Kava V.R.
Chernivtsi National University,
Ukraine
Adjective And
Its Functions In Modern English
In
grammar, an adjective is a part of speech that modifies a noun or a pronoun,
usually by describing it or making its meaning more specific. The most widely
recognized adjectives in English are words such as big, old, and tired that
actually describe people, places, or things. Adjectives are words expressing
properties of objects (e.g. large, blue,
simple, clever, economic, progressive, productive, etc) and, hence,
qualifying nouns.
Unlike adverbs, which often seem capable
of popping up almost anywhere in a sentence, adjectives nearly always appear
immediately before the noun or noun phrase that they modify. Adjectives in
English do not change for number or case. The only grammatical category they have
is the degrees of comparison. The degrees of comparison are known as the
positive, the comparative, and the superlative. We use the comparative for
comparing two things and the superlative for comparing three or more things. The
inflected suffixes -er and -est suffice to form most comparatives
and superlatives, although we need -ier
and -iest when a two-syllable
adjective ends in - y (happier and happiest); otherwise we use more and most when an adjective has
more than one syllable [1, p. 48].
In this paper we analyze adjective and
its basic linguistic functions.
Adjective can generally be classified into one of four kinds of uses:
1)
Attributive adjectives are part
of the noun phrase headed by the noun they modify; for example, happy is an attributive adjective in
"happy people".
2)
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."
3)
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."
4)
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".
The
aim of this paper is to investigate adjectives of size in political discourse.
The term discourse has several
definitions. In the study of language, discourse often refers to the speech
patterns and usage of language, dialects, and acceptable statements, within a
community. It is a subject of study in peoples who live in secluded areas and
share similar speech conventions [3].
Sociologists and philosophers
tend to use the term discourse to describe the conversations and the meaning
behind them by a group of people who hold certain ideas in common.
Having defined the term discourse,
we must also give definition for
discourse analysis. It is a general term for a number of approaches to
analyzing written, spoken or signed language use.
Discourse analysis is the
branch of linguistics that deals with the study and application of approaches
to analyse written, spoken or signed language [3].
The objects of discourse
analysis—discourse, writing, talk, conversation, communicative event.
There are few types of Discourse
Analysis :
1) Critical discourse
analysis - is an interdisciplinary
approach to the study of discourse that views language as a form of social
practice and focuses on the ways social and political domination are reproduced
by text and talk.
2) Political discourse analysis - is a field of discourse analysis which
focuses on discourse in political forums (such as debates, speeches, and
hearings) as the phenomenon of interest.
Political discourse is the informal
exchange of reasoned views as to which of several alternative courses of action
should be taken to solve a societal problem.[3]
Here are some examples of adjectives
of size, that can be used in political discourse.
“It's time to give all our students the chance to succeed in
the new economy by modernizing our schools, setting high standards, and hiring
more qualified teachers” [2].
“Second big problem, the global environment” [2].
“Most of them, little kids that never get any clean water” [2].
“And finally global warming; if the
climate warms for the next fifty years at the rate of the last ten, we'll lose
whole island nations in the Pacific that will be flooded by the rising water
table as the South Pole and the North Pole get smaller” [2].
“Far more terrorist attacks were thwarted
at home and around the world than succeeded, large numbers of terrorists who did commit crimes were brought to
justice” [2].
“There's no question that quite soon the women in this audience who are
in their childbearing years will be able to bring children home from the
hospital with little gene cards and
life expectancies in excess of ninety years” [2].
“The work will be complete, however, when every school -- every public
school in America is a place of high
expectations and a place of achievement” [4].
“Those kids have been hurt the worst because people have failed to
challenge the soft bigotry of low expectations”
[4].
“Think about how we all organize
our lives in little boxes - man,
woman, British, American, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Tory, Labour, New Labour, Old
Labour, up, down - you know, everything in the world” [4].
“If that happens, it will be the biggest
epidemic since the plague killed a quarter of Europe in the fourteenth century”
[4].
“And finally, one of the big
burdens of the modern world is high tech terrorism - and a lot of people knew
it before September 11th”[4].
Thus, the results of the analysis show that adjectives of size are often
used in political discourse.
References:
1. Êàóøàíñêàÿ Â.Ë. Ãðàììàòèêà àíãëèéñêîãî ÿçûêà. Ìîðôîëîãèÿ. Ñèíòàêñèñ. Ì.:2000. – 319ñ.
2. http://australianpolitics.com/usa/clinton/speeches/
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse
4. http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/speeches/bush_firstterm.html