Teaching the Adjective

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………….2

CHAPTER I

THE ADJECTIVE…………………………………………………………3

CHAPTER II

TECHNIQUES OF TEACHING THE ADJECTIVE………………………17

CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………….22

BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………..23 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

INTRODUCTION

     The adjective is one of the important parts of speech in modern English. The adjective is a part of speech that modifies a noun or a pronoun, usually by describing it or making its meaning more specific. The adjective expresses the categorial semantics of property of a substance. Unlike nouns, adjectives do not possess a full nominative value.

     Adjectives exist in most languages. The most widely recognized adjectives in English are words such as big, old, and tired that actually describe people, places, or things. These words can themselves be modified with adverbs, as in the phrase very big. The articles a, an, and the and possessive nouns are classified as adjectives by some grammarians; however, such classification may be specific to one particular language.

     The semantically bound character of the adjective is emphasized in English by the use of the prop-substitute one in the absence of the notional head-noun of the phrase. On the other hand, if the adjective is placed in a nominatively self-dependent position, this leads to its substantivization. There is not much to be said about the English adjective from the morphological point of view. As is well known, it has neither number, nor case, nor gender distinctions. Some adjectives have, however, degrees of comparison, which make part of the morphological system of a language.

     According to their structure adjectives may be compound and derived.

     The aim of the given term paper is the study of one of the most important and interesting parts of speech-the adjective.

     The term paper consists of introduction, two chapters, conclusion and bibliography.

     In the introduction the aim of the work is defined and the structure of the work is described.

     Chapter I gives general survey of the adjective as a part of speech. This chapter defines adjectives, studies the degrees of comparison of adjectives, investigates the position, order of adjectives and their syntactic function.

     Chapter II throws light upon the techniques of teaching adjectives. This chapter presents worksheets for teaching lessons about adjectives.

     Conclusion sums up the results of investigation.

     Bibliography comprises the list of literature used when carrying out the work. 
 

CHAPTER I

THE ADJECTIVE 

    Adjectives are the third major class of words in English, after nouns and verbs. Adjectives are words expressing properties of objects and, hence, qualifying nouns. Adjectives in English do not change for number or case. The only grammatical category they have is the degrees of comparison. They are also characterized by functions in the sentence.

    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. According to Blokh, the adjective expresses the categorial semantics of property of a substance а each adjective used in text presupposes relation to some noun¹. Unlike nouns, adjectives do not possess a full nominative value.

    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. 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". 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. Adjective is a part of speech characterized by the following typical features:

1. The lexico-grammatical meaning of “attributes (of substantives)”. By attributes we mean different properties of substantives, such as their size, color, position in space, material, psychic state of persons, etc.
2. The morphological category of the degrees of comparison.
3. The characteristic combinability with nouns (a beautiful girl), link verbs (…is clever), adverbs, mostly those of degree (a very clever boy), the so-called “prop word” one (the grey one).
4. The stem-building affixes –ful, -less, -ish, -ous, -ive, -ic, un-, pre-, in-, etc.
5. Its functions of an attribute and a predicative complement.

    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.”
• 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 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.”

    With regard to the category of the degrees of comparison adjectives fall under 2 lexico-grammatical subclasses: comparables and non-comparables.² The nucleus of the latter is composed of derived adjectives like wooden, Crimean, mathematical, etc. These adjectives are called relative as distinct from all other adjectives called qualitative.

    Most qualitative adjectives build up opposemes of comparison, but some do not:

• adjectives that in themselves express the highest degree of a quality: supreme, extreme.
• those having the suffix –ish which indicates the degree of quality: reddish, whitish
• those denoting qualities which are not compatible with the idea of comparison.: deaf, dead, lame, perpendicular.

    There are three degrees of comparison: positive, comparative and superlative. The positive form is the plain stem of an adjective (e.g. heavy, slow, straight, etc). The comparative states that one thing has more of the quality named by the adjective than some other thing (e.g. Henry is taller than John). The superlative states that the thing has the greatest degree of the quality among the things being considered (e.g. Henry is the tallest boy in the class). Most one-syllable adjectives, and most two-syllable adjectives ending in -y, -ow, -er, or consonant +-le , with loud stress on the first syllable and weak stress on the second, form their comparative and superlative by the addition of the suffixes -er and -est.

    Adjectives derived by prefixes from those that use -er/-est also use these suffixes, even though the addition of prefixes makes them longer that two syllables: unhappy - unhappier -unhappiest.

    All adjectives other than those enumerated above form their comparative by using the intensifier more and their superlative by using the intensifier the most.

