_ Adjectives and adverbs

1 Adjectives 1 1 2
2 Adverbs 1 22

1 Adjectives

1.1 Distinctive properties of prototypical adjectives

Adjectives typically denote properties of objects, persons, places, etc.:
properties relating to age (old, young), size (big, small), shape (round, flat), weight
(heavy, light), colour (black, blue), merit or quality (good, bad), and so on. Syntac­
tically, prototypical adjectives in English have the following three properties.

(a) Function
They have attributive and predicative uses. Attributive adjectives function as inter­
nal pre-head modifier to a following noun; predicative adjectives function mainly
as predicative complement in clause structure:

[I] ATTRIBUTIVE USE an old car black hair good news

ii PREDICATIVE USE The car is old. Her hair is black. The news is good.

(b) Grade
They either inflect for grade, showing a contrast between plain, comparative and
superlative forms, or else form comparative and superlative adjective phrases
(AdjPs) marked by more and most:

[2] PLAIN COMPARATIVE SUPERLATIVE

She is tall. She is taller than you. She is the tallest of them all.
II This is useful This is more useful than that. This is the most useful one.

(c) Modification
They can be modified, usually by adverbs, as in [3] (the adverbs are double­
underlined):

[3] too old remarkably tall extremely useful to us

1 12
 § 1 .2 Adjectives vs nouns 1 13

1 .2 Adjectives vs nouns
The properties given above make it a generally easy matter to distin­
guish adjectives from nouns, especially when taken together with the properties of
nouns presented in Ch. 5, § 1 .
In this section we pick out a selection of the most decisive properties that do dis­
tinguish between nouns and adjectives. We use judge, size, and silk as examples of
words that occur as nouns but not as adjectives, and wise, big, and smooth as exam­
ples of words that occur as adjectives but not as nouns.

(a) Inflection
Nouns typically have plural inflected forms; adjectives (in English) never do.
Conversely, many adjectives have comparative and superlative inflected forms,
but no nouns do:

[4] PLURAL FORMS WITH ·s OR ·es SUPERLATIVE FORMS WITH ·est

a. N judges sizes silks b. *judgest *sizest *silkest
ii a. A DJ *wises *bigs *smooths b. wisest biggest smoothest

Not all nouns have plural forms and not all adjectives have comparative and superla­
tive forms, but where the forms do exist the difference between nouns and adjectives
is particularly clear.

(b) Determiners
Nouns take determiners as dependent but adjectives do not. Some of the determi­
natives that function as determiner in NP structure, however, can also function as
modifier in AdjP structure, so in applying this test we need to select items which
cannot modify adjectives. This can be done by picking genitives, or the determina­
tives which and some:
[5] N which judge ? my llig some silk
ii A DJ *which wise ? *my llig * some smooth

(c) Modifiers
Nouns and adjectives take different kinds of modifiers. Most importantly, NOUNS
TAKE ADJECTIVES as modifier, but adjectives don't normally take other adjectives
as modifier. Adjectives most often take adverbs. There are enormous numbers of
adjective-adverb pairs that differ just by the presence of the suffix ·ly on the adverb,
as in remarkable vs remarkably, and in those cases it is the word without the ·ly that
modifies a following noun, and the one with ·ly that modifies a following adjective,
as the examples in [6] show:
[6] i N a remarkable judge its incredible llig this wonderful silk
ii ADJ remarkably wise incredibly llig wonderfully smooth
Switching adjectives and adverbs makes ungrammatical phrases in every case: *a
remarkably judge, * remarkable wise, etc.
1 14 Chapter 6 Adjectives and adverbs

(d) Function
The attributive and predicative uses of adjectives do not provide a good test for dis­
tinguishing them from nouns because nouns can also function as attributive modi­
fiers or predicative complements. But there is a function-based test that separates
nouns from adjectives fairly well: the ability of nouns to head phrases in subject
and object position. We illustrate in [7] .
[7] SUBJECT SUBJECT OBJECT
N The judge arrived. Its sjzg amazed me. I like silk.
ii ADJ * Wise arrived. * f1jg amazed me. *1 like smooth.

