1. Definition of Quality.

Units Expressing Quality

What is meant here by quality is the characteristics, properties and features of

something or someone, i.e., of a thing, a place, a phenomenon, a process, a
situation, a person, or an animal.

a) Qualitative adjectives express the quality of objects (persons, animals,

things, places). Nice, interesting, unforgettable, friendly, loving, Cuban, wooden,
indebted, qualified, irresponsible, hopeless, stormy, dangerous, economical,
troublesome, childlike, are examples of qualitative adjectives.

Qualitative adjectives ( According to lexical meaning)

Proper Relational

Proper qualitative adjectives:

 Discriminate the grammatical category of degree of comparison, and

performing the syntactic function of the core of the AdjP. They express
properties, characteristics, which admit quantification, i.e., measurement
(e.g.: smart – very smart – too smart – rather smart – smarter – smartest;
dangerous – very dangerous – too dangerous – rather dangerous – more
dangerous – most dangerous).

Beautiful girls----------Muchachas bonitas

Handsome man------Hombres apuestos

 Notice that, unlike Spanish qualitative adjectives, English adjectives do

not discriminate either gender or number (tall = alto, -a, -os, -as; thus, tall
 boy, tall girl, tall boys, tall girl, unlike Spanish equivalents niño alto, niña
alta, niños altos, niñas altas).
 AdjPs can perform the syntactic functions of noun modifier (e.g.: young
learners, a very efficient method), subject predicative complement
(e.g.: The children are healthy; We must be honest), and objective
complement (e.g.: We found the lemon pie delicious; My brother
considers you charming; I always take coffee slightly sweet).

Relational qualitative adjectives :

 Express those properties of a substance that are related to another

substance; they express properties by association, e.g., a wooden table
= a table made of wood; a historical document = a document related to
history; surgical equipment = equipment used in surgery.
 Because of their meaning, these adjectives do not admit quantitative
estimation; for instance, a ring may be golden or not, but it cannot be
very or not very golden, more or less golden.

 Relational adjectives are mostly derived from nouns, e.g., flaxen,

linguistic, sandy, silvery, criminal, atomic, hairy, medical, republican,
Argentine, Canadian, French, Egyptian, Chinese.
 Not all adjectives are derived words. Nevertheless, those derived from
nouns take suffixes: –en (golden, brazen), -y (watery), -ly (friendly), -ful
(harmful), -less (careless), -ous (dangerous), -able (honorable), -some
(troublesome), -ic (economic), -ed (talented), -like (childlike), -al
(educational), ical (economical), -an (Shakespearean), -ian (Russian), or
–ish (Irish), or are formed by zero-derivation (key words; gold watch),
though this is not frequent.
 Many present and past participles have become qualitative adjectives
(e.g.: caring, tempted). Thus, these adjectives have been formed from
verbs. As there are more and more participles becoming qualitative
adjectives, it is wise to check –ing and –ed forms in recently edited
dictionaries before deciding whether they are already qualitative
adjectives or still remain participles.
2. Degree of Comparison of Qualitative Adjectives

The grammatical category of degree of comparison affects qualitative

adjectives. When the qualities of two or more persons, animals, objects,
phenomena, processes, etc. are grammatically compared, their degree (the
amount, the level of manifestation of the quality) is measured in relation to one
another. For instance, if you say Diana is smarter than Elizabeth, you are
stating that the degree of intelligence in the former is higher than that in the
latter.

Degree of Comparison

Positive (zero) Comparative Superlative

Degree of comparison is a grammatical category of both English qualitative

adjectives consisting of a set of three grammemes –positive (zero), comparative
(–er / more), and superlative (-est / the most)—which stably and regularly
express a relative evaluation of the quantity of a quality –standard :: higher ::
supreme. Degrees of comparison can be expressed synthetically (young ::
younger :: youngest) or analytically (beautiful :: more beautiful :: most beautiful).
Concerning the use of these forms, it is interesting to note that the comparative
degree is used to compare two elements, while the superlative is used to
compare three or more (e.g.: Which is the larger of the two countries –Canada
or Russia?; Which is the largest of the three countries –Canada, Russia, or
China?).

Some adjectives form the comparative and the superlative degrees irregularly.
Included among the adjectives are: good (better, best), bad (worse, worst), far
(farther, farthest; further, furthest);

3. Syntactic expression of comparison

There must always be at least two elements involved in a comparison, these

must also be expressed. In doing so, the speaker / writer uses different
syntactic means –phrases and clauses-- and organizes all the elements into
two parts, i.e., either s/he carries out a one-to-one comparison or a one-to-more
than one comparison (one-to-a group). For instance, Ed is taller than Charles ;
he’s taller than Peter too ; Ed is the tallest of the three ; Ed is the tallest in the
class
Than is either a preposition (e.g.: Betty is wiser than me) or a conjunction
(e.g.: Betty is wiser than I am). The first than is a preposition followed by its
object, the NP me, while the second one is a conjunction joining the main
clause, Betty is wiser, and the subordinate clause I am.
If you want to refer to the number of elements compared, a PP with the
preposition of can help either when you are comparing only two things, i.e.,
using the comparative degree, or when you are comparing more than two
things, that is, when you are using the superlative degree (e.g.: Both Ruth and
Martin are good students, but she is the more intelligent of the two; Anna,
Helen, and Susan are very tall, but Anna is the tallest of the three). For the sake
of emphasis, the PP with of may be placed at the beginning of the sentence,
e.g.: Of the three girls, Anna is the tallest. The of-PP may be substituted for by
an in-PP in sentences with a superlative degree form: Anna is the tallest girl of /
in the class. In these cases, the preposition in is followed by a noun in singular
(often collective): in our grade, in her group, in the world, in our country, in this
city.
Sometimes the comparison is made between an object and a standard
understood from context. In such cases, the PPs than that or as that are used:
--Rose must be eighty years old. –I think she’s younger than that / I think
she’s not as old as that. The PP may, however, be omitted: I don’t think she’s
that old. When something is compared, not to something else, but to itself
at an earlier or later time, the than-phrase is usually omitted, e.g.,
Nowadays, people living in cities are more stressed (than they were some
years ago).

The repetition of the comparative degree form conveys the meaning of

continuing change: I’m getting tenser and tenser with that problem. As you
can see, such sentences do not contain the than-construction.
Conclusions
 Quality and the syntactic units used to express it
 Degree of Comparison, as the only grammatical category discriminated
by English qualitative adjectives
 Syntactic constructions employed to express comparison
 Instruction for the workshop

A- Say in what way these things are record breakers, justify your answer.
 Everest
 Gold
 Football
 Korea
 Russia
B- Be ready to establish a debate in order to compare
 Country/town life
 Baseball/football
 Capitalism/socialism
 Adele/Beyonce
 Messi/Cristiano Ronaldo
 Michael Jackson/Freddy Mercuri
 Greetings around the world