There are some adjectives that can only be used in one position or the other. For example,
these two sentences are grammatically correct:
✓ She was alone that evening. ['alone‘ = predicative ]
✓ It was a mere scratch. ['mere‘ = attributive]
These sentences, on the other hand, are not correct:
✗ I saw an alone woman. ['alone‘ cannot be used in the attributive position]
✗ The scratch was mere. ['mere‘ cannot be used in the predicative position]