Abstract The aim of the present paper is to propose an approach to classifying English adjectives into “qualitative”; and “relative”; categories by means of correlation analysis after Pearson. At three language “levels”; (semantic, derivational and chronological) sets of basic characteristics are singled out. First, these characteristics are correlated with each other in an integrated adjectival “space”; and then each characteristic is independently correlated with the feature of “qualitativeness”; and the feature of “relativity”;. As a result of juxtaposition of the obtained coefficients the basic differences between qualitative and relative adjectives are formulated in statistical terms.