な-Adjective + Noun, Describing a noun
Structure
［な］Adjective + な + NounExamples:
静か + な + 夜
元気 + な + 子供
For this example sentence:
それは大切なベンおじさんの言葉です。
I thought because 大切 comes immediately before the noun ベンおじさん , that was the noun it would modify; i.e. “the words of dear uncle Ben”.
But the translation suggests 大切 is actually modifying 言葉 here?
Those are the important words of uncle Ben.
Does that mean a な adjective can modify a noun without being directly attached to the beginning of that noun? I thought to get “important words” you’d need to write the above sentence more like this to get that translation:
それはベンおじさんの大切な言葉です。
Am I missing something?
Hi!
The way I interpret the sentence is that の is acting as a nominalizer, the whole thing ベンおじさんの言葉 behaves like a noun, in other words, the noun in this sentence is “the words of uncle Ben” and that is what is being modified.
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Ahh, ok. I didn’t realize の worked that way. So instead of this…
(大切なベンおじさん)の言葉
It’s closer to this?
大切な(ベンおじさんの言葉)
I’ll have to keep an eye out for that kind of pattern in the future 
Thank you for the reply!
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