prenominal

Prenominal is a linguistic term describing any modifier that appears before the noun within a noun phrase. It contrasts with postnominal elements, which occur after the noun. The term derives from Latin prae- “before” and nomen “name” (the noun).

In English, the most common prenominal elements are determiners and adjectives. Phrases such as “the red ball” or “two large apples” place the determiner or numeral before the noun, and the adjectives precede the noun as well. When multiple adjectives occur, there is a conventional order, though the overall noun phrase remains prenominal: two large red balloons.

Cross-linguistic variation is common. In many Romance languages, adjectives typically follow the noun, but prenominal placement is possible to convey emphasis or produce certain idioms. The position can change meaning in some languages; for example, French ancien ami versus ami ancien and Spanish gran casa versus casa grande reflect different nuances when adjectives appear before or after the noun.

In linguistics and language technology, prenominal position is a basic descriptor of noun phrase structure. It informs syntactic parsing, morphological agreement, and natural language generation, and helps describe modification patterns across languages.

Related concepts include postnominal modification, the distinction between attributive and predicative adjectives, and determiner placement within noun phrases.