Adjectives

1. The definition of the adjective

2. Classes of adjectives

3. The degrees of comparison

4. Substantivization of adjectives

5. Adjectivization of nouns

6. The problem of statives

1. The definition of the adjective

The English adjective is a part of speech which is characterized by:

1) A generalized lexico-grammatical primary meaning of 'non-temporal property',

E.g. black, white, clever

2) A generalized grammatical secondary meaning of 'non-temporal property',

E.g. comfortable, national, graceful

3) The combinability with:

a) Nouns, mostly in postposition,

E.g. He was a pleasant fellow.

b) Verbs in preposition,

E.g. I married young.

c) Adverbs in preposition,

E.g. ...he was a deeply emotional man.

d) Prepositional combinations in postposition,

E.g. It is full of clean paper.

4) The syntactical functions of attribute and predicative,

E.g. She had a small child in her arms (attribute).

She was very soft and small (predicative).

As far as their morphological structure is concerned, adjectives fall under:

1. Simple,

E.g. green, high, low, fat, etc.

2. Derivative

The productive adjective-forming suffixes are:

-less (hopeless);

-like (childlike);

-ish (foolish);

-(e)d (talented).

The productive adjective-forming prefixes are:

un- (unkind);

pre- (prewar).

3. Compound,

E.g. red-hot, water-proof, knee-high, age-long, etc.

In Old English adjectives were inflected for case, gender, number and degrees of comparison. Modern English adjectives have retained only one grammatical category: degree of comparison.

2. Classes of adjectives

According to their meaning and grammatical characteristics, adjectives can be classified into qualitative and relative.

Qualitative adjectives denote qualities of a substance directly,

E.g. small, brave, quick

Most qualitative adjectives have degrees of comparison,

E.g. nice - nicer - the nicest

From most of them adverbs can be formed with the help of the suffix -ly,

E.g. careful - carefully

Qualitative adjectives are used both attributively and predicatively,

E.g. What wonderfully blue eyes you have, Ernest! (attribute)

They are quite, quite blue (predicative).

Relative adjectives express qualities of a substance through their relation to materials (wooden), to place (Italian), to time (weekly), to some action (preparatory), i.e. indirectly. Relative adjectives have no degrees of comparison. They do not form adverbs by means of the suffix -ly. Relative adjectives are chiefly used as attributes,

E.g. ...he found at the bottom of the box a pair of wooden skates which had been Kate's when she was a child.

There are no hard-and-fast lines between qualitative and relative adjectives. A relative adjective can acquire the meaning of a qualitative one,

E.g. Wooden walls - walls made of wood

A wooden smile - an inexpressive smile

Zhigadlo, Ivanova and Iofik mention also quantitative adjectives. This class comprises such words as 'many, much, little, few'. Like qualitative adjectives they have degrees of comparison: 'many, much - more - most', 'little - less - least', 'few - fewer - fewest',

E.g. We have much work to do.

George did more work than anyone else.

The most work is often done by the quietest worker.

I have very little time for reading.

Please make less noise.

George gives me the least trouble.

Fortunately, there were very few people down there at the time...

There were fewer people today than yesterday.

Harry made the fewest mistakes.

But as opposed to qualitative adjectives, which express qualities of an object directly, and as opposed to relative adjectives, which denote qualities of an object indirectly, the so-called quantitative adjectives characterize the given object numerically, just as numerals do. Thus, it is open to discussion whether 'many, much, little, few' can be considered adjectives. If one gives precedence to form, one should refer them to adjectives, because they have degrees of comparison. If one considers meaning to be the most important factor, one should exclude them from the class of adjectives and refer them to numerals or rather to pronouns, because their numerical characteristics are extremely general,

E.g. five tables (numeral)

some tables (pronoun)

many tables (the so-called quantitative adjective)