Ilyish: The door opened and the young man came in.

The door opened and a young man came in.

In the 2^nd case we can see that the central point of the sentence is a young man, which is new ( the person who came in proved to be a young man). While in the 1^st sentence the central point is that he came in. The central point corresponds to the semantic predicate, or the RHEME.

 the indefinite article expresses what is new, and the definite article expresses what is known already, or at least what is not presented as new.

Seminar 11 The Adjective

1. The adjective as a part of speech (semantic, morphological, syntactic properties).

Хаймович/Роговская:

Adjectives are a part of speech characterized by the following typical features:

1. The lexico-gramatical meaning of “attributes (of substantives)”. By attributes we mean different properties of substantives, such as their size, colour, position in space, material, psychic state of persons, etc.

2. The morphological category of the degrees of comparison.

3. The characteristic combinability with nouns (a beautiful girl), link verbs (…is clever), adverbs, mostly those of degree (a very clever boy), the so-called “prop word” one (the grey one).

4. The stem-building affixes –ful, -less, -ish, -ous, -ive, -ic, un-, pre-, in-, etc.

5. Its functions of an attribute and a predicative complement.

Blokh:

The adjective expresses the categorial semantics of property of a substance  each adjective used in text presupposes relation to some noun. Unlike nouns, adjectives do not possess a full nominative value.

2. Classification of adjectives.

Хаймович/Роговская:

With regard to the category of the degrees of comparison adjectives fall under 2 lexico-grammatical subclasses: comparables and non-comparables. The nucleus of the latter is composed of derived adjectives like wooden, Crimean, mathematical, etc.  Theses adjectives are called relative as distinct from all other adjectives called qualitative.

Most qualitative adjectives build up opposemes of comparison, but some do not:

1. adjectives that in themselves express the highest degree of a quality: supreme, extreme

2. those having the suffix –ish which indicates the degree of quality: reddish, whitish

3. those denoting qualities which are not compatible with the idea of comparison.: deaf, dead, lame, perpendicular.

Blokh:

All the adjectives are traditionally divided into 2 large subclasses: qualitative and relative.

Relative adjectives express such properties of a substance as are determined by the direct relation of the substance to some other substance (e.g. wood – a wooden hut, history – a historical event).

The nature of this relationship in adjectives is best revealed by definitional correlations: e.g. a wooden hut – a hut made of wood; a historical event – an event referring to a certain period of history.

Qualitative adjectives, as different from relative ones, denote various qualities of substances which admit of a quantitative estimation, i.e. of establishing their correlative quantitative measure. The measure of a quality can be estimated as high or low, adequate or inadequate, sufficient or insufficient, optimal or excessive (e.g. a difficult task – a very difficult task).

!!! Substances can possess such qualities as are incompatible with the idea of degrees of comparison  adjectives denoting these qualities, while belonging to the qualitative subclasses, are in the ordinary use incapable of forming degrees of comparison (e.g. extinct, immobile, deaf, final, fixed).

Many adjectives considered under the heading of relative still can form degrees of comparison, thereby, as it were, transforming the denoted relative property of a substance into such as can be graded quantitatively (e.g. a military design – of a less military design – of a more military design).

 The adjective functions may be grammatically divided into ‘evaluative’ and ‘specificative’. One and the same adjective, irrespective of its being relative or qualitative, can be used either in one or the other function.

e.g. good is basically qualitative, but used as a grading term in teaching it acquires the specificative value (bad, satisfactory, good, excellent).

3. The category of degrees of comparison.

Хаймович/Роговская:

The category of the degrees of comparison of adjectives is the system of opposemes (long – longer – longest) showing qualitative distinctions of qualities. More exactly it shows whether the adjective denotes the property of some substance absolutely, or relatively as a higher or the highest amount of the property in comparison with that of some other substances.

 ‘positive’, ‘comparative’ and ‘superlative’ degrees.

The positive degree is not marked. We may speak of a zero morpheme. The comparative and superlative degrees are built up either synthetically (by affixation or suppletivity) or analytically (with the help of word-morphemes more and most), which depends mainly on the structure of the stem.

Some authors treat more beautiful and the most beautiful not as analytical forms, but as free syntactical combinations od adverbs and adjectives. One of the arguments is that less and least form combinations with adjectives similar to those with more and most: e.g. more beautiful – less beautiful, the most beautiful – the least beautiful.

In order to prove that more beautiful is an analytical form of the comparative degree, we have to prove that more is a grammatical word-morpheme identical with the morpheme –er.

1. More an –er are identical as o their meaning of ‘a higher degree’.

2. Their distribution is complementary. Together they cover all the adjectives having the degrees of comparison. Those adjectives which have comparative opposites with suffix –er have usually no parallel opposites with more and vice versa.

e.g.

beautiful – more beautiful (not beautifuller)

nice – nicer (not more nice)

This is not the case with less:

1. Less and –er have different, even opposite meanings.

2. The distribution of –er and less is not complementary. One and the same lexical morpheme regularly attaches both less and –er: prettier – less pretty, safer – less safe.

