Syntactic Functions. The article. Property of substance, partial nominative value, страница 2

Adjectives do not possess a full nominative value (with the exception perhaps of those denoting color): e.g. good, long, hospitable, fragrant.

2. Morphemic Structure

There are base adjectives and derived ones. The productive stem-building morphemes of the latter are:

-suffixes: -ful (hopeful), -less (flawless), -ish (childish), -ous (famous), -ive (decorative), -ic (basic), -y

(watery), -able / -ibte / - uble (remarkable, edible, soluble), etc;

-prefixes: un- / im- / ir- / it- (unpredictable, inaccurate, irresponsible, illiterate), pre- (premature), a^ablaze), etc.

3. Lexico-Grammatical Subclasses

The main lexico-grammatical subclasses of adjectives are qualitative and relative.

Qualitative adjectives denote various qualities of substances that admit of a quantitative estimation: e.g. an awkward question - a very awkward question, a difficult task - too difficult a task a hearty welcome - not a very hearty welcome.

Kelative adjectives denote such properties of a substance as are determined by the direct relation of a substance to some other substance: e.g. a wooden hut = the hut made of wood; a historical event = the event which went down in history, see also: Siberian, rural, industrial, etc.

Linguistically, it is impossible to draw a rigid borderline between the two subclasses. Relative adjectives c ^ develop qualitative meanings, e.g. to be very English, to look more wooden than ever, childish attitude; qualitative adjectives may in certain contexts denote belonging to a group: e g gay, red, black.

4. Grammatical Categories

The problem of the category of intensity. Properties can be defined by their jntensity - evaluation in relation to soihe internal norm, e.g! She isT667"very old. Yet it is obvious that th^c^egory of intensity is not a morphological category since it is not based on a regular set of opposit|ji§. It is a semantic category.   o -1o 

When a property is evaluated in relation to some other element of the utterance, one deals with

        the degrees of comparison, e.g. She is the eldest (in the family); my elder sister. The marked forms (by -                                                          9

      er, -est) are systematically opposed to the non-marked ones.                                   ced

               Only qualitative adjectives enter the category of degrees of comparison. Relative adjectives have                                                                    ir of

          no degrees of comparison; yet they can be characterized in terms of the intensity of their property, e.g.                                                        lice,

      London looked very autumnal.                                                                                   the

Linguistic status of the "analytical degree of comparison". Many practical grammars speak of two ways of forming degrees of comparison:

-  the morphological (synthetic) degrees of comparison, which are formed with the help of the suffixes - (the er, -est (monosyllabic adjectives and disyllabic adjectives except those ending in two plosives, e.g. direct, rapt ->more; or; disyllabic with the stress on the second s)^lable or ending in -er, -y, -le, -ow; the yet these rules do not seem to be rigid in the present-day English language; e.g. healthier - more uJly healthy, nobler - more noble, etc.)        can