THE A D J E C T I V E:

Its Grammatical Categories

The English adjective from the morphological point

of view has neither number, nor case, nor gender

distinctions. Some adjectives have, however, degrees of

comparison.

Thus, the English adjective differs materially not

only from such highly inflected languages as Rus sian, Latin

and German, where the adjectives have a rather com plicated

system of forms, but even from Modern French, which has

preserved number and gender distinctions to the present

day.

In most cases an adjective can be recognized only

by taking into account semantic and syntactical phenomena.

But in some cases, for certain adjectives, derivative suffixes

are significant, too. Among these are the suffix -less

(useless), the suffix -like (ghostlike), and a few others.

Occasionally, however, though a suffix often appears in

adjectives, it cannot be taken as a certain proof of the word

being an adjective, because the suffix may also make part of

a word belonging to another part of speech.

Thus, the suffix -ful would seem to be typically adjectival

(beautiful, useful, purposeful, meaningful). But alongside

of these it can be also found in spoonful, mouthful,

handful, etc., which are nouns.

The only morphological problem concerning adjectives is that

of degrees of comparison.

 

DEGREES OF COMPARISON

The first question which arises is how many degrees of

comparison the English adjective has. The three forms of an English

adjective large, larger, (the) largest correspond to three degrees of

comparison: pos itive, comparative, and superlative. The other point of

view is that only the latter two are degrees of comparison (comparative

and superlative), whereas the first (large) does not express any idea of

comparison and is therefore not a degree of comparison at all.

It is well known that not every adjective has

degrees of comparison.

This may depend on two factors. One of these is

not grammatical, but semantic. Since degrees of

comparison express a difference of degree in the same

property, only those adjectives admit of degrees of

comparison which denote properties capable of appearing

in different degrees. Thus, it is obvious that, for example,

the adjective middle has no degrees of comparison.

The same might be said about blind, deaf, dead,

etc. It is sometimes stated that qualitative adjectives form

degrees of comparison, whereas relative adjectives

(wooden, woolen, Asian, orien tal) do not. But the division

of adjectives into qualitative and relative is not

grammatical but semantic, and some qualitative adjectives

have no degrees of comparison either (perfect, main, etc).

A more complex problem in the sphere of degrees of

comparison is that of the formations more difficult, (the) most difficult,

or more beautiful, (the) most beautiful. The question is the following: is

more difficult an analytical comparative degree of the adjective

difficult? In that case the word more would be an auxiliary word

serving to make up that analytical form, and the phrase would belong to

the sphere of morphology.

Or is more difficult a free phrase, not dif ferent in its essential

character from the phrase very difficult or somewhat difficult? In that

case the adjective difficult would have no degrees of comparison at all,

and the whole phrase would be a syntactical formation.

The traditional view held both by practical and

theoretical grammarians until recently was that phrases of

this type were analytical degrees of comparison. Still

however, the view has been put forward that they do not

es sentially differ from phrases of the type very difficult,

which, of course, nobody would think of treating as

analytical forms.

The arguments that may be put forward in favour of

one and the other view are the following.

(+) The view that formations of the type more difficult

are ana lytical degrees of comparison may be supported by

the following considerations:

(1) The actual meaning of formations like more dif ficult,

(the) most difficult does not differ from that of larger, (the)

largest.

(2) Qualitative adjectives, like difficult, express properties

which may be present in different degrees, and therefore

they are bound to have degrees of com parison.

(-) The argument against such formations being

analytical degrees of comparison would run roughly like

this.

(1) The words more and most have the same meaning in

these phrases as in other phrases in which they may appear,

e. g. more time, most people, etc.

(2) Alongside of the phrases more difficult, (the) most

difficult there are also the phrases less difficult, (the) least

difficult, and there seems to be no sufficient reason for

treating the two sets of phrases in different ways, saying that

more difficult is an analytical form, while less difficult is not.

Besides, the very fact that more and less, (the) most and (the)

least can equally well combine with difficult, would seem to

show that they are free phrases and none of them is an

analytical form.

SPECIAL MEANINGS OF THE SUPERLATIVE

The basic meaning of the superlative is that of

a degree of a pro perty surpassing all the other objects

mentioned or implied.

However, there are cases when the meaning is

different and merely a very high degree of a property is

meant, without any com parison with other objects

possessing that property.

Thus, in the sentence It is with the greatest pleasure

that we learn of... the phrase the greatest pleasure does not

mean that that particular pleasure was greater than all other

pleasures, but merely that it was very great. The same may

be said of the sentence In Brown's room was the greatest

disorder. This meaning of the form is usually described as

the elative.

A similar phenomenon is also found in Russian: с

величайшим удовольствием; величайшего ума человек.

The forms of the superlative degree are never used

with the indefinite article. The phrase “most + adjective",

on the other hand, may be used with the indefinite article

and expresses in that case a very high degree of a property,

without implying any comparison, e.g. a most satisfactory

result. The meaning of the phrase is thus the same as that

of the superlative degree in its elative application.

To be continued.