Adjectival Function Research Articles

Longitudinal change in the adjective intensifier system of Hexagonal French

Abstract Intensifiers are known for their dynamic nature, due in part to the expressive function they serve. However, while the quantitative patterning of English intensifiers has been studied extensively, the intensifier system of French has yet to be well documented. This study therefore examines intensifier use from a variationist sociolinguistic perspective in the ESLO corpus of spoken Hexagonal French. The quantitative distributions of adjective intensifiers are compared across two corpora collected in 1970 and 2010. Results show a significant decrease in intensification rate over time. Analysis of individual intensifiers show some to have decreased in use over time (e.g. très, tellement), others to have increased (e.g. vraiment, tout), and others to appear only in the later sample (e.g. super, hyper). Longitudinal change is also found in the adjectival function (predicative vs. attributive) and collocational width of intensifiers. Relating to social factors, no significant gender difference is found between female and male speakers’ intensification rate over time. Furthermore, très dominates as the preferred intensifier among older generations, while younger speakers favour more varied intensifiers. Analyzing such changes in the use of intensifiers over the past half century contributes to a better understanding of the structure and development of the French intensifier system.

A Contrastive Analysis of Demonstratives in English and Ikwerre Languages

Demonstratives, an essential linguistic element embodying deixis and indicating precise spatial and contextual relationships, serve as fundamental building blocks in communicative processes. This paper, therefore, examines the complex syntactic and morphological dynamics of demonstratives in English and Ikwerre languages and the differences and similarities in the use of demonstratives in both languages which may pose problems to the Ikwerre learner of English as a second language. This study uses the contrastive analysis theory and the descriptive grammar theory to guide its analysis of data. This eclectic approach provides a meticulous and exhaustive analysis, examining the distinctive features, elusive variations, and multifaceted usage of demonstratives within the framework of English and Ikwerre grammar. This paper meticulously explores both proximal and distal forms of demonstratives, dissecting their roles as determiners, adjectives, and possessive markers in the linguistic structures of both languages. The findings of this study reveal that similar to English, Ikwerre demonstratives function as determiners, adjectives, and indicators of possession. Notably, the post-head position of Ikwerre determiners, distinct from English, reflects the language's head-first structure, shaping its grammatical features. In the adjectival function, both Ikwerre and English utilize demonstratives in predicative contexts, imparting specific attributes or conditions to nouns. Structural disparities, such as the head-first language structure and the inclusion of a pronominal element in Ikwerre demonstratives, further distinguish their syntactic characteristics. Morphologically, Ikwerre introduces a unique structure for plural nouns, utilizing both pre-head and post-head demonstratives to enhance specificity. This stands in contrast to English's use of a single demonstrative for plural reference. The findings thus, offer invaluable contributions to the overarching realm of cross-

Structural and semantic features of adjectives across languages and registers

Abstract This study focuses on the seemingly simple grammatical category of adjectives. However, the framework adopted for analysing adjectives from both a cross-linguistic and a cross-register perspective highlights features of grammatical complexity within phrases as well as contrastive complexity within and across languages and registers. Using English-Norwegian comparable data from the fictional sub-registers of narrative and dialogue, the analysis uncovers both similarities and differences in the structural and semantic features of adjectives. Most notable is perhaps the impact of register at all levels of analysis, including adjectival function (attributive vs. predicative), the degree of phrase complexity and semantic class. The contrastive analysis proper, i.e. comparing adjective use across languages, reveals that English and Norwegian have more in common within each sub-register than across them. For example, the lexico-grammatical behaviour of adjectives in English narrative has more in common with Norwegian narrative than it has with English dialogue. To the extent that there are clear general differences between English and Norwegian, these are mainly found in the proportions and preferences of a few specific features.

Polish 'wydra' and English 'otter'

The aim of this paper is to trace the development and relationship between Polish wydra and English otter in a broader Indo-European context. The methodology of the research involves three steps: gathering cognates (to determine the time and place of attestation), identifying morphological structure and describing the sound changes that have occurred in two descending lines of development: one, from ProtoIndo-European *ud-r-eh2 leading to Polish wydra, and the other, from Proto-Indo-European *ud-r-o- to English otter. The analysis leads to the conclusion that the word for ‘otter’ in Proto-Indo-European must have had distinct masculine and feminine forms and, structurally, represents a substantivized adjective meaning ‘aquatic’: its root was the zero-grade form of PIE *uod-r/n- ‘water’ and the -r- suffix used to perform the adjectival function.

