Pullum_geoffrey_k_a_student_s_introduction

§ 1 .2 Adjectives vs nouns

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1 .2	Adjectives vs nouns
	The properties given above make it a generally easy matter to distin­

guish adjectives from nouns, especially when taken together with the properties of nouns presented in Ch. 5, § 1 .

In this section we pick out a selection of the most decisive properties that do dis­ tinguish between nouns and adjectives. We use judge, size, and silk as examples of words that occur as nouns but not as adjectives, and wise, big, and smooth as exam­ ples of words that occur as adjectives but not as nouns.

(a) Inflection

Nouns typically have plural inflected forms; adjectives (in English) never do. Conversely, many adjectives have comparative and superlative inflected forms, but no nouns do:

[4]

		PLURAL FORMS WITH ·s OR ·es			SUPERLATIVE FORMS WITH ·est
a.	N	judges	sizes	silks	b. *judgest	*sizest	*silkest
ii a.	ADJ	*wises	*bigs	*smooths	b. wisest	biggest	smoothest

Not all nouns have plural forms and not all adjectives have comparative and superla­ tive forms, but where the forms do exist the difference between nouns and adjectives is particularly clear.

(b) Determiners

Nouns take determiners as dependent but adjectives do not. Some of the determi­ natives that function as determiner in NP structure, however, can also function as modifier in AdjP structure, so in applying this test we need to select items which cannot modify adjectives. This can be done by picking genitives, or the determina­ tives which and some:

[5]	N	which judge?	my llig	some silk
ii	ADJ	*which wise?	*my llig	*some smooth

(c) Modifiers

Nouns and adjectives take different kinds of modifiers. Most importantly, NOUNS TAKE ADJECTIVES as modifier, but adjectives don't normally take other adjectives as modifier. Adjectives most often take adverbs. There are enormous numbers of adjective-adverb pairs that differjust by the presence of the suffix ·ly on the adverb, as in remarkable vs remarkably, and in those cases it is the word without the ·ly that modifies a following noun, and the one with ·ly that modifies a following adjective, as the examples in [6] show:

[6]	i	N	a remarkable judge	its incredible llig	this wonderful silk
	ii	ADJ	remarkably wise	incredibly llig	wonderfully smooth

Switching adjectives and adverbs makes ungrammatical phrases in every case: *a remarkablyjudge, *remarkable wise, etc.

1 14 Chapter 6 Adjectives and adverbs

(d) Function

The attributive and predicative uses of adjectives do not provide a good test for dis­ tinguishing them from nouns because nouns can also function as attributive modi­ fiers or predicative complements. But there is a function-based test that separates nouns from adjectives fairly well: the ability of nouns to head phrases in subject and object position. We illustrate in [7] .

[7]	SUBJECT	SUBJECT	OBJECT
N	The judge arrived.	Its sjzg amazedme.	Ilike silk.
ii ADJ	*Wise arrived.	*f1jgamazedme.	*1 like smooth.

Overlap between the categories

It should be borne in mind that there are a good many lexemes that belong to both noun and adjective categories. They have the positive properties of both. One exam­ ple is cold:

'..it can be an adjective denoting a low temperature (This soup is cold); It can also be a noun denoting a minor illness (I caught a bad cold).

Compare, then:

[8]		ADJECTIVE	NOUN
11	INFLECTION	colder, coldest	colds
	DETERMINERS		my cold, which cold?
1lI	MODIFIERS	terribly cold	a terrible cold
iv	FUNCTION		The cold was nasty. Don't catch a cold.

", The adjective has comparative and superlative forms while the noun has a plural.

,.The noun takes determiners as dependent.

The modifier contrast is evident in [iii], with the adjective taking an adverb and the noun an adjective as modifier.

The noun occurs as head of a phrase in subject or object function.

The fused modifier-head construction

One complication in distinguishing between adjectives and nouns is that a limited range of adjectives can appear as fused modifier-head in an NP, as described in Ch. 5, §7. Further examples are given in [9] .

[9]	SIMPLE	Thefirst version wasn't very good but [the second] wasfine.
11	PARTITIVE	I couldn't afford [even the cheapest of themJ.
III	SPECIAL	This tax cut will benefit [only the rich).

Precisely because they are in head position in NP structure, the underlined words might at first glance be thought to be nouns. But they're not nouns: they're adjec­ tives. In the simple and partitive constructions this is fairly easy to see:

Note the possibility of adding a repetition of the noun version in [i] .

In [ii] we have a superlative form, cheapest, which certainly can't be a noun.

