2) The Syntactic Process of Substantivization of Adjectives.

When dealing with adjectives we can’t help commenting on the process of Adjective Substantivization. This process is based on more or less regular ellipsis of the noun in the attributive noun-phrases “an adjective + a noun” like “a private soldier” and “a private”; “an official post” and “an official”; “a daily paper” and “a daily”.

Logically there arises the question of the morphological status of these words, whether they are nouns or adjectives. To answer this question we should compare the characteristic features of the noun and of the Substantivized adjective. We are to mind:

1. the category of number (the ability to form Plural);

2. the usage with an article;

3. the ability to be modified by an attribute;

4. the ability to function as subject or object in the sentence;

The analysis of the language units under consideration shows that there are cases when these units satisfy all these noun features, but there are also case when these units possess not all but only some of the named characteristics.

e.g. The young, the poor, the wounded. These units are singular in their form but plural in their meaning, they do not differentiate the category of number, they can be used only with the definite article which only formally marks their nominative nature.

Traditionally cases of the first type are treated as cases of complete substantivization, while the cases of the second type are treated as cases of partial substantivization.

Yet, it seems right to say that in the first case we should sooner speak not of substantivized adjectives but of nouns, because words like “a private” have lost all their adjective features and have acquired all the characteristic features of nouns and hence they do not differ from them.

Similarly we don’t speak of adverbial verbs or nominal verbs when they are derived from adverbs or nouns by conversion.

As for the forms “the rich, “the brave”, they can be treated and called as substantivized adjectives, because they have preserved some of their adjective features alongside with the new nominal features.

e.g. The opinion of the old, of the older, of the oldest happened to be the same.

“The old”, “the older”, “the oldest” are substantivized adjectives.

The substantivized adjectives take the intermediate position between the noun and the adjective. They belong to the periphery of the morphological field of both: the adjective and the noun. They can be located in the area where the morphological fields of these parts of speech overlap the borders of each other.

3) The “Stone Wall” Problem

When dealing with adjectives and first of all with their syntactic functioning, we come across another problem which is widely known in linguistics as the “stone wall” problem. This problem is connected with the morphological status of the first component in phrases of the pattern: N1+N2+N3…, which are typical of modern English.

The first component stands in preposition to a noun and modifies it performing the function of an attribute. Such features are characteristic of adjectives. So there arises the question, whether the first component is a noun or whether or whether it is an adjective formed by conversion from a noun. The first component in such phrases evidently undergoes the process of adjectivization on the plane of content, while it remains unchanged on the plane of expression.

So far no unanimous conclusion has been arrived at, concerning the morphological status of the first component. Some authors, like Henry Sweet, treat it as a noun, others, like Otto Jespersen, take it for an adjective and some scholars treat it as a special part of speech, that is “an attributive noun” (professor Shoobin). Taking into consideration these three points of view it doesn’t seem advantageous to agree to the third opinion, because practically the same word with the same meaning should be simultaneously included into 2 different parts of speech.

To make it clear for us whether we deal with a noun or adjective when speaking about the component “stone”, we should take into consideration the basic features of these parts of speech and apply them to the word under analysis. So the noun is characterized by the morphological category of number. As for the first component in phrases like “stone wall”, it does not differentiate this category. It means that this component does not change its number and is mostly used in the singular.

We can say “one stone”, “many stones”, but we cannot say “a stones wall”. This feature differs words under analysis from nouns proper. However the morphological category of number is not characteristic of adjectives either. Besides, nouns, naming materials, are uncountable and don’t differentiate the category of number. In the phrase “a stone wall” the first component sooner names material than a concrete object. So the fact that the first component doesn’t differentiate the category of number is not sufficient to reject its noun nature.

We can say that the “stone” component sooner denotes substance like nouns and not property like adjectives, because for some of such components there exist derived adjectives:

e.g. stone – stony;

ice – icy;

wood – wooden.

However, as a rule the derived adjectives name some property only based n its relation to the corresponding noun. They usually require some additional meaning.

a stone wall- a stony road; a stony face;

a glass door – a glassy look.

The matter is that English adjectives lost their inflexions in middle English and early modern English and coincided with the corresponding nouns on the plane of expression.

каменная стена – a stone wall; стена, сделанная из камня – a wall made of stone.

It may seem logical to think that we deal with 2 homonyms: an adjective and a noun, which reveal their difference only in functioning. If “stone” is used attributively, then it is an adjective, if it is used as a subject or some other function, typical of nouns, then it is a noun.

Yet, we can doubt this opinion, because adjectives can freely function as attributes and predicatives while the words under analysis can hardly be used predicatively.

e.g. this is a beautiful dress – This dress is beautiful.

This is a stone wall. – This wall is stone (It is impossible to say that!!!)

Hence, we can conclude that the “stone” component is hardly an adjective. Besides, in a number of cases it can be modified by an adjective or a possessive pronoun, like a noun.

e.g. a silk tie, a red silk tie.

So we can conclude that the “stone” component denotes not a property but a substance which serves as a means to name the property of some other objects. The phrases like “a stone wall” consist of 2 nouns and are called binomes. In modern English, especially in the newspaper style such phrases may include more than two nouns and are called polynomes.

e.g. Moscow metro station

coal industry unemployment rates