The attributive adjective in Zimbabwean isiNdebele

This article discusses attributive adjectives in Zimbabwean isiNdebele. In traditional grammar, the attributive adjectives are treated as words whose function is to qualify a noun in a noun phrase. According to this analysis, an attributive adjective has the structure: adjective concord (a relative marker a- + a noun class prefix) and an adjective stem. However, there are instances where the attributive function is expressed by a construction that is larger than a word. In these constructions, the relative marker and the noun class prefix may be separated by a subject marker, negation marker, aspect markers, tense markers, inchoactive/auxiliary verbs, or a subject of the relative clause. I present an alternative analysis, according to which the attributive adjectival function is expressed by a relative clause rather than by an adjectival word category. I maintain that adjectival roots in isiNdebele are derived from class neutral roots by merging with an adjectiviser head (adj), and that the function of an adjective is to complement auxiliary verbs and inchoactive verbs in a predicate. I suggest that the relative operator is base generated as a complement of an adjective in an adjective phrase and then moves to spec C via spec in spec Pr and spec T respectively. The C-head a- then affixes to the subject of the relative clause in the formation of strategy 2 relatives and it affixes to T in the formation of strategy 1 relatives.

Składnia frazeologizmów o funkcjach przymiotnika (zarys problematyki)

Głównym przedmiotem artykułu są frazeologizmy pełniące funkcję przymiotników (np. cały i zdrowy, pierwszy lepszy, jaki taki, starej daty, całą gębą), nieco uwagi poświęcono jednak także związkom, które bywają używane zarówno adiektywnie, jak i adwerbialnie (np. na medal, pod adresem, do białego rana, na czarną godzinę, pi razy oko). Została scharakteryzowana ich składnia wewnętrzna, czyli relacje między komponentami, oraz składnia zewnętrzna, czyli funkcje w wypowiedzeniu. Ze względu na budowę obie grupy jednostek tworzą zbiory bardzo zróżnicowane. Analiza wypowiedzeń pokazuje, że wśród wyrażeń przymiotnikowych są jednostki: – zajmujące tylko pozycję przyrzeczownikową (będące w zdaniu przydawkami), np. od siedmiu boleści, spod ciemnej gwiazdy, świeżo upieczony, z krwi i kości, czystej wody; – zajmujące pozycję przyrzeczownikową lub przyłącznikową (będące w zdaniu przydawkami lub orzecznikami), np. pod psem, cały w skowronkach, w czepku urodzony, nadgryziony zębem czasu, zamknięty na cztery spusty. Te ostatnie mogą być użyte również w apozycji, jako przydawki dopełniające, oraz w pozycji przyorzeczeniowej.

THE ANALYSIS OF PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE IN NOVEL ‘THE PERFECT NANY’ WRITTEN BY LEILA SLIMANI

Prepositional Phrase is the part of preposition and absolutely it is the part of grammar too. It has rules and deregulations that must be obeyed. Without a correct replacement of preposition, the meaning of the sentence can make the people confused. Hence, the research questions of this research are: 1) What are the positions of prepositions phrase of sentences found in Novel The Perfect Nany written by Leila Slimani?. 2) What are the patterns of tree diagram for a prepositional phrase of sentences found in Novel The Perfect Nany written by Leila Slimani?. The researcher use Position of Prepositional Phrase theory by Frank (1972) and theory of a tree diagram by Delahunty and Garvey (2010) to analyze the data. The findings show that the position of prepositional phrase in novel The Perfect Nany written by Leila Slimani is dominated by position in adverbial function (34 data). And the position in adjectival function is only found with 16 data. Base on the data analysis, it can be concluded that prepositional phrase adverbial function is more widely used than prepositional phrase adjectival function, because it can modify the verb, adverb, and adjectival that are mostly found in sentences. It is was also concluded that in one sentence there could be more than one prepositional phrase through the tree diagram that have been analyzed.Key words: Prepositional Phrase, Adverbial Function, Adjectival Function

Singular Terms for Numbers?

