16) The adjective. Degrees of comparison. Substantivization of adjectives.

Adjectivization of nouns.

Adjective is a part of speech characterized by the following typical features:

1.The lexico-grammatical meaning of “attributes (of substantives)”. By attributes we

mean different properties of substantives, such as their size, colour, position in space,

material, psychic state of persons, etc.

2.The morphological category of the degrees of comparison.

3.The characteristic combinability with nouns (a beautiful girl), link verbs (…is clever),

adverbs, mostly those of degree (a very clever boy), the so-called “prop word” one

(the grey one).

4.The stem-building affixes –ful, -less, -ish, -ous, -ive, -ic, un-, pre-, in-, etc.

5.Its functions are of an attribute and a predicative complement.

Classification of adjectives. Хаймович и Роговская

With regard to the category of the degrees of comparison adjectives fall under 2 lexico-

grammatical subclasses: comparables and non-comparables.

Most qualitative adjectives build up opposemes of comparison, but some do not:

a. Adjectives that in themselves express the highest degree of a quality: supreme,

extreme

b. Those having the suffix –ish which indicates the degree of quality: reddish, whitish

c. Those denoting qualities which are not compatible with the idea of comparison.:

deaf, dead, lame, perpendicular.

Blokh: All the adjectives are traditionally divided into 2 large subclasses: qualitative

and relative. Relative adjectives express such properties of a substance as are

determined by the direct relation of the substance to some other substance (e.g.

wood – a wooden hut, history – a historical event). Qualitative adjectives denote

various qualities of substances, which admit of a quantitative estimation, i.e. of

establishing their correlative quantitative measure (e.g. a difficult task – a very

difficult task). !!! Substances can possess such qualities as are incompatible with the

idea of degrees of comparison à adjectives denoting these qualities, while belonging

to the qualitative subclasses, are in the ordinary use incapable of forming degrees of

comparison (e.g. extinct, immobile, deaf, final, fixed).

The category of degrees of comparison: Хаймович/Роговская:

The category of the degrees of comparison of adjectives is the system of opposemes

(long – longer – longest) showing qualitative distinctions of qualities.

à ‘positive’, ‘comparative’ and ‘superlative’ degrees.

The positive degree is not marked. We may speak of a zero morpheme. The

comparative and superlative degrees are built up either synthetically (by affixation)

or analytically (with the help of word-morphemes more and most), which depends

mainly on the structure of the stem. The positive degree does not convey the idea of

comparison. Its meaning is absolute. Jespersen: the positive degree is negative in

relation to comparison. The comparative degree and the superlative degree are both

relative in meaning (Peter is older than Mary – Peter is not old).

Substantivization of adjectives. Adjectivization of nouns.

As we know, adjectives display the ability to be easily substantivized by conversion,

i.e. by zero derivation. Blokh:Among the substantivized adjectives there is a set

characterized by hybrid lexico-grammatical features. On analogy of verbids

these words might be called “adjectivids”.

The adjectivids fall into 2 main grammatical subgroups:

1.pluralia tantum (the English, the rich, the unemployed)à sets of people

2.singularia tantum (the invisible, the abstract)à abstract ideas

The opposite phenomenon – adjectivization of nouns – is also widely spread in English.

A noun standing before other noun can modify it. Eg.: speech sound, peace talks.

Here we can refer to the “stone-wall” problem, which has several approaches.

H. Sweet: the first element of the phrase is a noun

O. Jespersen: the first element is an adjective or at least approaches the state of adjective.

Э.П. Шубин: neither a noun, nor an adjective, but a separate part of speech – attributive

noun. Ilyish: a noun in a special syntactical function.