Editing Restrictiveness (section)

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In [[semantics]], a [[grammatical modifier|modifier]] is said to be '''restrictive''' (or ''defining'') if it restricts the [[reference#Semantics|reference]] of its [[head (linguistics)|head]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Slavjano-germanskie jazykovye paralleli/Slawisch-germanische Sprachparallelen|last=Kordić|first=Snježana|publisher=Belorusskij gosudarstvennyj universitet|year=1996|editor1-last=Suprun|editor1-first=Adam|series=Sovmestnyj issledovatel'skij sbornik slavistov universitetov v Minske i Bochume|location=Minsk|page=163|language=de|chapter=Pronomina im Antezendenten und Restriktivität/Nicht-Restriktivität von Relativsätzen im Kroatoserbischen und Deutschen|trans-chapter=Pronouns in antecedents and restrictive/non-restrictive relative clauses in Serbo-Croatian and German|oclc=637166830|mode=cs2|author-link=Snježana Kordić|access-date=24 October 2015|editor2-last=Jachnow|editor2-first=Helmut|chapter-url=http://bib.irb.hr/datoteka/426662.PRONOMINA_IM_ANTEZEDENT.PDF|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130925183731/http://bib.irb.hr/datoteka/426662.PRONOMINA_IM_ANTEZEDENT.PDF|archive-date=25 September 2013|url-status=live}}</ref> For example, in "the red car is fancier than the blue one", ''red'' and ''blue'' are restrictive, because they restrict which cars ''car'' and ''one'' are referring to. ("The car is fancier than the one" would make little sense.) By contrast, in "John's beautiful mother", ''beautiful'' is [[non-restrictive]]; "John's mother" identifies her sufficiently, whereas "beautiful" only serves to add more information.

Restrictive modifiers are also called ''defining'', ''identifying'', ''essential'', or ''necessary''; non-restrictive ones are also called ''non-defining'', ''non-identifying'', ''descriptive'', or ''unnecessary'' (though this last term can be misleading). In certain cases, generally when restrictiveness is marked [[syntax|syntactically]] through the lack of commas,{{Clarify|date=April 2009}} restrictive modifiers are called ''integrated'' and non-restrictive ones are called ''non-integrated'' or ''supplementary''.