مؤسسة الشرق الأوسط للنشر العلمي
عادةً ما يتم الرد في غضون خمس دقائق
This paper offers an in-depth grammatical examination of the differences between adjectives and relative clauses in English. Although they share the function of modifying noun phrases, they differ fundamentally in structure, composition, function, and patterns of agreement, as well as in their cognitive processing. Drawing on theoretical frameworks including traditional descriptive grammar, generative grammar, functional linguistics, and contemporary psycholinguistic research, the study argues that adjectives function as lexical modifiers, while relative clauses are embedded sentence structures that express hypothetical content. A comparison with Arabic suggests that this separation reflects a shared grammatical architectural feature across languages. The research employs a qualitative theoretical approach that combines structural, functional, and cognitive analysis. The findings support an integrative model of noun modification that rejects the simplification of relative clauses as merely expanded adjectives.