A. Definition
of Adjective
In grammar, an adjective
is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified.
Adjectives are one of the
traditional eight English parts of speech, although linguists today distinguish adjectives from words such as determiners that formerly were considered to be
adjectives. In this paragraph, "traditional" is an adjective, and in
the preceding paragraph, "main" is.
Most, but not all, languages have adjectives. Those that do not, typically use words of
another part of speech, often verbs, to serve the same semantic function; an example, such a language might have a verb
that means "to be big", and would use as attributive verb construction analogous to "big-being house" to
express what English expresses as "big house". Even in languages that
do have adjectives, one language's adjective might not be another's; for
example, whereas English uses "to be hungry" (hungry being an
adjective), Dutch and French use "honger hebben" and "avoir
faim," respectively (literally "to have hunger", hunger
being a noun), and whereas Hebrew uses the adjective "זקוק" (zaqūq,
roughly "in need of"), English uses the verb "to need".
Adjectives form an open class of words in most languages that
have them; that is, it is relatively common for new adjectives to be formed via
such processes as derivation. Bantu languages are well known for having only a small closed class of
adjectives, however, and new adjectives are not easily derived. Igbo has an extremely limited number, just eight: mnukwu
'big', nta 'small'; ojii 'dark', ocha 'light'; ohuru(ofuru)
'new', ochie 'old'; oma 'good', and ojoo 'bad'. Similarly,
native Japanese adjectives (i-adjectives) are a closed
class (as are native verbs), although nouns (which are open class) may be used
in the genitive and there is the separate class of adjectival nouns (na-adjectives), which is
also open, and functions similarly to noun adjuncts in English.
B. Adjective derived from member of
others word classes
Some
of the processes that derived adjectives from verbs straddle the divide between
derivation and inflection in a way that we have not yet encountered. We have
learned about the suffixes -ed, -en, -ing, and vowel change, in passive and
progressive participle form of verb. However, such form (in italics in (1)) can
also be adjectives:
1. a.
a not very interesting book
b.
the party –goers sounded very drunk.
c.
the car seemed more damaged than the
lamp-post.
The
modifier very and the comparative
construction (more …than) show that interesting,
drunk and damaged are adjectives
here, not forms of the verb lexemes INTEREST, DRINK, and DAMAGED. (notice that very
cannot modify verb, so one cannot say *that book very interested me.) as for drunk, its status belonging
to a distinct lexeme here is confirmed by its special meaning (‘intoxicated
through drinking alcohol’), not predictable from the meaning of the verb DRINK
(‘swallow liquid’).
Further
suffixes that commonly form adjectives from verbs, with their basic meaning
are:
2. –able’able
to be Xed’: breakable, readable,
reliable, watchable
3.
–ent’,-ant’ tending to X’: repellent,
expectant, conversant
4.
–ive’ tending to X’: repulsive, explosive, speculative
Expectations
derived from these basic meaning can, as usual in derivation, be overridden;
for example, CONVERSANT does not mean ‘tending to converse’. We have already
encountered –able, where the variant, or allomorph, -ible is also illustrated.
What is striking about the –ible words is that their bases, although they have
clearly identifiable verbal meanings such as ‘eat’, ‘read’, ‘touch’, are bound
rather than free. Some of these bound verb roots appear in a number derived
lexemes, such as the aud- root that occurs in (IN)
AUDIBLE, AUDITION, AUDIENCE, and AUDITORY.
Suffixes that form adjectives from
noun are more no numerous. Here are some:
5. –ful,
e.g. joyful, hopeful, helpful, meaningful
6.
–less, e.g. joyless, hopeless,
helpless, meaningless
7.
–al, e.g. original, normal,
personal, national
8.
–ish, e.g. boyish, loutish, waspish,
selfish
As
will be seen, adjectives in –ful and –less ten to come in
pairs, although the correspondence is not exact: we have ‘SLOTHFUL’ but not
‘SLOTLESS’, and PENNILESSS but not PENNIFULL. This confirms again that even
when the meaning of a potential word may be easily guessable (a ‘slothless’ person
would be hard working, and a ‘PANNIFULL’ person would be well off), the
existence of the word is not guaranteed.
