- •English as a germanic language
- •Periods of the history of the english language
- •Essentials of Morphology
- •Lecture Plan
- •The System of Parts of Speech /the Noun, the Adjective, the Adverb, the Numeral, the Pronoun/
- •Lecture plan
- •1. The Parts of Speech Classification.
- •2. The Problem of Notional and Functional Parts of Speech.
- •3. The Noun.
- •4. The Adjective
- •5. The Adverb
- •6. The Numeral
- •7. Pronouns
- •The System of Parts of Speech /the Verb, the Modal Words, the Interjection, the Preposition, the Conjunction, the Particle, the Article, the Response Words/
- •Lecture plan
- •1. The Verb
- •2. Words of "the category of state” /Adlinks
- •3. Modal Words (Modals)
- •4. The Interjection
- •5. The Preposition
- •6. The Conjunction
- •7. The Article.
- •8. The Particle
- •9. The Response Words
- •Syntax The Phrase
- •6. Phrase classification
- •The sentence
- •List of Recommended Literature
- •2.D. The Structural Classification of the Sentence
- •3. The Semantic Aspect of the Sentence.
4. The Adjective
The lexico-grammatical meaning of the adjective is "property of a substance". The adjective denotes both permanent and temporary properties of substances: size /large, small/; colour / red, blue/; position in space / upper, inner/; material / wooden, woolen/; psychic state of persons /happy, furious/
All the adjectives are traditionally divided into two large subclasses: qualitative and relative.
Qualitative adjectives denote properties of a substance directly /cold, beautiful/, and these qualities admit of a quantitative estimation /a difficult task – a very difficult task/
Relative adjectives express properties of a substance through relation to materials /wood – wooden/, to place /Europe – European/, to time /day – daily/, or to some action /to defend – defensive, to prepare – preparatory/ Adjectives have different types of stems:
simple /high, low/;
derivative /the stem-building affixes: -fill: beautiful, -less: careless, -ish: greenish, -ous: famous, un-: unjust, in-: incorrect, etc/;
compound /long-haired/.
Adjectives denoting properties, which can appear in different degrees have the grammatical category of degrees of comparison. The category of the degrees of comparison shows quantitative distinctions of qualities. It is expressed by three forms: "positive" /long, good, beautiful/, comparative /longer, better, more beautiful/ and superlative / /longest, best, most beautiful/. The "positive" degree is not marked. We may speak of a zero morpheme. The "comparative" and "superlative" degrees are built either synthetically /by affixation: longer, longest, or suppletivity: better, best/ or analytically /more beautiful, most beautiful/. The positive degree does not convey the idea of comparison. Its meaning is absolute. It is the initial stage, the norm of some quality. The comparative and the superlative degrees are both relative in meaning. If we say that John is older than Mary, it does not imply that John is old (John may be five years old and Mary is three), it only indicates that Peter has more of this quality.
English adjectives can be substantivized, i.e. converted into nouns. When adjectives are converted into nouns they no longer indicate attributes of substances possessing these attributes. E.g.: We helped the sick then.
Adjectives combine with:
Nouns: fast cars, expensive jackets, interesting books;
link-verbs /is smart, seem clever, look old, became angry, got furious/ and occasionally with a preceding notional verb /married young/;
the noun-substitute "one" /a good one, the best one/,
adverbs of degree /very expensive, quite old, rather far, good enough, too angry/,
nouns both preceding and (occasionally) following them: large room, times immemorial.
Substantivized adjectives /adjectives, which became nouns/ combine with articles: the unreal, the unknown, a noble, a Christian/.
The most common functions of the adjective in the sentence are:
the attribute : He is a good boy.
the predicative: The window was open.