    In a very few cases, English permits a choice between the two devices: commoner / more common, commonest / the most common.

Ordinary, when one form is prescribed by the rules, the other is forbidden. A few adjectives have irregular forms for the degrees of comparison.

They are:

good - better - the best

bad - worse - the worst

far - farther - the farthest (for distance) - further - the furthest (for time and distance)

near - nearer - the nearest (for distance) - next (for order)

late - later - the latest (for time) - last (for order)

old - older - the oldest (for age) - elder - the eldest (for seniority rather the age; used only attributively)

    There are some adjectives that, on account of their meaning, do not admit of comparison at all, e.g. perfect, unique, full, empty, square, round, wooden, daily, upper, major, outer, whole, only and some others.

There are sentence patterns in which comparison is expressed:

a) comparison of equality (as … as)

e.g. The boy was as shy as a monkey.

After his bathe, the inspector was as fresh as a fish.

b) comparison of inequality (not so ... as, not as ... as)

e.g. The sun is not so hot today as I thought it would be.

You are not as nice as people think.

c) comparison of superiority (... -er than, ... -est of (in, ever)

e.g. To my mind the most interesting thing in art is the personality of the artist.

My mother was the proudest of women, and she was vain, but in the end she had an eye for truth. It's the biggest risk I've ever had to take.

d) comparison of inferiority ( less ... than)

e.g. John is less musical than his sister.

He had the consolation of noting that his friend was less sluggish than before.

e) comparison of parallel increase or decrease (the ... the, ...-er as)

e.g. The longer I think of his proposal the less I like it.

The sooner this is done, the better.

He became more cautious as he grew older.

There are set phrases which contain the comparative or the superlative degree of an adjective:

a) a change for the better (for the worst)

e.g. There seem to be a change for the better in your uncle. He had a very hearty dinner yesterday.

b) none the less

e.g. It did not take him long to make up his mind. None the less she showed her scorn for his hesitation.

c) so much the better ( the worst)

e.g. If he will help us, so much the better.

If he doesn't work, so much the worst for him.

d) to be the worst for

e.g. He is rather the worst for drink.

e) no (none the) worse for

e.g. You'll be no worse for having her to help you.

You are none the worse for the experience.

f) if the worst comes to the worst

e.g. If the worst comes to the worst, I can always go back home to my parents.

g) to go from bad to worse

e.g. Thinks went from bad to worse in the family.

h) as best

e.g. He made a living as best he could.

i) at (the) best

e.g. She cannot get away from her home for long. At (the) best she can stay with us for two days.

Adjectives are classified into relative and qualitative adjectives.

    Relative adjectives express such properties of a substance as are determined by the direct relation of the substance to some other substance (e.g. wood – a wooden hut, history – a historical event).

    The nature of this relationship in adjectives is best revealed by definitional correlations: e.g. a wooden hut – a hut made of wood; a historical event – an event referring to a certain period of history.

    Qualitative adjectives, as different from relative ones, denote various qualities of substances which admit of a quantitative estimation, i.e. of establishing their correlative quantitative measure.  The measure of a quality can be estimated as high or low, adequate or inadequate, sufficient or insufficient, optimal or excessive (e.g. a difficult task – a very difficult task).

    Substances can possess such qualities as are incompatible with the idea of degrees of comparison а adjectives denoting these qualities, while belonging to the qualitative subclasses, are in the ordinary use incapable of forming degrees of comparison (e.g. extinct, immobile, deaf, final, fixed).³

    Many adjectives considered under the heading of relative still can form degrees of comparison, thereby, as it were, transforming the denoted relative property of a substance into such as can be graded quantitatively (e.g. a military design – of a less military design – of a more military design). The adjective functions may be grammatically divided into ‘evaluative’ and ‘specificative’. One and the same adjective, irrespective of its being relative or qualitative, can be used either in one or the other function.

    e.g. good is basically qualitative, but used as a grading term in teaching it acquires the specificative value (bad, satisfactory, good, excellent).

    English compound adjectives are constructed in a very similar way to the compound noun. Blackboard jungle, leftover ingredients, gunmetal sheen, and green monkey disease are only a few examples. Sometimes, the compound noun changes its form. Like salad dressings, which is open, when you put sweet there, it changes to 'sweet salad-dressing’.

    A compound adjective is a modifier of a noun. It consists of two or more morphemes of which the left-hand component limits or changes the modification of the right-hand one, as in "the dark-green dress", dark limits the green that modifies dress.

    There are some well-established permanent compound adjectives that have become solid over a longer period, especially in American usage: earsplitting, eyecatching, and downtown.