Overlap between the categories

It should be borne in mind that there are a good many lexemes that belong to both
noun and adjective categories. They have the positive properties of both. One exam­
ple is cold:
'.. it can be an adjective denoting a low temperature (This soup is cold) ;
It can also be a noun denoting a minor illness (I caught a bad cold).
Compare, then:

[8] ADJECTIVE NOUN

INFLECTION colder, coldest colds
1 1 DETERMINERS my cold, which cold?
1 l I MODIFIERS terribly cold a terrible cold
iv FUNCTION The cold was nasty. Don 't catch a cold.

", The adjective has comparative and superlative forms while the noun has a plural.
,. The noun takes determiners as dependent.
The modifier contrast is evident in [iii], with the adjective taking an adverb and
the noun an adjective as modifier.
The noun occurs as head of a phrase in subject or object function.

The fused modifier-head construction

One complication in distinguishing between adjectives and nouns is that a limited
range of adjectives can appear as fused modifier-head in an NP, as described in
Ch. 5, §7. Further examples are given in [9] .

[9] SIMPLE The first version wasn 't very good but [the second] was fine.
11 PARTITIVE I couldn 't afford [even the cheapest of them J.
III SPECIAL This tax cut will benefit [only the rich).

Precisely because they are in head position in NP structure, the underlined words
might at first glance be thought to be nouns. But they're not nouns: they're adjec­
tives. In the simple and partitive constructions this is fairly easy to see:

Note the possibility of adding a repetition of the noun version in [i] .

In [ii] we have a superlative form, cheapest, which certainly can ' t be a noun.
 § 1 .3 Adjectives vs verbs 1 15

Less obvious, however, is the construction in [iii] with its special interpretation.
In most cases, nevertheless, the form in the special construction can be clearly iden­
tified as an adjective.

.. This is shown first of all by the modifier test: the extremely rich provides evi­
dence that rich is an adjective because it is preceded by a modifying adverb (a
noun would be modified by an adjective).
• Notice also that in this special fused modifier-head use, the only determiner per­

mitted is the a person who is rich can't be referred to as *a rich or *some rich.
-

And although the NP the rich is plural (hence the verb agreement in The rich are
the beneficiaries), it doesn't have plural inflection on rich two rich people can't
-

be referred to as *two riches. Rich thus behaves very differently from a noun.

Overall, there is strong evidence that the rich in [9iii] contains an adjective but no
noun.

1 .3 Adjectives vs verbs
The properties given in § 1 . 1 together with those presented in Ch. 3, § I
for the verb enable us to distinguish adjectives from verbs in a similar way. We' ll
apply a selection of the most decisive properties to distinguish the adjectives fond,
sad, appreciative from the verbs love, regret, enjoy.

(a) Inflection and grade

Verbs have a richer system of inflection than any of the other parts of speech. Most
distinctive are the preterite and 3rd person singular forms. As already mentioned,
comparative and superlative inflection is found with adjectives but not verbs. We
illustrate in [ 1 0] with preterite and comparative forms:
[ 1 0] PRETERITE FORMS COMPARATIVE FORMS
i a. V loved regretted enjoyed b. *lover *regretter *enjoyer
ii a. A DJ *fonded * sadded *appreciatived b. fonder sadder [n/a]
The asterisks in rib] mark impossible comparative forms (lover is of course estab­
lished in a quite different sense as a noun, but the point here is that it's not the com­
parative of love). We wouldn't expect a comparative inflectional form for apprecia­
tive, because adjectives of this length don't take grade inflection, but even with
appreciative there is a comparative marked by more. And that suffices to distinguish
it from a verb, since when more combines with a verb it doesn't precede it:

[1 1] 1 V *1 more love you. 1 love you more.

ii A DJ I'm more a[!preciative than you. *I'm a[!preciative than you more.

(b) Modifiers
Unlike nouns, verbs take largely the same modifiers as adjectives: compare Kim
loved Pat immensely and Kim was immensely fond of Pat. Nevertheless there are
some adverbs that can modify adjectives but not verbs. They include very; pretty, in
1 16 Chapter 6 Adjectives and adverbs

the sense "fairly, quite"; and too, in the sense "excessively". The adverb too can also
mean "as well", and in this sense it can modify verbs, so in the following examples
we add the subscript 'x' to make explicit that we are concerned with too in the
"excessively" sense:

[ 1 2]
V
{ *1 very love her. *He pretty regrets it. *She toox enjoyed it.
ii *1 love her very. *He regrets it pretty. *She enjoyed it toox•
iii ADJ I 'm very fond of her. He 's pretty sad. She was too" allpreciative.
Not all adjectives are semantically compatible with the degree modifiers very, too
and pretty. They have to denote a property that can hold to a greater or lesser
extent - what we will call a scalar property. For those adjectives that do denote
scalar properties, the degree modification seen in [ 1 2iii] provides a very clear indi­
cation of their status as adjectives as opposed to verbs.

