“Alecu Russo” Bălţi State University

Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literature

English Philology Department

Referat Analiză contrastivă

-The adjective(In English and Romanian language)-

Student: Bondari Maria

Group: EF 41

Bălţi, 2009
 I. The adjective (in English language)

In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or

pronoun, giving more information about the noun or pronoun's referent. Some examples can be
seen in the box to the right. Collectively, adjectives form one of the traditional English eight
parts of speech, though linguists today distinguish adjectives from words such as determiners
that also used to be considered adjectives.

Not all languages have adjectives, but most, including English, do. (English adjectives include
big, old, and tired, among many others.) Those that do not, typically use words of another part of
speech, often verbs, to serve the same semantic function; for example, such a language might
have a verb that means "to be big", and would use a 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, while English uses "to be hungry"
(hungry being an adjective), French uses "avoir faim" (literally "to have hunger"), and where
Hebrew uses the adjective "‫( "זקוק‬zaqūq, roughly "in need of"), English uses the verb "to need".

In most languages with adjectives, they form an open class of words; that is, it is relatively
common for new adjectives to be formed via such processes as derivation.

Examples:

That is a tall building.

I met a very old man.

The quick, brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Most monkeys are arboreal creatures that inhabit tropical or subtropical areas.

That's a very nice dress you are wearing.

Adjectives and adverbs

Many languages, including English, distinguish between adjectives, which modify nouns
and pronouns, and adverbs, which modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Not all languages
have exactly this distinction, however, and in many languages (including English) there are
words that can function as both. For example, English fast is an adjective in "a fast car" (where it
modifies the noun car), but an adverb in "he drove fast" (where it modifies the verb drove).

Determiners

Linguists today distinguish determiners from adjectives, considering them to be two

separate parts of speech (or lexical categories), but traditionally, determiners were considered
adjectives in some of their uses. (In English dictionaries, which typically still do not treat
determiners as their own part of speech, determiners are often recognizable by being listed both
as adjectives and as pronouns.) Determiners are words that express the reference of a noun in the
context, generally indicating definiteness (as in a vs. the), quantity (as in one vs. some vs. many),
or another such property.

Attributive, predicative, absolute, and substantive adjectives

A given occurrence of an adjective can generally be classified into one of four kinds of uses:

Attributive adjectives are part of the noun phrase headed by the noun they modify; for
example, happy is an attributive adjective in "happy people". In some languages, attributive
adjectives precede their nouns; in others, they follow their nouns; and in yet others, it depends on
the adjective, or on the exact relationship of the adjective to the noun. In English, attributive
adjectives usually precede their nouns in simple phrases, but often follow their nouns when the
adjective is modified or qualified by a phrase acting as an adverb. For example: "I saw three
happy kids", and "I saw three kids happy enough to jump up and down with glee."

Predicative adjectives are linked via a copula or other linking mechanism to the noun or
pronoun they modify; for example, happy is a predicate adjective in "they are happy" and in "that
made me happy." (See also: Predicative (adjectival or nominal), Subject complement.)

Absolute adjectives do not belong to a larger construction (aside from a larger adjective
phrase), and typically modify either the subject of a sentence or whatever noun or pronoun they
are closest to; for example, happy is an absolute adjective in "The boy, happy with his lollipop,
did not look where he was going."

Substantive adjectives act almost as nouns. One way this can happen is if a noun is
elided and an attributive adjective is left behind. In the sentence, "I read two books to them; he
preferred the sad book, but she preferred the happy", happy is a substantive adjective, short for
"happy one" or "happy book". Another way this can happen is in phrases like "out with the old,
in with the new", where "the old" means, "that which is old" or "all that is old", and similarly
with "the new". In such cases, the adjective functions either as a mass noun (as in the preceding
example) or as a plural count noun, as in "The meek shall inherit the Earth", where "the meek"
means "those who are meek" or "all who are meek".

Adjectival phrases

An adjective acts as the head of an adjectival phrase. In the simplest case, an adjectival
phrase consists solely of the adjective; more complex adjectival phrases may contain one or more
adverbs modifying the adjective ("very strong"), or one or more complements (such as "worth
several dollars", "full of toys", or "eager to please"). In English, attributive adjectival phrases that
include complements typically follow their subject ("an evildoer devoid of redeeming qualities").

Other noun modifiers

In many languages, including English, it is possible for nouns to modify other nouns.
Unlike adjectives, nouns acting as modifiers (called attributive nouns or noun adjuncts) are not
predicative; a beautiful park is beautiful, but a car park is not "car". In English, the modifier
often indicates origin ("Virginia reel"), purpose ("work clothes"), or semantic patient ("man
eater"). However, it can generally indicate almost any semantic relationship. It is also common
for adjectives to be derived from nouns, as in English boyish, birdlike, behavioral, famous,
manly, angelic, and so on.

Many languages have special verbal forms called participles that can act as noun modifiers. In
some languages, including English, there is a strong tendency for participles to evolve into
adjectives. English examples of this include relieved (the past participle of the verb relieve, used
as an adjective in sentences (such as "I am so relieved to see you"), spoken (as in "the spoken
word"), and going (the present participle of the verb go, used as an adjective in sentences such as
"Ten dollars per hour is the going rate").

Other constructs that often modify nouns include prepositional phrases (as in English "a rebel
without a cause"), relative clauses (as in English "the man who wasn't there"), other adjective
clauses (as in English "the bookstore where he worked"), and infinitive phrases (as in English
"cake to die for").

