Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 389):
The basis of the subcategorisation, of course, shifts as we move to the left: ‘what type of ...?’, ‘what quality of ...?’, ‘how many ...?’ and so on – this is the principle underlying the experiential structure. Here, however, we are not concerned with the differences but with the similarities: with the general relationship that runs throughout the pre-Head modification of the nominal group, whatever the experiential function of the individual elements.