Modifiers are extensions at the end of a sentence. They can often replace relative clauses and simplify complex relationships.
He finally faced his biggest fear that had plagued him since he joined the team.
→ He finally faced his biggest fear, a fear that had plagued him since he joined the team.
Here, we emphasize fear by repeating it.Here are three useful kinds of modifiers
Like the "fear" example, resumptives take an object at the end of a sentence and replace it.
This would be easier in a more flexible language, a language that is dynamically typed.
Longer, and doubled:
The Swiss watchmakers' failure to capitalize on the invention of the digital timepiece was both astonishing and alarming — astonishing in that the Swiss had, since the beginnings of the industrial revolution in Europe, been among the first to capitalize on technical innovations, alarming in that a tremendous industrial potential had been lost to their chief competitors, the watchmakers of Japan.
Summary modifiers summarize the object.
This would be easier in Python, a language that is dynamically typed.
Here language summarizes the meaning of python. But the summary could expand meaning considerably considerably:At 2342 UTC +1, we lost power in the middle of a database migration, a rare combination of events that led to an extended period of data unavailability.
Free modifers refer again to the sentence's subject. In my example, all three modifiers refer to the subject, Da Vinci.They could be ing present participles, emphasizing activity.
Da Vinci was a curious man, studying everything in site
Or past participles, emphasizing a permanent state
Da Vinci studied everything in sight, driven by a ceaseless curiosity.
Or adjectives, simply adding a comment about the subject:
Da Vinci studied everything, happy he didn't have to work a normal job.
The defensive coaches taught risk-taking, ball-hawking, and perpetual movement, which bewildered the opposition and resulted in many bad passes, steals, and easy fastbreak baskets.
Donald Knuth wrote The Art of Programming. It's a very large book about algorithms.
I've never written in C, which is a low-level language suitable for embedded systems.
I want to live in Norway, where healthcare is free and high quality for everyone.