§ 1 .3 Adjectives vs verbs

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Less obvious, however, is the construction in [iii] with its special interpretation. In most cases, nevertheless, the form in the special construction can be clearly iden­ tified as an adjective.

.. This is shown first of all by the modifier test: the extremely rich provides evi­ dence that rich is an adjective because it is preceded by a modifying adverb (a noun would be modified by an adjective).

•Notice also that in this special fused modifier-head use, the only determiner per­ mitted is the - a person who is rich can't be referred to as *a rich or *some rich. And although the NP the rich is plural (hence the verb agreement in The rich are the beneficiaries), it doesn't have plural inflection on rich - two rich people can't be referred to as *two riches. Rich thus behaves very differently from a noun.

Overall, there is strong evidence that the rich in [9iii] contains an adjective but no noun.

1 .3	Adjectives vs verbs

The properties given in § 1 . 1 together with those presented in Ch. 3, § I for the verb enable us to distinguish adjectives from verbs in a similar way. We'll apply a selection of the most decisive properties to distinguish the adjectives fond, sad, appreciative from the verbs love, regret, enjoy.

(a) Inflection and grade

Verbs have a richer system of inflection than any of the other parts of speech. Most distinctive are the preterite and 3rd person singular forms. As already mentioned, comparative and superlative inflection is found with adjectives but not verbs. We illustrate in [ 1 0] with preterite and comparative forms:

[10]			PRETERITE FORMS				COMPARATIVE FORMS
i	a.	V	loved	regretted	enjoyed	b.	*lover	*regretter	*enjoyer
ii	a.	ADJ	*fonded	*sadded	*appreciatived	b.	fonder	sadder	[n/a]

The asterisks in rib] mark impossible comparative forms (lover is of course estab­ lished in a quite different sense as a noun, but the point here is that it's not the com­ parative of love). We wouldn't expect a comparative inflectional form for apprecia­ tive, because adjectives of this length don't take grade inflection, but even with appreciative there is a comparative marked by more. And that suffices to distinguish it from a verb, since when more combines with a verb it doesn't precede it:

[1 1] 1	V	*1 more love you.	1 love you more.
ii	ADJ	I'm more a[!preciative than you.	*I'm a[!preciative than you more.

(b) Modifiers

Unlike nouns, verbs take largely the same modifiers as adjectives: compare Kim loved Pat immensely and Kim was immensely fond of Pat. Nevertheless there are some adverbs that can modify adjectives but not verbs. They include very;pretty, in

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the sense "fairly, quite"; and too, in the sense "excessively". The adverb too can also mean "as well", and in this sense it can modify verbs, so in the following examples we add the subscript 'x' to make explicit that we are concerned with too in the "excessively" sense:

[ 1 2]	V	{	*1 verylove her.	*Hepretty regrets it.	*She toox enjoyed it.
ii			*1 love her very.	*He regrets itpretty.	*She enjoyed it toox•
iii	ADJ		I'm very fond of her.	He'spretty sad.	She was too" allpreciative.

Not all adjectives are semantically compatible with the degree modifiers very, too and pretty. They have to denote a property that can hold to a greater or lesser extent - what we will call a scalar property. For those adjectives that do denote scalar properties, the degree modification seen in [ 1 2iii] provides a very clear indi­ cation of their status as adjectives as opposed to verbs.

(c) Function

A major difference between verbs and adjectives is that verbs function as predicator (head of a VP) in clause structure whereas adjectives do not. In their predicative use, adjectives occur not as predicator but as complement to a verb such as be, become, seem, etc.:

[ 1 3] i	V	They love you.	We	regret it.	You it.
ii	ADJ	They are fond of you.	We	became sad.	You seem appreciative.

The predicator in each case in [ii] is the double-underlined word, not the adjective.

Overlap between the categories

Again we need to bear in mind that there are some items that belong to both cate­ gories. Tame, for example, is a verb in We tame them but an adjective in They are tame. In pairs like this, where the adjective is identical with the plain form and plain present tense of the verb, it is very easy to distinguish between them in terms of the above criteria.

.The verb has the preterite form tamed and the 3rd person singular present tense tames. And it can't take very as modifier: *We very tame them or *We tame them very.

"The adjective has the comparative form tamer and the superlative tamest. And it can be modified by very: They are very tame.

When the verb-form involved is a gerund-participle or past participle form, things are not so obvious, because these verb-forms can occur after be in the progressive and passive constructions. That means there can be ambiguity between verb and adjective interpretations, as in [ 1 4]:

[ 1 4]

a. They are entertaining.

b. The clock was broken.

