- •1. Parts of speech: its classification.
- •2. The noun (or substantive).
- •1. Definition and origin
- •2. Number and meaning of articles
- •3. Functions
- •1. The definition and morphological composition
- •2. Classification of adjectives according to their meaning
- •3. Grammatical categories
- •4. Order of the adjectives
- •6. Function in the sentence
- •7. Substantivized adjectives
- •2. Regular and irregular verbs
- •3. Semantic classifications of the verb
- •4. Grammatical categories
- •1. Definition and function
- •2. Classification of adverbs
- •3. Morphological category
- •4. Verbs and adverb groups
- •Definition
- •2. Morphological composition and categorical characteristics
- •1. Phrase and clause
- •2. Types of phrases
- •1. Sentence: clauses: utterances
- •2. Definition of a sentence
- •It as the subject of the sentence.
- •The secondary parts of the sentence The object
- •The attribute
- •Semantic classes of adverbial modifiers:
- •1. Direct word order
- •2. Inverted word order
- •1. The compound sentence
- •2. The complex sentence
1. The definition and morphological composition
The adjective is a word expressing a quality of a substance [Каушанская, 2006, с. 48].
Morphological composition:
simple adjectives are the adjectives which have neither prefixes nor suffixes: good, red, black, etc.;
derivative adjectives are adjectives which have derivative elements, suffixes or prefixes or both: beautiful, hopeless, unkind, etc.;
compound adjectives are adjectives built from two or more stems: snow-white, cold-hearted, deaf-mute.
2. Classification of adjectives according to their meaning
According to their way of nomination adjectives fall into two groups - qualitative (качественные) and relative (относительные).
Qualitative adjectives denote properties of a substance directly (great, cold, beautiful, etc.).
Relative adjectives describe properties (свойство) of a substance through relation to materials (woollen, wooden, feathery, leathern, flaxen), to place (Northern, European, Bulgarian, Italian), to time (daily, monthly, weekly, yearly), to some action (defensive, rotatory, preparatory), or to relationship (fatherly, friendly).
Qualitative adjectives in their turn may be differentiated according to their meaning into descriptive, denoting a quality in a broad sense (wonderful, light, cold, etc.) and limiting, denoting a specific category, a part of a whole, a sequence of order, a number (the previous page, an equestrian statue, medical aid, the left hand).
3. Grammatical categories
Adjectives in English do not take any endings to express agreement with the head-word.
The English adjective differs from such highly inflected languages as Russian, Latin, German, where the adjectives have a rather complicated system of forms.
The adjective in English has a grammatical category of degrees of comparison: the positive, the comparative and the superlative degrees.
The comparative degree denotes a higher degree of a quality: She is taller than her sister.
The superlative degree denotes the highest degree of a quality: She is the tallest of the three sisters. The superlative is generally used with the definite article because the superlative degree of the adjective always implies (подразумевать) limitation.
Ways of formation may be synthetic, analytic, and suppletive (irregular). The synthetic way is by adding the inflection -er, -est, as fine -finer - finest. This means is found with monosyllabic and some disyllabic ( [daɪsɪ'læbɪk], двусложные) adjectives. Polysyllabic (многосложный) adjectives form their degrees of comparison analytically, by means of more and most: difficult - more difficult - most difficult, curious - more curious - most curious.
Several adjectives form their degrees of comparison by means of (suppletive forms) irregularly: good – better – the best, bad – worse – the worst, little – less – the least, many – more – the most, far – farther – the farthest (with reference to the distance); further – the furthest (with reference to distance, abstract notions); old – older – the oldest (with reference to age), elder - eldest (with reference to the sequence of brothers and sisters).