or word group, such as an adjective, that is placed adjacent to the noun it modifies without a linking verb; for example, pale in the pale girl.
adj.
1. Grammar Of, relating to, or being an attributive, as an adjective.
2. Of or having the nature of an attribution or attribute.
in*ter*sec*tion*al*i*ty | noun: The theory that the overlap of various social identities, as race, gender, sexuality, and class, contributes to the specific type of systemic oppression and discrimination experienced by an individual (often used attributively): Her paper uses a queer intersectionality approach.
But referential use is made possible by the fact that a definite description can serve a (referential) purpose within a proposition even when the description is (attributively speaking) false.
In the case of the trido?a, we see the first translation of phlegm as tan in the Chen dynasty, and bile remains translated attributively as "hot," re or "yellow," huang throughout.
Donnellan calls the two uses of definite descriptions he has in mind the attributive use and the referential use: a speaker who uses a definite description attributively in an assertion states something about whoever or whatever is the so-and-so; a speaker who uses a definite description referentially in an assertion, on the other hand, uses the description to enable his audience to pick out whom or what he is talking about and states something about that person or thing.
As an agreement suffix attached to an adjective, -im only occurs predicatively, whereas attributively -i'is used with singular and plural reference alike.
The MED data shows that only 26% (40 tokens) of all doubly marked adjectives are used attributively. In this figure, 75% (30 tokens) of adjectives are monosyllabic prior to the addition of the comparative suffix and they are followed by an initially stressed noun.
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