A practical english grammar - Vyssaja skola 1978
Chapter 16 - Modification of adjectives
Sound symbols
We have already discussed the modification of adjectives by intensifiers. (See Chapter 15.)
Another device for modifying adjectives is to put in front of the adjective a word (noun, ing-form, other adjective) that suggests a degree of meaning or aspect in which the adjective is to be understood. Many such expressions are idiomatic.
boiling (sizzling, burning) hot wide open
red hot, white hot ice cold
stone cold pitch dark
razor sharp
This usage is quite common with colors:
sky blue
lemon yellow
deep blue
dark green
Infinitives and clauses with adjectives. We saw in Chapter 10 how infinitives and clauses are used with adjectives (and other noun modifiers) in the predicate.
He’s happy to be back.
I’m glad that I can help you.
They are ashamed to be late.
In addition, these same expressions can be followed by prepositional phrases, with nouns or ing-forms in them. The choice of preposition is often idiomatic.
happy about that afraid of falling
glad of your good fortune white with rage ashamed of having done that alive with mosquitoes proud of his achievement
If an adjective names an attribute of someone’s character (virtue or fault), of, followed by a noun or pronoun naming the person, is used.
That’s very kind of you.
It was nice of your mother to invite us.
It was very foolish of Charles to spend all his money.
Adjective modifier separated by intervening noun. A phrase limiting or specifying the meaning of an adjective may occur with a noun separating it from the adjective.
a fine day for a picnic
the next man to come
a hard man to convince
a good knife for carving meat
Adjectives of measurement. Adjectives naming qualities that are measured (high, tall, wide, deep, etc.) are regularly modified by noun phrases just before them that state a number of units of measurement.
one hundred feet high
six feet tall
fifty yards wide
one thousand feet deep
The questions to which these expressions are the answers are made with how?: how high? how tall? how wide? etc.
When these expressions are used next to their noun (not after a linking verb) they follow the noun:
a man six feet tall but: a tall man
a river thirty feet deep a deep river
The adjective heavy is not used in this way:
How heavy is that box?
It weighs fifty pounds.
It is very heavy.