(c) Function
A major difference between verbs and adjectives is that verbs function as predicator
(head of a VP) in clause structure whereas adjectives do not. In their predicative use,
adjectives occur not as predicator but as complement to a verb such as be, become,
seem, etc.:

[ 1 3] i V They love you. We regret it. You � it.

ii ADJ They are fond of you. We became sad. You seem appreciative.

The predicator in each case in [ii] is the double-underlined word, not the adjective.

Overlap between the categories

Again we need to bear in mind that there are some items that belong to both cate­
gories. Tame, for example, is a verb in We tame them but an adjective in They are
tame. In pairs like this, where the adjective is identical with the plain form and plain
present tense of the verb, it is very easy to distinguish between them in terms of the
above criteria.

. The verb has the preterite form tamed and the 3rd person singular present tense
tames. And it can't take very as modifier: * We very tame them or * We tame them
very.
" The adjective has the comparative form tamer and the superlative tamest. And it
can be modified by very: They are very tame.

When the verb-form involved is a gerund-participle or past participle form, things

are not so obvious, because these verb-forms can occur after be in the progressive
and passive constructions. That means there can be ambiguity between verb and
adjective interpretations, as in [ 1 4] :

[ 1 4] a. They are entertaining. b. The clock was broken.

For [a], the verbal interpretation is "They are currently receiving guests", while
the adjectival interpretation is "They are enjoyable". The former is excluded if
 § l A Adjectives vs determinatives 1 17

we add very (They are very entertaining can only mean "They are very enjoy­
able") or replace be by seem or become (e.g., They became entertaining). The
adjectival interpretation is excluded if we add an object for the verb (They are
entertaining some colleagues), since virtually no adjectives take objects.
'. For [b] the verbal interpretation describes an event: "Someone or something
broke the clock". The adjectival interpretation, by contrast, describes a state:
"The clock was in an inoperative condition". Brokenness tends to be thought of
as a yes-or-no property, so in general the adjective broken doesn' t take very as
modifier, but it certainly can (in fact very broken is a common phrase among
computer programmers). And the seem test is also relevant: It seemed broken can
only be adjectival.

1 .4 Adjectives vs determinatives
The distinction between adjectives and determinatives is not as sharply
drawn as those between adjectives and nouns or adjectives and verbs. Nevertheless,
the definite article the and the indefinite article a differ strikingly from prototypical
adjectives with respect to both syntax and meaning:

;;>The articles can be obligatory: in most cases NPs with a count singular noun as
head must have some kind of determinative, so in The dog barked or A dog
barked, the article is required: * Dog barked is not grammatical.
" The articles are non-gradable.
" The articles cannot be used predicatively.
�. The articles serve to mark the NP as definite or indefinite rather than denoting
some property of the referent.
Other items can then be assigned to the determinative category by virtue of hav­
ing one or more of the following properties:

[ 1 5] i They don't occur with articles, and articles don't occur with them.
ii They can occur as the only pre-head dependent of a count singular noun.
iii They can occur as fused head in a partitive construction.

The examples in [ 1 6] show how these properties distinguish the determinative some
from the adjective good:

[ 1 6] DETERMINATIVE ADJECTIVE
a. *She gave me the some apples. b. He gave me the good apples.
11 a. Some guy called to see you. b. *Good guy called to see you.
1lI a. I took some of the books. b. *1 took good of the books.

In [i], [a] is inadmissible because some cannot follow the.

