Lecture 5.

The Adjective

Vocabulary
demarcation (n) – a separation; a distinction (e.g.: a line of demarcation)
descendant (n) – something that derives or is descended from an earlier form
suppletive forms – words of completely different stems (e.g.: ‘went’ as the past tense of
‘go’ or ‘better’ as the comparative form of ‘good’)
substantivization (n) – the process of forming a noun from another part of speech
substantivize (v) – to convert into a noun

1. General characteristics.
An adjective is a word which expresses the attributes of substances (good, young, easy, soft,
loud, hard, wooden). Grammatical meaning of the adjective is a quality of a substance.
Considering their meaning, adjectives fall into two large groups: qualitative and relative
adjectives.
(1) Qualitative adjectives denote qualities of size, shape, colour, etc. which an object may
possess in various degrees. The measure of a quality can be estimated as high or low, adequate
or inadequate, sufficient or insufficient, optimal or excessive. Cf.: an awkward situation — a
very awkward situation; a difficult task — too difficult a task; an enthusiastic reception — rather
an enthusiastic reception; a hearty welcome — not a very hearty welcome; etc. Qualitative
adjectives have degrees of comparison.
(2) Relative adjectives express qualities which characterise an object through its relation to
another object; wooden tables → tables made of wood, woollen gloves → gloves made of wool,
Siberian wheat → wheat from Siberia. Further examples of relative adjectives are: rural,
industrial, urban, etc.
Linguistically it is utterly impossible to draw a rigid line of demarcation between the two
classes, for in the course of language development the so-called relative adjectives gradually
develop qualitative meanings. Thus, for instance, through metaphoric extension adjectives
denoting material have come to be used in the figurative sense, e.g.: golden age, golden hours,
golden hair, etc. Compare also: wooden chair and wooden face, wooden manners.
The adjective leaden (i.e. made of lead) is often used with special allusion to its qualities.
Cf.: a leaden plate and a leaden sleep, leaden atmosphere, leaden sky. Through metaphoric
extension leaden has also come to mean ―low in quality‖, ―cheap‖, ―heavy‖ or ―dull‖ in action,
in feeling, understanding, etc., synonymous with sluggish.

All adjectives can be divided into two large groups: gradable and non-gradable. Gradable
(also called descriptive, or qualitative) adjectives denote properties of entities that can be
estimated quantitatively, or measured. So, for instance, the property beautiful can be estimated as
high (very beautiful) or low (not very beautiful), adequate (beautiful enough) or inadequate (not
beautiful enough). To gradable adjectives linguists generally attribute qualitative adjectives.
Relative adjectives, as we have already said, express non-gradable properties. Examples of
non-gradable adjectives are chemical, coloured, absolute, perfect, extreme, chief, exact, main,
particular, precise, principal, etc.

From a syntactic point of view, adjectives can be divided into three groups: 1) adjectives
which can be used attributively and predicatively (a big house vs. the house is big); 2) adjectives
which can be used attributively only (a complete fool vs. *The fool is complete; a particular
child vs. *The child is particular); 3) adjectives which can be used predicatively only
(Adjectives denoting a temporary property, or state, are used predicatively only, e.g.: She is
being very clever today does not mean she is a very clever girl.)

It seems practical to distinguish between base adjectives and derived adjectives.

Base adjectives are mostly of one syllable. They can exhibit the following formal qualities:
when forming degrees of comparison they may take inflections -er and -est or have some
morphophonemic changes, such as, for instance, in good – better – the best; bad – worse – the
worst. Base adjectives are also distinguished formally by the fact that they serve as stems from
which nouns and adverbs are formed by the derivational suffixes -ness and –ly; quite a number
of based adjectives form verbs by adding the derivational suffix -en, the prefix en- or both:
blacken, brighten, cheapen, enrich, enlarge, enlighten, enliven, etc.
Derived adjectives are formed by the addition of derivational suffixes to free or bound
stems. They usually form analytical comparatives and superlatives by means of the qualifiers
more and most. Some of the more important suffixes which form derived adjectives are:
-able added to verbs and bound stems, denoting quality with implication of capacity, fitness
or worthiness to be acted upon; -able is often used in the sense of ―tending to‖, ―given to‖,
―favouring‖, ―causing‖, ―able to‖ or ―liable to‖. As it is the descendant of an active derivational
suffix in Latin, it also appears as a part of many words borrowed from Latin and French.
Examples formed from verbs: remarkable, adaptable, conceivable, eatable, understandable, etc.;
examples formed from bound stems: capable, portable, viable. The unproductive variant of the
suffix -able is the suffix -ible (Latin -ibilis, -bilis), which we find in adjectives of Latin origin:
visible, forcible, comprehensible, etc.; -ible is no longer used in the formation of new words.
-al, -ial (Lat. -alls, French -al, -el) denoting quality ―belonging to‖, ―having the character
of‖, ―appropriate to‖, e.g.: elemental, bacterial, fundamental, etc.
The suffix -al added to nouns and bound stems (fatal, local, natural, national, traditional,
etc.) is often found in combination with -ic, e. g.: biological, botanical, juridical, typical, etc.
-ish — Germanic in origin, denoting nationality, quality with the meaning ―of the nature of‖,
―belonging to‖, ―resembling‖ also with the sense ―somewhat like‖, often implying contempt,
derogatory in force, e.g.: Turkish, outlandish, whitish, wolfish.
-y — Germanic in origin, denoting quality ―abounding in‖, ―tending or inclined to‖, e.g.:
rocky, watery, bushy, milky, sunny, etc.

