Forms
An adjective phrase may consist of just one adjective, or a single adjective which has been modified or complemented.
Adjectives are usually modified by adverb phrases (adverb in boldface; adjective in italics):
* "... placing himself in a dignified and truly imposing attitude, began to draw from his mouth yard after yard of red tape ..."
* "Families did certainly come, beguiled by representations of impossibly cheap provisions, though the place was in reality very expensive, for every tradesman was a monopolist at heart."
* "... of anger frequent but generally silent, ..."
An adjective phrase can also consist of an adjective followed by a complement, usually a prepositional phrase, or by a "that" clause. Different adjectives require different patterns of complementation (adjective in italics; complement in bold face):
* "... during that brief time I was proud of myself, and I grew to love the heave and roll of the Ghost ..."
* "... her bosom angry at his intrusion, ..."
* "Dr. Drew is especially keen on good congregational singing."
Examples of "that" clause in the adjective phrase (adjective in italics; clause in boldface):
* "Was sure that the shrill voice was that of a man—a Frenchman."
* "The longest day that ever was; so she raves, restless and impatient."
An adjective phrase can combine pre-modification by an adverb phrase and post-modification by a complement, as in (adjective in italics; adverb phrase and complement in boldface):
* "Few people were ever more proud of civic honours than the Thane of Fife."
Attributive and predicative
An adjective phrase is attributive when it modifies a noun or a pronoun (adjective phrase in boldface; noun in italics):
* "Truly selfish genes do arise, in the sense that they reproduce themselves at a cost to the other genes in the genome."
* "Luisa Rosado: a woman proud of being a midwife"
An adjective phrase is predicative when it occurs in the predicate of a sentence (adjective phrase in boldface):
* "No, no, I didn't really think so," returned Dora; "but I am a little tired, and it made me silly for a moment ..."
* "She was ill at ease, and looked more than usually stern and forbidding as she entered the Hales' little drawing room."
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