Combinability.

Types of adjectives

Derivation means.

Lexical means.

The category of gender

Not all linguist admit the existance of this category in modern English. According to professor Ivanova this category disappeared in middle english with the loss of inflections. Now when we want to denote gender we use lexical of derevation means.

Boy-girl

cock-hen

Tom-cat-Pussy cat

Waiter-waitress

lion-lioness.

But most linguists single out the view point that gender can be analised on the basic of the substion of pronouns (he/she). The rest (inanimate) nouns have no gender.

According to Bloch we can speak about gender for animate nouns.

The grammatical meaning of adjectives is that of quality. But some of them denote more abstract relations.(e.g. Material, time,place) and on this basic all adjectives are divided into 2 types:1)qualitative-(have degree of comparison)big,clever,red. 2)relative- (time devision, place, purpose, material.etc.)summer dress,wooden,golden.

Such relative adj. have specific suffixes- -ly (weekly), -en (wooden), - ern (southern)- al (analitical), - ry (contemprory). But some adj. don’t have suffixes and this fact shows that they have been converted from other part of speech.

Adjectives fulfill to functions in the sentence. The primary function is the attribute. Both types can be used in it. (This is a long text) (This is a summer dress)

The 2^d function- predicative- only qualitative adj are used in it. (The text is long).

Adj. are combined with nouns, adverbs (a happy radiant smile) intensifies (very beautiful, rather). Besides two types of adjectives some linguists singled out the third type- stative adjectives. In most languages there are words that denote a state of an object. In English there are more than 100 words that have a – aware, awake, afire, afloat. The origin of this words is the same it is old English preposition an on Some linguists understand this part of speech in a wide sense including in it also statives (stative words- категория состояния). In English such words are formed on the basic of verbs (asleep) and on the basic of nouns (afire- The house is afire.) Most words of these kind have prefix a. It is explained by the origin, because in Old English it was expressed by preposition plus the noun in the Dative Case. Such words have some peculiarity in meaning in comparison with adjectives, their meaning s not permanent quality but a temporary state. Secondary, statives can’t be used in degrees of comparison. These differences do not allow other linguists to include them in the class of adjectives and they insist that statives should be called a separate part of speech.

Substantiation and adjectivation

These two process are variants of conversion when some word changes its part of speech reference.

Substantiation. The adjective can become a noun. There are two stages of this process.- partial and complete (absolute)

· Partially substantivised words acquire only some features of the noun (e.g. In English we can add the definite article to any adjective and the word acquires function of the noun. (The rich, the poor ). But such words can’t be used in plural and in possessive case, so formal features of the noun are not acquired.)

· In case of absolute substantiation the adjective transforms comletely.It can be used in all forms and as a result there are two parts of speech that are even given in dictionaries.- native(n), native (adj.)

In Russian this process is also present but it is not so popular as in English.

Adjectivation. Ii is the opposite process, when nouns becomes adjectives. It is typical only for analytical languages. In such languages most nouns can be placed before another noun thus expressing its quality.(winter holidays, imitation marble tables)

The linguistic status of adjectivised nouns is still disputable because some call them nouns but used in attributive function.

e.g. Harry Sweet says that they can’t be called adjectives because they don’t have forms of comparison and can’t be used as predicatives. Another view point is expressed Otto Jesperson. According to him these words can be called adjectives because they are linked with real adjectives by means of coordination (A marry and butterfly existence)

some of these newly- formed adjectives can even be used in degree of comparison. (the choice party- избранное общество, the bosom friend)

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