2. Morphological features of adjectives.

As for the variable morphological features, the English adjective have lost all its forms of
grammatical agreement with the noun in the course of the history of the English language. Now
English adjectives have only the category of comparison.
The category is based on gradable, or qualitative adjectives. It is constituted by the
opposition of the three forms known as degrees of comparison: the basic form (positive degree)
with no features of comparison; the comparative degree form with the feature of restricted
superiority (which limits the comparison to two elements only); the superlative degree form with
the feature of unrestricted superiority.
Some grammarians have expressed the view that there are only two degrees of comparison.
Otto Jespersen, for instance, argues that the positive degree cannot be regarded as a degree of
comparison as it does not convey the idea of comparison. According to A. I. Smirnitsky, the
degrees of comparison include the positive degree and the relative degree which is subdivided
into the comparative and the superlative degree. As it is rightly pointed out by Gunnar Kiviväli,
―the solution of the problem depends on how we define degrees of comparison. If we define
them as forms which show whether the adjective denotes the property of some substance
absolutely or relatively, there would be three degrees of comparison. If we define degrees of
comparison as forms expressing comparison of some substance with another in respect of a
certain property, there would be only two degrees of comparison‖.
There are three ways of forming degrees of comparison: synthetic, analytic, and suppletive.
The suppletive way of forming degrees of comparison is by the use of suppletive forms:
good → better, best; bad → worse, worst; far → farther/further, farthest/furthest; little → less,
least; much/many → more, most.
The synthetic way of forming degrees of comparison is by the inflections -er, -est; the
analytic way, by placing more and most before the adjective.
The synthetic way is generally used:
1) with monosyllabic adjectives (tall → taller, tallest)
 2) disyllabic adjectives ending in -y, -ow, -er, -le (pretty → prettier, prettiest: narrow →
narrower, narrowest; clever → cleverer, cleverest; simple → simpler, simplest)
3) disyllabic adjectives which have the stress on the last syllable (polite → politer, politest)
An apparent exception to this rule are the following adjectives which are stressed on the first
syllable: pleasant → pleasanter; cruel → crueler, cruelest; quiet → quieter, quietest; stupid →
stupider, stupidest; common → commoner, commonest.
However, in the disyllabic group we can observe radical changes: adjectives formerly taking
-er and -est are tending to go over to more and most, e.g.: more common, most common; more
cloudy, most cloudy; more fussy, most fussy; more cruel, most cruel; more quiet, most quiet;
more clever, most clever; more profound, most profound; more simple, most simple; more
pleasant, most pleasant — all these were normally compared with -er and -est before the war.
According to Charles Barber, recently there have been many cases of more and most used
with monosyllabic adjectives: more crude, most crude; more plain, most plain; more keen, most
keen. All this goes to show that English comparison is getting more and more analytic. The
analytic way of comparison is preferable when the speaker wishes to focus attention on the
notion of degree and the lexical content of the adjective. Cf.: She seems happier than she used to
be. vs. She seems more happy than she used to be.
The analytical forms of comparison perform a double function. On the one hand, they are
used with the evaluative adjectives that due to their phonemic structure cannot normally take the
synthetical forms of comparison. In this respect, the analytical comparison forms are in
categorial complementary distribution with the synthetical comparison forms.
On the other hand, the analytical forms of comparison, as different from the synthetical
forms, are used to express emphasis, thus complementing the synthetical forms in the sphere of
this important stylistic connotation. Cf.: The audience became more and more noisy, and soon
the speaker’s words were drowned in the general hum of voices.
The question that linguists have been discussing is: what is the linguistic status of analytic
forms? Are more and most adverbs of quantity or grammatical word-morphemes? At present
linguists are divided on this question: some linguists (A. I. Smirnitsky; B. Khaimovich and
B. Rogovskaya; M. Blokh) treat degrees of comparison with more and most as analytic
constructions while others (V. N. Zhigadlo; L. S. Barkhudarov, D. A. Shteling) treat them as free
combinations of adverbs and adjectives.
The scholars point out two factors in support of the view that the combinations of more/most
with the basic form of the adjective are not analytical but free syntactic constructions: 1) the
more/most-combinations are semantically analogous to combinations of less/least with the
adjective which, in the general opinion, are syntactic combinations of notional words; 2) the
most-combination, unlike the synthetic superlative, can take the indefinite article, expressing not
the superlative, but the elative meaning (i.e. a high, not the highest degree of the respective
quality).
Let us compare: This is a most interesting book. vs. This is the most interesting book.
The phrase ‗a most interesting book‘ in the given examples means ‗rather, extremely
interesting‘; while the phrase ‗a most interesting book‖ expresses the superlative degree of the
quality ‗interesting‘.
Now let us examine the combinations of less/least with the basic form of the adjective. It
does not require a profound analysis to see that, from the grammatical point of view, the formula
―opposite meaning‖ amounts to ascertaining the categorial equality of the forms compared.
Indeed, if two forms express the opposite meanings, then they can only belong to units of the
same general order. And we cannot but agree with B. A. Ilyish‘s thesis that there seems to be no
sufficient reason for treating the two sets of phrases in different ways, saying that ‗more
difficult‘ is an analytical form, while ‗less difficult‘ is not.
Thus, the less/least-combinations, similar to the more/most-combinations, constitute specific
forms of comparison, which may be called forms of ―reverse comparison‖. The two types of
forms cannot be syntagmatically combined in one and the same form of the word, which shows
the unity of the category of comparison.
 3. The problem of the category of state.