In [ii], guy is a count singular noun and requires a determiner, such as some.
In [iii] some is fused head with a partitive complement, a construction which
does not admit adjectives except for comparative and superlatives (the younger of
the two, the best of the lot).
1 18 Chapter 6 Adjectives and adverbs

1 .5 Gradable and non-gradable adjectives

We have said that prototypical adjectives have comparative and superla­
tive forms and take degree modifiers such as very, too ("excessively") and pretty.
Adjectives of this kind are said to be gradable. They denote scalar properties that
can apply in varying degrees. Good, old, big and so on denote properties of this
kind - and one can ask about the degree to which the property applies with how:
How big is it ?, etc.
Not all adjectives are of this kind. There are also non-gradable adjectives, as in
an alphabetical list. It makes no sense to ask how alphabetical a list is, or to say that
one list is more alphabetical than another. A lphabetical thus denotes a non-scalar
property. Other examples of non-gradable adjectives are seen in [ 1 7] :

[ 1 7] the chief difficulty federal taxes glandular fever my !&.f1 arm

a medical problem phonetic symbols pubic hair their tenth attempt

Some adjectives can be used in either way: like the distinction between count and
non-count in nouns, the gradable vs non-gradable distinction applies to uses rather
than lexemes as such. Compare:

[ 1 8] NON-GRADABLE USE GRADABLE USE

a. in the public interest b. a very public quarrel
11 a. the British government b. a very British response
1Il a. The motorway is now open. b. He was more open with us than the boss.

Typically, as in these examples, the non-gradable sense is the basic one, with the
gradable sense representing an extended use.

1 .6 The structure of adjective phrases

An AdjP consists of an adjective as head, alone or accompanied by one
or more dependents. The dependents may be complements, licensed by the head,
or modifiers, less restricted in their occurrence.

(a) Complements
The complements are almost always PPs, as in [ 1 9] , or subordinate clauses, as
in [20] :

[ 1 9] afraid of the dark bent on revenge conversant with it good at chess

kind to children remote from reality unaltered bv heat unfit for use
[20] glad it was over uncertain what to do eager to win hard to grasp
busy making lunch difficult for us to see thankful that no one had been hurt

The choice of preposition in [ 1 9] depends on the head adjective: we couldn't

have, for example, *afraid on the dark or *bent of revenge. With certain adjec­
tives (in particular senses) the PP is obligatory: the sense of bent shown here, for
 § 1 .7 Predicative complements and predicative adjuncts 1 19

example, requires a PP complement with on (or upon) ; and conversant cannot

occur at all without a complement.
The kind of subordinate clause likewise depends on the adjective: we couldn't
have *glad what to do, *busy to make lunch, and so on.

(b) Modifiers
The most common type of modifier is an adverb (or AdvP), as underlined in [2 1 i] ,
but other categories are also found: determinatives (underlined i n [2 I ii]), PPs (as in
[2 l iii]), and in a very limited range of cases, NPs (as in [2 1 iv]):

[2 1 ] extremely hot morally wrong � useful almost completely watertight

11 this young that old no different much better illll'. smaller old enough
iii cautious to excess dangerous in the extreme an [in some respects good] idea
iv five years old two hours long a great deal smaller a bit overpowering

PPs generally follow the head, but in attributive AdjPs they normally precede, as in
the last example of [iii], where we have put brackets round the whole AdjP.

1 .7 Predicative complements and predicative adjuncts

In their predicative use, adjectives (or AdjPs) generally function as com­
plement in clause structure. As we saw in Ch. 4, §5, predicative complements occur
in complex-intransitive and complex-transitive clauses:

[22] COMPLEX-INTRANSITIVE CLAUSE COMPLEX-TRANSITIVE CLAUSE

a. The suggestion I is I ridiculous. b. I I I consider I the suggestion I ridiculous. I

S P PC s P o PC

The adjective is related to a predicand (the suggestion), which is subject in the

complex-intransitive construction, and object in the complex-transitive con­
struction.
In addition to being complements, licensed by the head, predicative AdjPs can be
adjuncts. Compare, for example:

[23] PREDICATIVE COMPLEMENT Max was unwilling to accept these terms.