Besides, unlike more, less is regularly replaced by not so: less pretty = not so pretty.

These facts show that more in more beautiful is a grammatical word-morpheme identical with the morpheme –er of the comparative degree grammeme  more beautiful is an analytical form.

A new objection is raised in the case of the superlative degree. In the expression a most interesting theory the indefinite article is used whereas a prettiest child is impossible  there is some difference between the synthetic superlative and the analytical one.

One must not forget that more and most are not only word-morphemes of comparison. They can be notional words. They are polysemantic and polyfunctional words. One of the meanings of most is ‘very, exceedingly’ (a most interesting book).

The notional word more in the meaning ‘to greater extent’ can also be used to modify adjectives, as in It’s more grey than brown. More grey here is a combination of words.

The positive degree does not convey the idea of comparison. Its meaning is absolute. Jespersen: the positive degree is, a matter of fact, negative in relation to comparison.

The comparative degree and the superlative degree are both relative in meaning (Peter is older than Mary – Peter is not old).

Smirnitsky: thinks that there is good ground to speak of 2 forms of comparison: the positive degree and the relative degree which exists in 2 varieties – the comparative degree and the superlative degree.

Blokh:

Comparative degree = restrictive superiority

Superlative degree = unrestricted superiority

More/most  direct superiority degrees

Less/least  reverse superiority degrees

4. Statives.

Blokh:

Among the words signifying properties of a nounal referent there is a leximic set which claims to be recognied as a separate part of speech, a class of words different form the adjectives in its class-forming features. These are words built up by the prefix a- and denoting different states, mostly of temporary duration. Here belong lexemes like afraid, agog (возбужденный, сгорающий от любопытства/нетерпения), adrift (по течению; по воле волн; по воле случая), ablaze (горящий, пылающий; сверкающий, блистающий; возбужденный, взволнованный, горящий, в пылу). These are treated as predicative adjectives in traditional grammar.

Scherbs and Vinogradov were the first to identify notional words signifying states and specially used as predicatives. They called the newly identified part of speech the “category of state“ (Russian words: тепло, зябко, одиноко, радостно, жаль, лень).

The term “words of the category of state” being rather cumbersome (громоздкий) form the technical point of view was later changed into “stative words” or “statives”.

The part-of-speech interpretation of the statives is not shared by all linguists.

Хаймович/Роговская: statives are ‘adlinks’ (on analogy with adverbs), they are opposed to adjectives

1. on a purely semantic basis, since adjectives denoted qualities and statives-adlinks denote states.

2. As different from adjectives, statives-adlinks are characterized by the specific prefix a-.

3. They do not possess the category of degrees of comparison.

4. The combinability of statives-adlinks is different from that of adjectives in so far as they are not used in the pre-positional attributive function, i.e. are characterized by the absence of the right-hand combinability with nouns.

Бархударов:

1. The basic meaning of the statives is that of “stative property”. Adjectives as a whole signify not qualities but properties  statives do not fundamentally differ from classical adjectives.

2. Turning to the combinability characteristics of statives, we see that, though differing from those of the common adjectives in one point negatively, they basically coincide with them in the other points. Statives are not used in attributive pre-position, but, like adjectives, they are distinguished by the left-hand categorial combinability both with nouns and link-verbs. E.g. The household was all astir (на ногах) – The household was all excited.

3. Analyzing the functions of the stative corresponding to its combinability patterns, we see that essentially they do not differ from the functions of the common adjective. Namely, the 2 basic functions of the stative are the predicative and the attribute. The similarity of functions leads to the possibility of the use of a stative and a common adjective in a homogeneous group. E.g. Launches (баркас, катер, моторная лодка) and barges (баржа; барка; баркас) moored (причалить; пришвартовать(ся); стать на якорь) to the dock were ablaze and loud with wild sound.

4. It would not be quite consistent with the actual lingual data to place the stative strictly out of the category of comparison. The category of comparison is connected with the functional division of adjectives into evaluative and specificative. Like common adjectives, statives are subject to this flexible division, and so in principle they are included into the expression of the quantitative estimation of the corresponding properties conveyed by them. Statives do not take the synthetic forms of the degrees of comparison, but they are capable of expressing comparison analytically: e.g. Of us all, Jack was the one most aware of the delicate situation in which we found ourselves.

5. Quantitative considerations tend to support the conjoint (common) part-of-speech interpretation of statives and common adjectives. The number of statives is too small to build a new part of speech.

 the undertaken semantic and functional analysis shows that statives, though forming a unified set of words, do not constitute a separate lexemic class existing in language on exactly the same footing as the noun, the verb, the adjective, the adverb; rather it should be looked upon as a subclass within the general class of adjectives. It is essentially an adjectival subclass, because, due to their peculiar features, statives are not directly opposed to the notional parts of speech taken together, but are quite particularly opposed to the rest of adjectives.