Adjectives and Adjective Phrases

1. Adjectives and Adjective Phrases

2. Form of adjectives • Simple E.g. good, bad, big, small, little, tall, short, black, white, easy, hard • Compound E.g. noun + adjective: tax-freegoods number + noun: four-wheel drive adverb + participle: well-balanced character adverb + adverb: well-off people • Derived E.g. greenish, hopeful, handsome, handy, foremost

3. Participle adjectives -Ing and -ed adjectives • INGadjectives describe the “something” whereas ED adjectives describe the “someone” E.g. alarmed - alarming, amazed - amazing, bored - boring, excited - exciting, frightened - frightening, pleased -pleasing, surprised - surprising, tired - tiring, worried – worrying • N.B. Participal modifiers vs. adjectives E.g. a sleeping child vs. a horrifying story

4. Attributive vs. predicative position • Central vs. peripheral adjectives E.g. a beautiful boy (beautiful boys) vs. The boy is beautiful, or I found the boy beautiful.

5. Predicative only (1) “a- adjectives”: afraid, alight, alike, alive, alone, ashamed, asleep, awake, aware… E.g. The horse was alonein the field. NOT: *The alone horse … (2) adjectives describing health and feelings: content, fine, glad, ill, poorly, sorry, (un)sure, upset, (un)well E.g. The patient was ill. NOT: * The ill patient… (but the terminally ill patient)

6. Typically attributive • Classifying (atomic, cubic, digital, medical, phonetic; chief, entire, initial, main, only, whole; eventual, occasional, northern (etc.), maximum, minimum, underlying) E.g. the northern star NOT: * the star was northern • Emphasizing (absolute, complete, mere, utter) E.g. a complete idiot NOT: * the idiot is complete

7. Postpositive position • some -ible and -able adjectives such as available, imaginable, possible, suitable (we use these adjectives immediately after a noun only when the noun follows words such as first, last, next, only and superlative adjectives, or when a prepositional phrase follows the adjective) E.g. It's the only treatment suitable. • other words, such as: concerned, involved, opposite, present, responsible (these have different meanings when they are used before a noun and immediately after it) E.g. my present address vs. the people present

8. Gradability • Very/extremely (+ gradable) E.g. common, happy, important, quiet • Absolutely/totally (+ungradable) E.g. huge, impossible, invaluable, terrible

9. Functions of the Adjective Phrase • (Pre-)modifier in a NP: a very good actor, heavy rain, an old friend • (Post-)modifer in a NP: something cheap, the person responsible • Head of a NP: the French, the sick, the young • Complement of a preposition: at last, for good, in short • Modifier in an AdjP: bright red, pale blue, red hot • Subject Complement: The acting was brilliant. • Object Complement: I consider that offensive.

10. Adjective phrase structure • Head • Modifier • Complement