There is a class of words in English with the following morphological, semantic and
syntactic characteristics:
1) the words of this type may be characterized by the prefix a-: alive, asleep, ajar, etc.; they
generally do not form degrees of comparison, e.g.: *Mary is more asleep; *Mary is the most
asleep;
2) the words of this type denote a temporary property or state, e.g.: The door is ajar;
3) the words of this type are used predicatively only, e.g.: He is awake.
Because of the mentioned features, these words are regarded by some grammarians as a
separate part of speech which has been variously referred to as the category of state words and
statives.
Can we distinguish the category on the basis of the above-mentioned features? First of all,
the number of such words does not exceed several dozens. The prefix a- is, of course, a marker
of such adjectives. However, there are many adjectives of temporary state without the prefix a-,
e.g.: ill, glad, sorry, fine, great, swell, wonderful, lousy, dizzy, hot, blue, etc.
Besides, dynamic adjectives can also be used as temporary adjectives, e.g.: John is being
noisy today. A stronger argument is that such adjectives are restricted to a predicative position,
or a position after the noun, e.g.: The man is ready or The materials ready will be shipped. vs.
*The ready man; *The ready materials. The analysis shows that temporary adjectives are
generally distinguished on the basis of meaning and syntactic function. The last argument
concerns the category of comparison. Temporary adjectives, unsimilar to ‗normal‘ adjectives, are
said to lack forms of comparison. This is true, but to some extent, only: temporary adjectives do
not take the synthetic forms of the degrees of comparison, but they are capable of expressing
comparison analytically, e.g.: Jack was the one most aware of the delicate situation in which we
found ourselves or He is more dead than alive.

4. Substantivized adjectives.

Modern English adjectives can, under certain circumstances, be substantivized, i.e. become
nouns.
Linguists generally distinguish two types of substantivized adjectives: fully and partially
substantivized adjectives. By wholly substantivised adjectives we mean adjectives wholly
converted into nouns. Such adjectives may be preceded by the article, take the plural inflection
and may be used in the possessive case, e.g.: a native, the native, two natives, a native’s
character, etc.
Adjectives only partly converted into nouns take the definite article (as regular nouns do)
but are neither inflected for the plural nor can be used in the possessive case. The definite article
has also a different function from that it would have when used with a noun: the happy means
―happy people‖ in general. Such substantivized adjectives keep much of their adjectival nature,
which we see in the possibility of qualifying them by means of adverbs, e.g.: the really happy.
Substantivization of abstract adjectives intensifies the word meaning and often serves
stylistic purposes as a colourful means of emphasis in literary style. Converted nouns of this kind
are generally used in singular constructions, as in: He drove slowly, enjoying the quiet of the
evening.
Substantivization of adjectives of colour for stylistic purposes is also rather a frequent
occurrence. A few typical examples are: When the storm stopped the fields were white over, the
sky a milk blue, low and still threatening; There was a scent of honey from the lime trees in
flower, and in the sky the blue was beautiful, with a few white clouds which looked and perhaps
tasted like lemon ice.
Transposition of adjectives into the class of appellative nouns has its own expressive value.
In colloquial English this is rather a frequent occurrence. Examples are: What have you done, my
little silly. Come on, my sweet. Wait a couple of minutes, lovely!
 Issues for discussion
1. Сomment on the classification of adjectives in terms of meaning.
2. Comment on the classification of adjectives from the syntactic point of view.
3. What is the distinction between base adjectives and derived adjectives?
4. What are the views on the number of degrees of comparison?
5. When do we form degrees of comparison with the help of inflections?
6. Comment on analytical forms of comparison. What functions do they perform?
7. What is the linguistic status of analytical forms of comparison?
8. Speak on the problem of the category of state.
9. What are the two types of substantivized adjectives?

Practical tasks

1. Define semantic and morphological characteristics of the following adjectives:

etymological
foolish
German (cars)
(the) poor
precise
real (hero)
sly
stricter
worst
(the) natives
better
dispassionate
taller
the most handsome
wooden
asleep
calm
more beautiful
particular
brave
(the) young
determined
dirty
English (books)

2. Make up comparative and superlative degrees of the following adjectives:

bad
narrow
far
little
noisy
calm
convenient
good
pretty
simple
prosperous
clever
wonderful
old
easy
loud
quiet
complex
difficult
rude
kindhearted
tidy
clean
dirty