C. Adjectives Derived From
Adjectives
In this category, prefixes
predominate. The only suffix of note is –ish, meaning ‘somewhat X’, as in
GREENISH, SMALISH, REMOTISH ‘rather remote’. By contrast, the prefixes un- meaning
‘not’ is extremely widespread: for example, UNHAPPY, UNSURE, UNRELIABLE,
UNDISCOVERRED. Because it is so common, most dictionaries do not attempt to
list all un- adjectives. This does not mean, however, that un- can
prefixed to all adjectives quite freely, we do not find, for example, ‘UNGOOD’
with the meaning ‘bad’ (though George Orwell included that word in the Newspeak
vocabulary devised for Nineteen
Eighty-Four).
Another negative prefixes is in-,
with allomorphs indicated by the variant spellings il-, ir-, and im- as
in INTANGIBLE, ILLEGAL, IRRESPONSIBLE, and IMPOSSIBLE. It is more restricted
that un-, largely for historical
reasons. For the present it is worth noting the existence of pairs of more or
less synonymous adjectives, one of which is negated with un- and the other with in- or
one of its allomorphs:
Eatable/uneatable edible/inedible
Readable/unreadable legible/illegible
Lawful/unlawful legal/illegal
Touchable/untouchable tangible/intangible
Such
examples confirm that the use of in- is lexically restricted. As the negative counterpart of EDIBLE,
UNEDIBLE sounds possible, especially if the speaker has limited education and
has not encountered, or has momentarily forgotten, the form INEDIBLE. However,
‘INEATABLE’ as the counterpart of EATABLE is not a form that any English
speaker would spontaneously use.
D. Adjectives Derived From Noun
Suffixes that form
adjectives from nouns are more numerous here are some:
1. (-ful) e.g. joyful, hopeful, helpful, meaningful, powerful, skillful, faithful,
beautiful, successful.
2. (-less) e.g. Joyless, hopeless, helpless, meaningless, powerless, homeless, worthless, useless.
3. (-al) e.g. original, normal, personal, national, universal, regional.
4. (-ish) e.g. boyish – selfish, waspish,
loutish, foolish, childish, sheepish.
5. (-y) e.g. funny, stormy, sunny, guilty, messy,
wealthy, gloomy.
6. (-ly) e.g. friendly, orderly, manly, costly,
monthly.
7. (- ous) e.g. dangerous, mysterious, famous,
nervous, poisonous.
8. (-ary) e.g.
momentary, customary, fragmentary, complimentary, honorary, revolutionary.
9. (-ic) e.g.
historic, artistic, athletic, basic, rhythmic, photographic, Islamic,
scientific, realistic.
10. (-some) e.g.
handsome, lovesome, tiresome.
11. (-en) e.g. wooden, woolen, golden.
E. Adjectives Derived From
Verbs
The most productive suffixes for deriving adjectives from verbs
are -able (in Catalan, -able
and -ible); -ive (in Catalan, -iu, -iva), and
-ant and -ent (in Catalan, -ant, -ent and -int).
Adjectives Derived
From Verbs: -able
adapt → adaptable
admire → admirable
adore → adorable
advise → advisable
agree → agreeable
avail → available
bear → bearable
break → breakable
count → countable
cure → curable
Some adjectives derived from verbs ending in silent e can also be
spelled including the e (for example, like →likable or likeable); however, the
spelling without the e is more common. Also, there are some adjectives that
spell the suffix -ible: eat → edible and fail → fallible.
Verbs: -able
Adjectives Derived From Verbs: -ive
Abort → abortive
Abuse → abusive
Act → active
Adapt → adaptive
Adopt → adoptive
Assert → assertive
Capture → captive
Corrode → corrosive
Create → creative
Cure → curative
Note that adjectives derived
from verbs ending in -d or -de are usually spelled with a –sive ending (expend
→ expensive, exclude → exclusive, etc.).
Adjectives Derived From Verbs: -ant
Abound →abundant
Accept →acceptant
Ascend →ascendant
Descend →descendant
Deviate →deviant
Disinfect →disinfectant
Dominate →dominant
Expect →expectant
Exult →exultant
Hesitate →hesitant
Adjectives Derived From Verbs: -ent
Abhor →
abhorrent
Absorb → absorbent
Adhere → adherent
Cohere → coherent
Coincide →
coincident
Compete → competent
Confide → confident
Consist →
consistent
Correspond →
correspondent
Depend →dependent
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