For [a], the verbal interpretation is "They are currently receiving guests", while the adjectival interpretation is "They are enjoyable". The former is excluded if

§ lA Adjectives vs determinatives	1 17
we add very (They are very entertaining can only mean "They are very enjoy­
able") or replace be by seem or become (e.g., They became entertaining). The
adjectival interpretation is excluded if we add an object for the verb (They are
entertaining some colleagues), since virtually no adjectives take objects.
'. For [b] the verbal interpretation describes an event: "Someone or something
broke the clock". The adjectival interpretation, by contrast, describes a state:
"The clock was in an inoperative condition". Brokenness tends to be thought of
as a yes-or-no property, so in general the adjective broken doesn't take very as
modifier, but it certainly can (in fact very broken is a common phrase among
computer programmers). And the seem test is also relevant: It seemedbroken can
only be adjectival.

1 .4	Adjectives vs determinatives
	The distinction between adjectives and determinatives is not as sharply

drawn as those between adjectives and nouns or adjectives and verbs. Nevertheless, the definite article the and the indefinite article a differ strikingly from prototypical adjectives with respect to both syntax and meaning:

;;> The articles can be obligatory: in most cases NPs with a count singular noun as head must have some kind of determinative, so in The dog barked or A dog barked, the article is required: *Dog barked is not grammatical.

"The articles are non-gradable.

"The articles cannot be used predicatively.

. The articles serve to mark the NP as definite or indefinite rather than denoting some property of the referent.

Other items can then be assigned to the determinative category by virtue of hav­ ing one or more of the following properties:

[ 1 5] i They don't occur with articles, and articles don't occur with them.

iiThey can occur as the only pre-head dependent of a count singular noun.

iiiThey can occur as fused head in a partitive construction.

The examples in [ 1 6] show how these properties distinguish the determinative some from the adjective good:

[ 1 6]

11

1lI

DETERMINATIVE

a. *Shegave me the some apples. a. Some guy called to see you. a. Itook some of the books.

ADJECTIVE

b. He gave me the good apples. b. *Good guy called to see you. b. *1 took good of the books.

In [i], [a] is inadmissible because some cannot follow the.

In [ii], guy is a count singular noun and requires a determiner, such as some.

In [iii] some is fused head with a partitive complement, a construction which does not admit adjectives except for comparative and superlatives (theyoungerof the two, the best of the lot).

1 1 8 Chapter 6 Adjectives and adverbs

1 .5	Gradable and non-gradable adjectives
	We have said that prototypical adjectives have comparative and superla­

tive forms and take degree modifiers such as very, too ("excessively") and pretty. Adjectives of this kind are said to be gradable. They denote scalar properties that can apply in varying degrees. Good, old, big and so on denote properties of this kind - and one can ask about the degree to which the property applies with how: How big is it?, etc.

Not all adjectives are of this kind. There are also non-gradable adjectives, as in an alphabetical list. It makes no sense to ask how alphabetical a list is, or to say that one list is more alphabetical than another. Alphabetical thus denotes a non-scalar property. Other examples of non-gradable adjectives are seen in [ 1 7] :

[ 17]	the chiefdifficulty	federal taxes	glandularfever	my !&.f1 arm
	a medicalproblem	phonetic symbols	pubic hair	their tenth attempt

Some adjectives can be used in either way: like the distinction between count and non-count in nouns, the gradable vs non-gradable distinction applies to uses rather than lexemes as such. Compare:

[1 8]

a. 11 a. 1Il a.

NON-GRADABLE USE		GRADABLE USE
in the public interest	b.	a verypublic quarrel
the British government	b.	a very British response
The motorway is now open.	b.	He was more open with us than the boss.

Typically, as in these examples, the non-gradable sense is the basic one, with the gradable sense representing an extended use.

1 .6	The structure of adjective phrases

An AdjP consists of an adjective as head, alone or accompanied by one or more dependents. The dependents may be complements, licensed by the head, or modifiers, less restricted in their occurrence.