In natural language, number-words can be used in two different syntactic ways: adjectivally, i.e., with the syntactic status of an adjective, as in (1) ‘Mars has two moons,’ and nominally, i.e., with the syntactic status of a noun phrase, as in (2) ‘Two is even.’ This syntactic difference is often taken to correspond to a difference in semantic function: adjectival number-words function as predicables, whereas nominal number-words function as singular terms. The view that nominal number-words function as singular terms is typically supported by appeal to certain tests for singular-termhood, tests that stem from the (neo-)Fregean tradition. In this paper, I argue that these tests do not support the view of nominal number-words as singular terms.

Inflectional Variation in the Old English Participle. A Corpus-based Analysis

This article deals with the coexistence of verbal and adjectival inflection in the Old English past participle. Its aim is to assess the degree of variation in the inflection of the participle so as to determine whether or not the change starts in the Old English period. The analysis is based on two corpora, the “York Corpus of Old English” and the “Dictionary of Old English Corpus”. With these corpora the following variants of the inflection of the participle are analysed: genre (prose and verse), tense (present and past), morphological class (weak vs. strong) and case (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative and instrumental). The main conclusion of the article is that the quantitative evidence from the corpora indicates that the degree of variation presented by the participle in Old English shows that diachronic change is underway. Overall, the past participle and poetic texts clearly reflect the loss of inflection, while the adjectival inflection of the participle co-occurs with its adjectival function.

Fronted qualifiers in French and English

Abstract By “fronted qualifier”, I mean a relatively long initial segment, which precedes a headword and which has an adjectival function in relation to it. This structure seems to be relatively common in French. For example, a leaflet from a French university begins with a letter from the vice-chancellor almost entirely written in this form. The leaflet gives an English translation, which calques the French structure. Taken individually, the translation of each clause seems adequate, but when read as a text, unlike the original French, it somehow does not work. This seems to suggest that French accepts this structure more easily than English does. To the extent that it is usual to treat the fronted qualifier as part of the subject, and the whole of the subject group as theme, this would give “Born in Liverpool in 1937, he” as theme of “Born in Liverpool in 1937, he was educated at St. Mary’s College”. However, since the fronted qualifier is in a marked position, does this mean that it should be taken as theme, or, at least, be accorded additional thematic status? And since French seems to accept this structure more easily than English, might this be one of the points at which the two languages differ? These are the sorts of questions, which this article will attempt to address.

AND or ING? A Syntactic and Morphological Analysis of the Present Participle in the Northern English and Scots of the Late Fourteenth and the Fifteenth Centuries

In the Northern English and Scots of the late fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries the present participle in appositive, adjectival and progressive functions undergoes a change from variants of <and> to variants of <ing>. However, the change does not occur in these functions in the above-mentioned varieties at the same time. This paper offers a qualitative and a quantitative exploration of the development of this change. It focuses on patterns of variation and change, as reflected in the syntactic and morphological distribution of variants of the present participle in late fourteenth- and fifteenth- century Northern English and Scots texts. Data for this study comes from late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century texts in the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts, 850–1700 and the Edinburgh Corpus of Older Scots, 1380–1500, as well as fifteenth-century texts from the Helsinki Corpus of Older Scots, 1400–1700 and the Innsbruck Prose Corpus, 1400–1500 (Sampler). The total size of the corpora used for this analysis is 188,112 words. The syntactic functions of the present participle are described and discussed. The syntactic analysis of the data shows that: a) the most frequent type of the present participle in the Northern English and Scots of the late fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries is in appositive function; and b) the progressive is the least frequent, but the fastest growing, type of participial construction. The morphological and orthographic forms are described and discussed. The morphological analysis shows that: a) the change from variants of <and> to variants of <ing> in the present participle first begins in Northern English in constructions in appositive and adjectival function between 1350 and 1420; b) this change occurs in Scots, too, but at a later date; and c) the change from <and> to <ing> for the progressive takes place in Northern English in the period 1421–1500, but does not happen in Scots until a later date.

