PART IV THE ADJECTIVE

The adjective is a part of speech which includes words expressing the attributes of substances (peaceful, red, bad).

The main syntactical functionof an adjective is that of:

1. - an attribute

- Early winter, late autumn.

2. - As a predicative in a nominal (compound) predicate.

- She looked beautiful.

The adjectives “ill” and “well” are not used attributively in modern English, they have only the function of a predicative:

- I am well.

- He is ill.

Survivals of the old attributive use of “ill” are found in some phraseological (set) combinations: ill luck, ill win.

The adjective “well” (particularly happy, very pleasant) is homonymous in form to the adverb “well”.

There is not much to be said about the English adjective from the morphologicalpoint of view. It has neither number, nor case, nor gender distinctions.

By what signs do we recognise an adjective in modern English?

In most cases this can be done only by taking into account semantic and syntacticalphenomena. But in some cases, that is, for certain adjectives, derivative suffixes are significant, among these are the productive adjective forming suffixes:

-less: friendless, hopeless

-like:childlike

-ish:foolish, childish

-ed (d): barbed.

Unproductive adjective forming suffixes:

-ful:careful - ant:important

-ibie:responsible - ent:dependent

-able:reliable - en:woollen

-some:troublesome - ous:dangerous

Productive prefixes:

un-: unhappy

pre-: prewar

The unproductive prefix:

in-: incorrect

Occasionally, however, though a suffix often appears in adjectives, it cannot be taken as a certain proof of an adjective, because the suffix also makes part of a word belonging to another part of speech. Thus, the suffix -fulcan be found in nouns: spoonful, handful, etc.

The above-mentioned suffixes and prefixes cannot be the proof of a word being an adjective because, besides derivativeadjectives, there are simpleand compoundadjectives, which have neither suffixes nor prefixes. For example, simple adjectives; good, red; compound adjectives: snow-white (noun stem + adj. stem) life-giving (noun stem + participle stem); deaf-mute (adjective stem + adjective stem).

The only morphologicalproblem concerning adjectives is that of degrees of comparison. But here again we must say that not all adjectives have degrees of comparison.

According to their meaning and grammatical characteristics adjectives fall under two classes:

1) Qualitative adjectives denote qualities of a substance directly, as size, shape, colour, physical and mental qualities: little, high, white, strong, bold etc.

2) Relative adjectives denote qualities of a substance through their relation to materials (silken, woollen) to place (Italian, Asian), to time (weekly, monthly), to some action (preparatory).

<== попередня сторінка	\|	наступна сторінка ==>
II. SIMPLE SENTENCES WITH THE STRUCTURE OF ADVERBIAL CLAUSES OF CONDITION	\|	GRAMMATICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF QUALITATIVE ADJECTIVES

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