English Grammar Questions
Q7: Is Winkipedia a bad source of information about English Grammar?
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N - Illinois, USA "... I tried to cross-reference the information in LSEG with data from other sources, and I discovered that Wikipedia is confusing. Please take a look at this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjective ... My question to you is: is Wikipedia a bad source of information?" Amazingly, you are right, dear reader. We were stunned ourselves with the content in Wikipedia page related to the English adjective. We didn't check other Wikipedia grammar pages because it is clear to us the Wikipedia authors know very little grammar. First of all, whenever an author of grammar articles employs the notion of "modifier" to define adjectives or adverbs, rest assured that person knows jack about grammar. Adjectives (and adverbs) DO NOT MODIFY ANYTHING! Consider this: I have an apple. I have a red apple. "Red", in context above, is a qualifying adjective determining the noun "apple". The addition of the adjective "red" does not modify anything; the adjective "red" is used to add a quality to the noun "apple". Note that the noun "apple" remains a noun, perfectly unchanged by the addition of the adjective "red" in form (morphologically), in function (syntactically), and in meaning (semantically). The noun "apple" still represents an apple after the addition of the adjective "red", not a nut, a melon, or a little red cherry. Secondly, whenever an author writes about grammar, he/she must make the first, great distinction: morphology and syntax. Accordingly, the adjective is a morphologic sentence element. Grammatical category of syntactic attributes is different from the morphologic category of adjectives: attributes exist only in syntax, and adjectives exist only in morphology. The author(s) at Wikipedia say(s), "Adjectives do not exist in all languages," which is totally incorrect. Adjectives exist in ALL languages on our Planet, and in ALL LANGUAGES IN THE UNIVERSE! No matter how primitive a language could be, it has to have the basic color adjectives, plus hot/cold, light/dark, hard/light, heavy/light, old/young, good/bad, etc. Without adjectives, nobody can describe the environment: we are blind, deaf, and insensitive. Thirdly, the author(s) at Wikipedia try(s) to make us "understand" that the most used adjectives are similar to "big, old, and tired"--we cannot "get" the meaning of that paragraph. Anyway, the truth is, the most used adjective is "good" since it is embedded into many expressions of the type, "good morning", "good bye", etc. Fourthly, the unknown author(s) abandon(s) the adjective, and jump(s) to hack the article. Heavens! Dear readers, adjectives are adjectives, and articles are articles! This is the reason we name them "adjectives" and "articles": they are two different morphologic categories! Adjectives are structured only in: 1. qualifying adjectives (they express a quality in meaning) 2. determining adjectives (they have pure determining meaning/functionality) This (grammatical) notion/idea of "determining" could be confusing, because it applies to many sentence/syntactic elements. All adjectives must "determine" a noun--this is what defines them as being adjectives. When a qualifying adjective does not determine a noun (or a pronoun, in few instances), then it is used as noun-equivalent. The red apple is the sweetest. (qualifying adjective determining the noun "apple") The poor went out. (qualifying adjective working as noun-equivalent) In order to become a noun-equivalent, the adjective needs the definite article "the" ahead. As a note, articles determine only nouns (and noun-equivalents). Articles have the same syntactic function as the nouns (or noun-equivalents) they determine. In other words, articles are always taken together with their determined nouns. The long, hot summer was over. (the article "the" determines the noun "summer", only, regardless of any adjectives interposed) In reverse, a noun may become adjective-equivalent when it works morphologically as adjective (details are presented in LSEG). Determining adjectives are subdivided in few important categories (details are presented in LSEG), and they are identical in form with a limited subset of pronouns. Therefore, determining adjectives must determine a noun; otherwise, they are pronouns. To end this, the author(s) at Wikipedia keep(s) on talking about "some/other" languages, and about the Chinese language, although the topic is clearly about the English language! Why? What is all that babbling about? Anyway, there are so many errors in that Wikipedia page that it is impossible to explain them all. Our advice to you is, be very careful about English grammar. This branch of science [yes, grammar is a science governed and regulated by many complex, strict rules] has been grossly neglected in schools during the past 50 years. The result is, today, most teachers and authors of grammar books lack basic, fundamental knowledge. As for the average readers ... Well ... as long as you do want to learn, it is never your fault, dear readers. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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