Карактеристике говора младих Русина

In the first part of the paper the author provides an overview of researh regarding Ruthenian / Rusyn youth speech. The English language has caused several innovations in the speech of young Ruthenians / Rusyns of Serbia. They can be seen at all levels. It is a well-known fact that modern languages today borrow extensively from English and consequently their lexicons are swarming with anglicisms in all thematic registers (especially in the register of computing, for ex. рестартовац компютер , конектовац ше на веб , зиповац файл ). A morphological analysis of the English element in the MAK provides us with a basis for emphasizing a certain quantitive and stimulative influence of English on the occurence of indeclinability of nouns in the adjectival function in compounds consisting of two independently used bases. This is, however, a productive characteristic which might cause a change in the morphological and syntactic system of the Ruthenian language (for ex. Kulpin Fest , Vojvodina Calling , Headroom студиo ).

Attribution in Turkish with Dependency Tree Analyses

In the general system of the natural tongues, attribution, which undertakes the function of cluster restriction and cluster equipment, can be categorized in two main groups, namely, noun phrases and subordinate clauses. The process of cluster restriction is realized by way of the reduction of the number of elements in the cluster, to which a concept has been attributed, based on a certain characteristic. In the function of cluster equipment, the dimensions of a given concept remain unchanged. However, this concept can be enriched through a number additional attribution to be equipped. Noun phrases are determinative phrases, which report no judgement and which are constructed from more than one word aggregated around a head noun. In the general sequence of Turkish language, the simplest attributive phrase is the adjective phrase made up of adjective and noun. An adjective ascribes some property, quality or status to the entity denoted by a noun. When adjectives attribute nouns, they become attributive adjectives, and when they attribute the action they become adverbs of manner. Relative clauses with adjectival function are complicated structures which attribute noun phrases, and they are generally constructed by taking participle suffixes like -(y)An, DIK (-DIgI), mIs, or -(y)AcAK (-EcEgI). Relative clauses precede the noun phrase they modify, in the same way that adjectives precede the noun they modify. In this study an argument has been made about how the attributive functions of noun phrases and subordinating clauses are realized, and the structural characteristics of attribution in Turkish in the context of dependency model (dependency tree) developed by Tesniere’s Dependency Grammar Theory have been investigated.

The Evolution of the System of Long and Short Adjectives in Old Russian by Karin Larsen (review)