(a) Complements

The complements are almost always PPs, as in [ 1 9], or subordinate clauses, as in [20] :

[ 1 9]	afraid ofthe dark	bent on revenge	conversant with it	good at chess
	kind to children	remotefrom reality	unaltered bv heat	unfit for use
[20]	glad it was over	uncertain what to do	eager to win	hard to grasp
	busy making lunch	difficultfor us to see	thankful that no one had been hurt

The choice of preposition in [ 1 9] depends on the head adjective: we couldn't have, for example, *afraid on the dark or *bent of revenge. With certain adjec­ tives (in particular senses) the PP is obligatory: the sense of bent shown here, for

§ 1 .7 Predicative complements and predicative adjuncts	1 1 9
example, requires a PP complement with on (or upon); and conversant cannot
occur at all without a complement.
The kind of subordinate clause likewise depends on the adjective: we couldn't
have *glad what to do, *busy to make lunch, and so on.

(b) Modifiers

The most common type of modifier is an adverb (or AdvP), as underlined in [2 1 i], but other categories are also found: determinatives (underlined in [2 I ii]), PPs (as in [2 l iii]), and in a very limited range of cases, NPs (as in [2 1 iv]):

[21]	extremely hot	morally wrong	useful	almost completely watertight
11	this young that old no differentmuch better illll'smaller.				old enough
iii	cautious to excess dangerous in the extreme			an [in some respects good] idea
iv	five years old	two hours long	a great deal smaller a bit overpowering

PPs generally follow the head, but in attributive AdjPs they normally precede, as in the last example of [iii], where we have put brackets round the whole AdjP.

1 .7	Predicative complements and predicative adjuncts

In their predicative use, adjectives (or AdjPs) generally function as com­ plement in clause structure. As we saw in Ch. 4, §5, predicative complements occur in complex-intransitive and complex-transitive clauses:

[22]	COMPLEX-INTRANSITIVE CLAUSE					COMPLEX-TRANSITIVE CLAUSE		Iridiculous. I
a.	The suggestion	I	is	I	ridiculous.	b. IIIconsider I	the suggestion
	S		P		PC	s P	o	PC

The adjective is related to a predicand (the suggestion), which is subject in the complex-intransitive construction, and object in the complex-transitive con­ struction.

In addition to being complements, licensed by the head, predicative AdjPs can be adjuncts. Compare, for example:

[23]	PREDICATIVE COMPLEMENT	Max was unwilling to accept these terms.
11	PREDICATIVE ADJUNCT	Unwilling to accept these terms. Max resigned.

In [i] the AdjP is a complement licensed by the verb (be), but in [ii] it is an adjunct, with no such licensing - it is, more specifically, a supplement, detached by intona­ tion or punctuation from the rest of the clause. It is nevertheless still predicative, in that it is related to a predicand. We understand in [ii], no less than in [i], that the unwillingness to accept these terms applies to Max.

1 20 Chapter 6 Adjectives and adverbs

1 .8	Adjectives restricted to attributive or predicative function

Although most adjectives can be used both attributively and predicatively, there are nevertheless many that are restricted to one or other of these two uses:

[24]		ATTRIBUTIVE USE		PREDICATIVE USE
	a.	a huUe hole	b.	The hole was huUe.
ii	a.	utter nonsense	b. *That nonsense was utter.
iii	a. *the asleep children		b.	Thechildren were asleep.

Huge illustrates the default case, where the adjective appears both attributively and predicatively.

Utter is an exceptional case: an attributive-only adjective, which can't be used predicatively (as shown in [iib)).

Asleep is the opposite kind of exception, as evident from [iii] ; it can occur pred­ icatively but not attributively: it is a never-attributive adjective.

(a) Attributive-only adjectives

NPs containing a sample ofother adjectives that are attributive-only are given in [25]:

[25]these damn budget cuts ourfutureprospects the only drawback the putativefather

the eventual winner	her formerhusband
the main problem	a mere child
their ownfault	the principal advantage
the sole survivor	a veritablejungle

(b) Never-attributive adjectives

Here are some further examples of predicative uses of never-attributive adjectives:

[26]The house was ablaze. Something was amiss. It is liable toflood.

The boy seemed afraid.	The child was alone.
It was devoid of interest.	Corruption was rik..
The baby looked content.	I was utterly bereft.

Restrictions may apply to senses rather than lexemes

As with the gradable vs non-gradable distinction, the restrictions often apply just to certain senses of a lexeme. In [27], for example, it is ONLY IN THE SENSES ILLUSTRATED that the underlined adjectives in [i] are attributive-only, and those in [ii] never-attributive:

[27] i	a certain country	the late queen	the lawful heir
ii	Ifeel faint	He was Ulad to see her.	I'm sorry you missed it.

Structural restrictions on attributive adjectives

Attributive AdjPs mostly cannot contain dependents that follow the head. The typi­ cal case is as in [28], where the underlined adjective licenses a post-head dependent (double-underlined), and the AdjP is allowed only predicatively as in the [a] cases, not attributively as in the [b] cases.

