Топик: Adjective

As we see, our final conclusion about the lexico-grammatical nature of statives appears to have returned them into the lexemic domain in which they were placed by traditional grammar and from which they were alienated in the course of subsequent linguistic investigations. A question then arises, whether these investigations, as well as the discussions accompanying them, have served any rational purpose at all.

The answer to this question, though, can only be given in the energetic affirmative. Indeed, all the detailed studies of statives undertaken by quite a few scholars, all the dis­cussions concerning their systemic location and other related matters have produced very useful results, both theoretical and practical.

The traditional view of the stative was not supported by any special analysis, it was formed on the grounds of mere surface analogies and outer correlations. The later study of statives resulted in the exposition of their inner properties, in the discovery of their historical productivity as a sub­class, in their systemic description on the lines of competent inter-class and inter-level comparisons. And it is due to the undertaken investigations (which certainly will be continued) that we are now in a position, though having rejected the fundamental separation of the stative from the adjective, to name the subclass of statives as one of the peculiar, idio­matic lexemic features of Modern English.

As is widely known, adjectives display the ability to be easily substantivized by conversion, i.e. by zero-deriv­ation. Among the noun-converted adjectives we find both old units, well-established in the system of lexicon, and also new ones, whose adjectival etymology conveys to the lexeme the vivid colouring of a new coinage.

For instance, the words a relative or a white or a dear bear an unquestionable mark of established tradition, while such a noun as a sensitive used in the following sentence fea­tures a distinct flavour of purposeful conversion: He was a regional man, a man who wrote about sensitives who live away from the places where things happen.

Compare this with the noun a high in the following exam­ple: The weather report promises a new high in heat and humidity.

From the purely categorial point of view, however, there is no difference between the adjectives cited in the examples and the ones given in the foregoing enumeration, since both groups equally express constitutive categories of the noun, i.e. the number, the case, the gender, the article determina­tion, and they likewise equally perform normal nounal func­tions.

On the other hand, among the substantivized adjectives there is a set characterized by hybrid lexico-grammatical features, as in the following examples:

The new bill concerning the wage-freeze introduced by the Labour Government cannot satisfy either the poor , or the rich (Radio Broadcast). A monster. The word conveyed the ultimate in infamy and debasement inconceivable to one not native to the times (J. Vance). The train, indulging all his English nostalgia for the plushy and the genteel , seemed to him a deceit (M. Bradbury).

The mixed categorial nature of the exemplified words is evident from their incomplete presentation of the part-of speech characteristics of either nouns or adjectives. Like nouns, the words are used in the article form; like nouns, they express the category of number (in a relational way); but their article and number forms are rigid, being no sub­ject to the regular structural change inherent in the normal expression of these categories. Moreover, being categorially unchangeable, the words convey the mixed adjectival-nounal semantics of property.

The adjectival-nounal words in question are very specific. They are distinguished by a high productivity and, like sta­tives, are idiomatically characteristic of Modern English.

On the analogy of verbids these words might be called "adjectivids", since they are rather nounal forms of adjectives than nouns as such.

The adjectivids fall into two main grammatical sub­groups, namely, the subgroup pluralia tantum {the English, the rich, the unemployed, the uninitiated , etc.), and the sub­group singularia tantum (the invisible, the abstract, the tangible , etc.). Semantically, the words of the first subgroup express sets of people (personal multitudes), while the words of the second group express abstract ideas of various types and connotations.

The category of adjectival comparison expresses the quantitative characteristic of the quality of a nounal referent, i.e. it gives a relative evaluation of the quantity of a quality. The purely relative nature of the categorial semantics of comparison is reflected in its name.

The category is constituted by the opposition of the three forms known under the heading of degrees of comparison: the basic form (positive degree ), having no features of corn" parison; the comparative degree form, having the feature of restricted .superiority (which limits the comparison to two elements only); the superlative degree form, having the fea­ture of unrestricted superiority.

It should be noted that the meaning of unrestricted su­periority is in-built in the superlative degree as such, though in practice this form is used in collocations imposing certain restrictions on the effected comparison; thus, the form in question may be used to signify restricted superiority, name­ly, in cases where a limited number of referents are com­pared. Cf .: Johnny was the strongest boy in the com­pany.

As is evident from the example, superiority restriction is shown here not by the native meaning of the superlative, but by the particular contextual construction of comparison where the physical strength of one boy is estimated in rela­tion to that of his companions.

Some linguists approach the number of the degrees of comparison as problematic on the grounds that the basic form of the adjective does not express any comparison by itself and therefore should be excluded from the category. This exclusion would reduce the category to two members only, i.e. the comparative and superlative degrees.

However, the oppositional interpretation of grammatical categories underlying our considerations does not admit of such an exclusion; on the contrary, the non-expression of superiority by the basic form is understood in the oppositional presentation of comparison as a pre-requisite for the ex­pression of the category as such. In this expression of the category the basic form is the unmarked member, not distin­guished by any comparison suffix or comparison auxiliary, while the superiority forms (i.e. the comparative and super­lative) are the marked members, distinguished by the com­parison suffixes or comparison auxiliaries.

That the basic form as the positive degree of comparison does express this categorial idea, being included in one and the same calegorial series with the superiority degrees, is clearly shown by its actual uses in comparative syntactic constructions of equality, as well as comparative syntactic constructions of negated equality. Cf .: The remark was as bitter as could be. The Rockies are not so high as the Caucasus.

These constructions are directly correlative with comparat­ive constructions of inequality built around the comparative and superlative degree forms. Cf .: That was the bitterest remark I have ever heard from the man. The Caucasus is higher than the Rockies.

Thus, both formally and semantically, the oppositional basis of the category of comparison displays a binary nature. In terms of the three degrees of comparison, on the upper level of presentation the superiority degrees as the marked member of the opposition are contrasted against the positive degree as its unmarked member. The superiority degrees, in their turn, form the opposition of the lower level of pres­entation, where the comparative degree features the func­tionally weak member, and the superlative degree, re­spectively, the strong member. The whole of the double op­positional unity, considered from the semantic angle, con­stitutes a gradual ternary opposition.

The synthetical forms of comparison in -er and -(e)st coexist with the analytical forms of comparison effected by the auxiliaries more and most . 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 (two-syllable words with the stress on the first syllable ending in other grapho-phonemic complexes than -er, -y, -le, -ow or words of more than two-syllable composition) 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 structure of the analytical degrees of comparison is meaningfully overt; these forms are devoid of the feature of "semantic idiomatism" characteristic of some other categor­ial analytical forms, such as, for instance, the forms of the verbal perfect. For this reason the analytical degrees of com­parison invite some linguists to call in question their claim to a categorial status in English grammar.

In particular, scholars point out the following two fac­tors in support of the view that the combinations of more/most with the basic form of the adjective are not the analytical expressions of the morphological category of comparison, but free syntactic constructions: first, 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; second, 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).

The reasons advanced, though claiming to be based on an analysis of actual lingual data, can hardly be called con­vincing as regards their immediate negative purpose.

Let us first consider the use of the most -combillation with the indefinite article.

This combination is a common means of expressing elative evaluations of substance properties. The function of the elative most -construction in distinction to the function of the superlative most -'construction will be seen from the fol­lowing examples:

The speaker launched a most significant personal attack on the Prime Minister. The most significant of the arguments in a dispute is not necessarily the most spectacular one.