SEER, Vol. 86,No. 4, October 2008 Reviews Larsen, Karin. The Evolution ofthe Systemof Long and Short AdjectivesinOld Russian. Slavistische Beitrage, 439. Otto Sagner, Munich, 2005. 283 pp. Figures. Tables. Notes. Appendices. Bibliography. 26.00 (paperback). Judging by its title, a reader might suppose that this book deals with the morphology, syntax and semantics of the long and short adjectives inOld Russian. In fact, its contents are more accurately described by its author's 'mission statement' in her introduction: 'The purpose of thisdissertation is to investigate the process through which attributive position changed from an environment inwhich SFs [short-formadjectives] and LFs [long-form adjec tives] occurred to an environment inwhich only the LF is possible' (p. 11). Thus thiswork is concerned onlywith adjectival-nominal word combinations, whether they are found as subjects of sentences or in theirpredicates. It does not deal with adjectives which do not qualify nouns in an attributive relation ship, e.g. substantivized adjectives, nor with adjectives standing on their own inpredicates. From the adjectival-nominal word combinations which it studies it excludes the pronominal adjectives hh- and BCflK-, which are said not to have 'real "adjectival" meanings'. Active and passive participles are similarly excluded on the ground that the status of the former as 'real' adjectives is problematic, although passive participles, when occurring in adjectival func tion, can be regarded as 'real' adjectives. All comparative and superlative adjectives are also excluded (p. 18).Although the reasons for the exclusion of some of these word categories are not entirely convincing, to narrow the focus of thework in thisway seems sensible and realistic. The work's primary sources are lengthy excerpts from seven Russian chronicles describing historical events from the eleventh to the seventeenth centuries (p. 12). From these excerpts the author has extracted all the adjecti val-nominal word combinations except those whose adjectives contain the suf fixes -HH-, -OB-, -b, -HH and -bCK- (pp. 18-19, 46, 221): in the author's opinion these adjectives form discrete groups which should be studied individually. From the point of view of historical morphology thepicture which emerges iswell known. Already in the oldest chronicles short-form adjectives used attributively are rarely found in the oblique cases of the plural and are not common in the oblique cases of the singular: in the later chronicles short-form adjectives used attributively inoblique cases virtually disappear, being replaced by long-form adjectives. The cases which typically display variation between the long form and the short form in the attributive position in the oldest chron icles and which continue to show some, although increasingly less, variation in the later chronicles are the nominative and accusative singular and plural. The fact that these developments in the historical morphology of the adjective are related to the case and number of the adjectives suggests that they reflect similar developments elsewhere in the morphological system, and the author rightly connects them with contemporaneous changes in the morphology of the noun (pp. 16-17). At this point the investigation leaves the relatively objective realm of morphology and enters the less certain realms of semantics and syntax. Faced REVIEWS 705 with two structurally identical adjectival-nominal word combinations, in one ofwhich the adjective is long,whereas in the other it is short, the author seeks for an explanation of this difference either in themeanings of the adjectives and the nouns constituting theword combinations or in the relationship of theword combinations to other parts of the sentence. The author describes the former, semantic explanation as NP [noun-phrase]-internal, i.e. internal to theword combination itself (p. 20), and the latter, syntactic explanation as NP-external (p. 29). In her concluding analysis (pp. 221-50) the author concentrates on those factorswhich appear to influence the choice of a short or long form in the cases which display variation right up to the seventeenth century, namely the nominative and accusative singular and plural. A major change took place between the fourth and sixth chronicles, i.e. in the firsthalf of the sixteenth century (p. 231). Thereafter the use of the short form in these cases decreases sharply, until by the time ofV. N. Tatishchev's Istoriia rossiiskaiathemodern pattern of usage...

Gramática, competição e padrões de variação: casos com ter/haver e de/em no português brasileiro

I analyze two instances of linguistic variation in Brazilian Portuguese:the occurrence of ter ‘to have’ or haver ‘there is/are’ in existentialconstructions, and the use of de ‘of’ or em ‘in’ in prepositional phraseswith adjectival function. Exploring Kato’s (2005) proposal, I arguethat ter/haver variation is a reflection of the competition betweentwo grammars, with sociolinguistic motivations, while de/emvariation results from morphosyntatic procedures within an onlygrammar.

The French demonstrative system: From Old to Modern French

Traditional studies of the evolution of the French demonstrative system have seen it as the result of two processes: the semantic confusion of cist and cil, and the syntactic specialization of the cist series as adjectives, the cil series as pronouns. This study takes as its starting point the author's earlier study of OF demonstratives which showed that the cist series is best analyzed as marked for [proximity] while the cil series as a whole is unmarked [øproximity]. The present study shows that the development of the demonstrative system is a direct result of the unmarked nature of the cil series. The [øproximity] nature of this form led to its frequent use as a synonym of the third-person subject pronoun and, more important, as a support for the relative pro-noun qui. Data on demonstrative usage show that cil was thus more common than cist as a pronoun from a very early date, and that this preference led to its eventual specialization in that role, leaving the adjectival function to cist.

II. Aristotle's Social Science

HILE SOCIAL SCIENCE is a distinctly modern enterprise, the systematic study of human affairs is not. My discussion of Aristotle focuses on what he calls politike, or the science of the polis. ' Politike is clearly the equivalent of social science with respect to the subject matter it embraces; Aristotle uses the term throughout the Politics and the Ethics to refer to the consideration of topics which we would assign to political science, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and economics. It may, however, be doubted whether the method or approach to the study of human things suggested by politike is in any way equivalent to the current implications of social science.2 Part of my argument will be an attempt to show that politike, for Aristotle, was indeed a science, and even a kind of natural science. The surface plausibility of this reading is indicated by the way Aristotle uses the word itself: while politike most frequently, in both Plato and Aristotle, stands by itself as a noun, its ordinary meaning flows from its adjectival function, modifying nouns like techne (skill or craft, e.g., Politics, 1288b10-1289a25), episteme (science, e.g., Ethics, 1094a24-29), and philosophia (philosophy, e.g., Politics, 1282b23). The question, for Aristotle, appears to be not whether social science is possible, but rather just what kind of a science politike is. In answering this question, I will adopt Aristotle's procedure of beginning with contemporary reputable opinions (the endoxa) about social science, and go on to present Aristotle's own conception as different from and superior to those currently available. In Aristotle's time, debate over the meaning of social science was shaped by the

