Sunday, June 16, 2013

ADJECTIVES DERIVIDED FORM MEMBER OF OTHER WORD CLASSES


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

No comments:

Post a Comment