In relation, many nouns take complements such as content clauses (as in English "the idea that I
would do that"); these are not commonly considered modifiers, however.

Adjective order

In many languages, attributive adjectives usually occur in a specific order; for example,
in English, adjectives pertaining to size generally precede adjectives pertaining to age ("little
old", not "old little"), which in turn generally precede adjectives pertaining to color ("old green",
not "green old"). This order may be more rigid in some languages than others; in some, it may
only be a default (unmarked) word order, with other orders being permissible to shift the
emphasis.

Comparison of adjectives

In many languages, adjectives can be compared. In English, for example, we can say that
a car is big, that it is bigger than another is, or that it is the biggest car of all. Not all adjectives
lend themselves to comparison, however; for example, the English adjective extinct is not
considered comparable, in that it does not make sense to describe one species as "more extinct"
than another. However, even most non-comparable English adjectives are still sometimes
compared; for example, one might say that a language about which nothing is known is "more
extinct" than a well-documented language with surviving literature but no speakers.

Comparable adjectives are also known as "gradable" adjectives, because they tend to allow
grading adverbs such as very, rather, and so on.

Among languages that allow adjectives to be compared in this way, different approaches are
used. Indeed, even within English, two different approaches are used: the suffixes -er and -est,
and the words more and most. (In English, the general tendency is for shorter adjectives and
adjectives f rom Anglo-Saxon to use -er and -est, and for longer adjectives and adjectives
from French, Latin, Greek, and other languages to use more and most.) By either approach,
English adjectives therefore have positive forms (big), comparative forms (bigger), and
superlative forms (biggest); many languages do not distinguish comparative from superlative
forms, however.

Restrictiveness

Attributive adjectives, and other noun modifiers, may be used either restrictively (helping
to identify the noun's referent, hence "restricting" its reference), or non-restrictively (helping to
describe an already-identified noun). In some languages, such as Spanish, restrictiveness is
consistently marked; for example, Spanish la tarea difícil means "the difficult task" in the sense
of "the task that is difficult" (restrictive), while la difícil tarea means "the difficult task" in the
sense of "the task, which is difficult" (non-restrictive). In English, restrictiveness is not marked
on adjectives, but is marked on relative clauses (the difference between "the man who recognized
me was there" and "the man, who recognized me, was there" being one of restrictiveness).

II. The adjective (in Romanian language)

Romanian (technically called Daco-Romanian) shares practically the same grammar and
most of the vocabulary and phonological processes with the other three surviving Eastern
Romance languages: Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian.

As a Romance language, Romanian shares many characteristics with its more distant relatives:
Italian, French, Spanish, etc. However, many linguists seem to agree that Romanian has
preserved many features of Latin grammar, which could be explained by a host of arguments
such as: relative isolation in the Balkans, possible pre-existence of identical grammatical
structures in the Dacian or other substratum (as opposed to the Germanic and Celtic substrata
that the other Romance languages developed in contact with), and existence of similar elements
in the neighboring languages. Examples of Latin grammar elements that survived in Romanian
while having disappeared from other Romance languages include: the retention of the neutral
gender in nouns (albeit Romanian neuter is a mere combination of masculine and feminine) and
the morphological case differentiation in nouns, reduced however to only three forms
(nominative/accusative, genitive/dative, and vocative).

Many writings on Romanian grammar, in particular most of those published by the Romanian
Academy (Academia Română), are prescriptive; the rules regarding plural formation, verb
conjugation, word spelling and meanings, etc. are revised periodically to include new tendencies
in the language.

Romanian adjectives determine the quality of things. They are always determinants of a
noun, pronoun, numeral or copulative verb, so they can only fulfill the syntactical functions of
attribute and adjectival complement, which in Romanian is called nume predicativ (nominal
predicative)
Endings and Flexionary Forms

Singular Plural

Masculine frumos frumoşi

Feminine frumoasă frumoase

The number of different forms an adjective takes only in the singular are called endings,
terminaţii. Similarly, the number of different forms an adjective takes in both the singular and the
plural are called flexionary forms, forme flexionare. The adjective frumos (beautiful) has 2
endings, and 4 flexionary forms.

Singular Plural

Masculine verde verzi

Feminine verde verzi

The adjective verde (green) on the other hand, has 1 ending and 2 flexionary forms.

Singular Plural

Masculine oranj oranj

Feminine oranj oranj

The foreign borrowed adjective oranj (orange) is called invariable, as it has only 1
ending, and 1 flexionary form. Adjectives that do not have only 1 flexionary form (and thus 1
ending) are called variable.

Syntactical functions

Syntactical functions of the adjective can be:

Attribute, in case it defines a noun, pronoun or numeral. (e.g.: The blond boy is here. Băiatul
blond este aici.)
Adjectival complement, in case it defines a copulative verb. (e.g.: The boy is blond. Băiatul
este blond.)

Degrees of comparison

An adjective also can have degrees of comparison.

Positive Degree (frumos, beautiful)

Comparative Degree:

-Of superiority (mai frumos, more beautiful)

-Of equality (la fel de frumos, as beautiful as)

-Of inferiority (mai puţin frumos, less beautiful)

Superlative Degree:

Relative Superlative

-Of superiority (cel mai frumos, the most beautiful)

-Of inferiority (cel mai puţin frumos, the least beautiful)

Absolute Superlative (foarte frumos, very beautiful)

Bibliography