Comment

It is gratifying to see, in Paul Beekman Taylor's note on "Old Icelandic fyrir i folki" (55, 37,352-355), a return to the fruitful method of comparing poetic formulas in the Old Germanic dialects that Ernst Albin Kock practiced with such virtuosity. And Professor Taylor might have given additional strength to his conjecture by referring to graphs like fir er which appear in some manuscripts for fyrir; a 'hypercorrect' restitution of a corrupted or no longer understood firar into fyrir would thus appear quite plausible. Yet it is unlikely that many scholars will be convinced by the proposed change. Professor Taylor claims that if fyrir i folki is to mean 'foremost among the people' (which he denies) , "one must attribute to fyrir an adjectival function and associate its meaning with its prepositional sense 'before, at the head of ". While nobody would quibble with the second half of the statement, the first half is rather puzzling. What does he mean by "adjectival function"? Surely, nobody would take fyrir in fyrir i folki for anything but an adverb? And of adverbial fyrir it could certainly not be claimed that "this function is unknown elsewhere in Old Icelandic." Adverbial fyrir appears for example in connection with verbs like vera and fara, but in such contexts it might be objected, if not very convincingly, that the adverb is part of a composite verb. What carries more weight in discussing the Half ssaga passage is the fact that this is not the only instance where fyrir in a local sense is followed by a prepositional phrase. Fritzner (I, 111) lists the examples fyrir a henni and fyrir a hladinu, and a careful examination of Old Norse texts, which is not within the scope of this note to provide, could hardly fail to bring further instances to light. Hence, we may for the time being stick to the traditional reading of fyrir i folki as 'foremost among the Kriegsvolk*.

The Subjunctive in Spanish: A Transformational Approach

1. Conventional treatment of subjunctive. In Spanish grammar textbooks, the treatment of the subjunctive is frequently divided into three sections dealing with noun clauses, adverb clauses, and adjective clauses, respectively. The student is usually presented with a separate rule for each clause type. In some textbooks, adverb clauses are further divided into two subclassifications: one type introduced by conjunctions which always take the subjunctive (e.g. para que, sin que) or the indicative (e.g. puesto que, ya que), and another type introduced by conjunctions which can take either depending upon the meaning of the sentence (e.g. donde, cuando).' There are two problems which arise from this approach: first, the student must learn three (or more) sets of rules, and second, he must learn to distinguish noun, adverb, and adjective clauses before he can apply them. Analyses of compound sentences which have been proposed recently within the transformational framework suggest that some of the complexity mentioned above is unnecessary. Specifically, it has been suggested that the adverb clause as a separate category does not exist at all and that some clauses with adverbial functions can be analyzed as adjective clauses, others as noun clauses. This paper will present a sketch of this analysis and its consequences for the presentation of the subjunctive 2. Adverb clauses as adjective clauses. I have argued that clauses introduced by donde, como, and cuando should be considered modified versions of relative clauses having antecedents such as lugar, modo, and tiempo. In my analysis the sentence (1) El libro estd donde lo pusiste is derived from (2) El libro estd en el lugar donde lo pusiste by deletion of the antecedent lugar. Sentence (2) is in turn derived from (3) El libro estdi en el lugar en que lo pusiste by rules which optionally substitute relative adverbs for relative pronouns in sentences of this type.2 Thus the clauses in (1) and (2) are viewed as having an essentially adjectival function, modifying the noun lugar, whether it is actually present, as in (2), or merely understood as in (1).