Semantic characteristics

THE ADJECTIVE

§ 207. According to their way of nomination adjectives fall into two groups - qualitative and relative.

Qualitative adjectives denote properties of a substance directly (great, cold, beautiful, etc.).

Relative adjectives describe properties of a substance through relation to materials (woollen, wooden, feathery, leathern, flaxen), to place (Northern, European, Bulgarian, Italian), to time (daily, monthly, weekly, yearly), to some action (defensive, rotatory, preparatory), or to relationship (fatherly, friendly).

Qualitative adjectives in their turn may be differentiated according to their meaning into descriptive, denoting a quality in a broad sense (wonderful, light, cold, etc.) and limiting, denoting a specific category, a part of a whole, a sequence of order, a number (the previous page, an equestrian statue, medical aid, the left hand).

Limiting adjectives single out the object or substance, impart a concrete or unique meaning to it, specify it, and therefore can seldom be replaced by other adjectives of similar meaning.

Among limiting adjectives there is a group of intensifiers, which often form a phraseological unit with their head-word, for example: an obvious failure, a definite loss, a sure sign, a complete fool, absolute nonsense, plain nonsense, the absolute limit.

Relative adjectives are also limiting in their meaning.

Many adjectives may function either as descriptive or limiting, depend­ing on the head-word and the context. Thus a little finger may denote either a small finger or the last finger of a hand. In the first case little is descriptive, in the second it is limiting. Likewise musical in a musical voice is descriptive, while it is limiting in a musical instrument.

Adjectives also differ as to their function. Some of them are used only attributively and cannot be used as p r e d i с a t i v e s (a top boy in the class, but not *the boy was top): some are used only as predicatives and never as attrubutes (He is well again, but not *The well boy).

The change in the position and, accordingly, of the syntactic status of the adjective may also result in the change in the meaning of the adjective. Thus in a fast train the adjective is limiting and denotes a specific kind of train (скорый поезд), whereas in the train was fast the adjective is descriptive, as it describes the way the train moved (поезд шел на большой скорости).

Date: 2015-04-20; view: 1203