§ 1 .9 Other functions of AdjPs

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[28]

PREDICATIVE

ATTRIBUTIVE

a. She was devotedto her children. 11 a. She was cautious to excess.

b. *a devoted to her children mother b. *a cautious to excess manager

There are a few post-head dependents that can occur with attributive adjectives, though, as seen in [29] .

[29] i	a. The house was f2jg enough.		b.	a f2jg enough house
ii	a.	The result was better than expected.	b.	a betterthan expected result
iii	a.	It was better than anyone expected.	b.	a better result than anyone expected

Enough is allowed quite generally after gradable adjectives, as in [i] .

Than expected in [iib] is a short comparative complement that is permitted within an attributive AdjP.

A longer phrase would have to be located after the head noun, as in [iiib], where it functions as indirect complement (see Ch. 5, §4).

1 .9 Other functions ofAdjPs

Besides the two major functions discussed above, there are two rela­ tively minor functions in which adjectives and AdjPs are found.

(a) Postpositives

Postpositive adjectives function in NP structure as post-head internal modifier. There are three cases to consider:

[30] i	everything useful somebody rich somewhere safe those responsible
ii	children keen on sport a report full oferrors	a suggestion likely to oU-end
iii	the only modificationpossible the ones asleep	the president elect

The examples in [i] have fused determiner-heads, making it impossible for the adjectives to occur in the usual pre-head position - compare everything useful with every useful thing.

The modifiers in [ii] would be inadmissible in pre-head position because the adjec­ tive has its own post-head dependents; the postpositive construction provides a way of getting around the fact that such AdjPs cannot be used as attributive modifiers. A limited number of adjectives can occur postpositively without their own dependents and with a non-fused head noun, as in [iii] : possible can also be attributive whereas asleep (as we have seen) cannot. Elect (meaning "recently elected but not in office yet") is one of a very small number of exceptional adjec­ tives that occur only postpositively.

(b) External modifiers

Certain forms of AdjP occur right at the beginning of the NP, before the indefinite article a:

[31]	a.	[How long a delay] will there be?	b.	He'd chosen [too dark a colour].
ii	a.	It seemed [such a bargain].	b.	[What a/ool] I was.

1 22 Chapter 6 Adjectives and adverbs

One type are AdjPs containing how, as, so, too, this or that as modifier, as in [i] . There are two adjectives that can appear by themselves in this position: such and the exclamative word what, shown in [ii] .

2Adverbs

The adverb is the fourth and last of the categories of lexemes that we call open - the categories with huge and readily expandable membership. Noun and verb are the major open categories. Every canonical clause, even the simplest, must contain at least one of each (Kim laughed, Cloudsformed, They moved). Such ele­ mentary constructions can be expanded by adding adjectives and adverbs as modi­ fiers. Nouns take adjectives as their simplest and most typical modifiers, while verbs take adverbs.

The main thing that makes the adverb category open is that such a high propor­ tion of adverbs are morphologically derived from adjectives by adding the suffix ·ly. It is with these related adjective-adverb pairs that we can see most clearly the con­ trast between the modifiers of nouns and the modifiers of verbs:

[32]		MODIFICATION OF NOUN		MODIFICATION OF VERB
	a.	a family	b.	They all lived ever after.
ii	a.	a reedy child	b.	The child devoured it reedily.
iii	a.	a passionate lover	b.	They loved each otherpassionately.

Here double underlining marks the head word, and single underlining marks the modifier - an adjective in [a], an adverb in [b] .

2. 1	Adverbs as modifiers of categories other than the noun

The term 'adverb' is based on the function of these words as modifiers of verbs. But to a very large extent the words that are used for modifying verbs also function as modifiers to adjectives; and a good many modify other adverbs as well:

[33]	a.	a virtual disaster	b. *his almost death		[noun]
ii	a.	It virtually evaporated.	b.	He almost died.	[verb]
iii	a.	Itwas virtually impossible.	b.	He was almost dead.	[adjective]
iv	a.	He spoke virtually inaudibly.	b.	He was wounded almost fatally.	[adverb]

The annotations on the right give the category of the (double-underlined) head word.

In the [a] set, on the left, we have the adjective virtual modifying the noun, with the corresponding adverb virtually modifying the other three heads.

In the [b] set the adverb almost modifies a verb, adjective or adverb; but since it isn't derived from any adjective there is no matching noun modifier to com­ plete rib] .