5. Adjectivization of nouns

The question of adjectivization of nouns presents a number of difficulties. Here we shall deal with such constructions as 'stone wall', 'peace talks', etc.

In the opinion of B.A. Ilyish, it is practically impossible to prove whether 'stone' in 'stone wall' is a noun or an adjective.

H. Sweet thinks that the first component in these constructions is a noun because it lacks the category of degrees of comparison. However, many adjectives have no degrees of comparison either.

E.P. Shubin also refers the first component in constructions of the type 'stone wall' to nouns. But taking into construction that it always performs the function of an attribute, he finds it necessary to slightly modify the conception of H. Sweet by calling the first component 'an attributive noun'. The term 'attributive noun' stresses the transitional nature of such nouns, their tendency to turn into adjectives.

According to O. Jespersen, they have already turned into adjectives. He puts forward the following arguments to prove his point of view. In the first place, they can combine with adjectives,

E.g. Her Christian and family name.

In the second place, they can be followed by the prop-word 'one',

E.g. Two gold watches and a silver one.

In the third place, they can be modified by prepositive adverbs,

E.g. On merely business grounds.

In the fourth place, some of them can have degree of comparison,

E.g. In a more everyday tone.

In the most matter-of-fact way.

The divergency of views, in our opinion, is due to the gradual process of adjectivization. The latter is reflected in dictionaries. Thus, the Longman Dictionary presents 'family' and 'business' as nouns. For 'silver' it has two entries:

silver (n) - a soft whitish precious metal,

silver (adj) - made of silver.

Solid and hyphenated compounds of the type 'everyday', 'matter-of-fact' are qualified there as adjectives.

Only time will show whether all the attributive nouns will turn into adjectives proper, but their adjectivization is an indisputable fact.

6. The problem of statives

A. Vostokov was the first to draw attention to the specific nature of statives in the system of the Russian language. But he did not study the problem closely. It was L.V. Scerby and V.V. Vinogradov who singled out such words as 'холодно, сыро, весело, жаль' into a separate part of speech.

The first grammarian to mention statives in English was B.A. Ilyish. He thinks that words of the category of state, for instance, 'asleep, alive' constitute a separate part of speech because they possess semantic, morphological and syntactic characteristics of their own.

Semantically, he says, statives are marked by the presence of a seme of state, as opposed to adjectives that express non-temporal property,

E.g. ...he had been asleep for some time...,

which means that he had been in a state of sleep for some time.

In the opinion of L.S. Barkhudarov, the meaning of state is merely a variety of the meaning of non-temporal property typical of adjectives. So, in his opinion, statives do not differ from adjectives as far as their meaning is concerned.

Morphologically, statives seem to stand apart from adjectives for they have a specific prefix a- and lack the grammatical category of degrees of comparison. On closer inspection, the absence of degrees of comparison does not prove anything. On the one hand, there are a lot of anything which stand outside the grammatical category of degrees of comparison. On the other hand, some of the so-called statives form degrees of comparison just like most qualitative adjectives,

E.g. The two main meals of the day, lunch and dinner, are both more or less alike.

As for the prefix a-, the Longman Dictionary regards it as an adjective forming prefix.

B.A. Ilyish thinks that statives possess the category of tense. 'He is asleep', in his opinion, refers to the present tense as opposed to 'He was asleep' which is past and to 'He will be asleep' which is future.

However, this point of view does not seem convincing. If one analyses the above mentioned sentences, he will see that the category of tense finds its expression in the link verb 'be' (is, was, will be), not in the stative 'asleep', which in itself cannot express any tense distinctions. In other words, if the so-called statives do have morphological categories, it is the morphological category of degrees of comparison that they possess, common to adjectives.

The combinability of statives and adjectives, according to L.S. Barkhudarov, is also alike. Thus, both adjectives and statives can be modified by adverbs,

E.g. She was very happy.

In a minute she was fast asleep.

and by prepositional combinations,

E.g. Yet he was aware of a sense of unreality.

He was conscious of a sense of adventure.

The only thing that differentiates statives from adjectives is their syntactic function in the sentence. Adjectives are generally used both attributively and predicatively, statives - mainly predicatively,

E.g. She is aloof from her classmates.

...his soul was ablaze with bliss.

I was aware again of that feeling of discomfort.

The criterion of syntactic function, however, is hardly sufficient for qualifying the words of the category of state as a separate part of speech, clearly distinct from adjectives, for one subclass of adjectives, namely qualitative adjectives, very often in the predicative function, too.

E.g. The Rouse was nice.

Her appearance was perfect.

The water was very cold.

Verbs

1. The verb. Problems of classification

2. Finite forms of the verbs, main categories of the verb

3. The category of person and number