11 PREDICATIVE ADJUNCT Unwilling to accept these terms. Max resigned.

In [i] the AdjP is a complement licensed by the verb (be), but in [ii] it is an adjunct,
with no such licensing - it is, more specifically, a supplement, detached by intona­
tion or punctuation from the rest of the clause. It is nevertheless still predicative, in
that it is related to a predicand. We understand in [ii] , no less than in [i], that the
unwillingness to accept these terms applies to Max.
1 20 Chapter 6 Adjectives and adverbs

1 .8 Adjectives restricted to attributive or predicative function

Although most adjectives can be used both attributively and predicatively,
there are nevertheless many that are restricted to one or other of these two uses:

[24 ] ATTRIBUTIVE USE PREDICATIVE USE

a. a huUe hole b. The hole was huUe.
ii a. utter nonsense b. * That nonsense was utter.
iii a. *the asleep children b. The children were asleep.

Huge illustrates the default case, where the adjective appears both attributively
and predicatively.
Utter is an exceptional case: an attributive-only adjective, which can't be used
predicatively (as shown in [iib)).
Asleep is the opposite kind of exception, as evident from [iii] ; it can occur pred­
icatively but not attributively: it is a never-attributive adjective.

(a) Attributive-only adjectives

NPs containing a sample of other adjectives that are attributive-only are given in [25]:

[25] these damn budget cuts the eventual winner her former husband
our future prospects the main problem a mere child
the only drawback their own fault the principal advantage
the putative father the sole survivor a veritable jungle

(b) Never-attributive adjectives

Here are some further examples of predicative uses of never-attributive adjectives:

[26] The house was ablaze. The boy seemed afraid. The child was alone.
Something was amiss. It was devoid of interest. Corruption was rik..
It is liable to flood. The baby looked content. I was utterly bereft.

Restrictions may apply to senses rather than lexemes

As with the gradable vs non-gradable distinction, the restrictions often apply just
to certain senses of a lexeme. In [27 ] , for example, it is ONLY IN THE SENSES
ILLUSTRATED that the underlined adjectives in [i] are attributive-only, and those in
[ii] never-attributive:

[27] i a certain country the late queen the lawful heir

ii I feel faint He was Ulad to see her. I'm sorry you missed it.

Structural restrictions on attributive adjectives

Attributive AdjPs mostly cannot contain dependents that follow the head. The typi­
cal case is as in [28], where the underlined adjective licenses a post-head dependent
(double-underlined), and the AdjP is allowed only predicatively as in the [a] cases,
not attributively as in the [b] cases.
 § 1 .9 Other functions of AdjPs 121

[28] PREDICATIVE ATTRIBUTIVE

a. She was devoted to her children. b. *a devoted to her children mother
11 a. She was cautious to excess. b. *a cautious to excess manager
There are a few post-head dependents that can occur with attributive adjectives,
though, as seen in [29] .

[29] i a. The house was f2jg enough. b. a f2jg enough house

ii a. The result was better than expected. b. a better than expected result
iii a. It was better than anyone expected. b. a better result than anyone expected

Enough is allowed quite generally after gradable adjectives, as in [i] .

Than expected in [iib] is a short comparative complement that is permitted within
an attributive AdjP.
A longer phrase would have to be located after the head noun, as in [iiib] , where
it functions as indirect complement (see Ch. 5, §4).

1 .9 Other functions of AdjPs

Besides the two major functions discussed above, there are two rela­
tively minor functions in which adjectives and AdjPs are found.

(a) Postpositives
Postpositive adjectives function in NP structure as post-head internal modifier.
There are three cases to consider:
[30] i everything useful somebody rich somewhere safe those responsible
ii children keen on sport a report full of errors a suggestion likely to oU-end
iii the only modification possible the ones asleep the president elect
The examples in [i] have fused determiner-heads, making it impossible for the
adjectives to occur in the usual pre-head position - compare everything useful
with every useful thing.
The modifiers in [ii] would be inadmissible in pre-head position because the adjec­
tive has its own post-head dependents; the postpositive construction provides a way
of getting around the fact that such AdjPs cannot be used as attributive modifiers.
A limited number of adjectives can occur postpositively without their own
dependents and with a non-fused head noun, as in [iii] : possible can also be
attributive whereas asleep (as we have seen) cannot. Elect (meaning "recently
elected but not in office yet") is one of a very small number of exceptional adjec­
tives that occur only postpositively.

(b) External modifiers

Certain forms of AdjP occur right at the beginning of the NP, before the indefinite
article a:
[3 1 ] a. [How long a delay] will there be ? b. He 'd chosen [too dark a colour].
ii a. It seemed [such a bargain]. b. [ What a /ool] I was.