COMPLEMENT CONTROL - LOGICALLY STRUCTURED ENGLISH GRAMMAR: ADJECTIVES

English Grammar Notes #4:

ADJECTIVES

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DEFINITION (fragment from LSEG Definition M3)
"Adjective" is the sentence element used to qualify/determine a noun or an equivalent-noun construction. Morphologically, adjectives are noun determiners; syntactically, adjectives
work as attributes ...

The notion of "equivalent-adjective" refers to a sentence element or a phrase/expression working as one adjective.

LSEG: Noun Cluster

Adjectives are used to qualify/determine nouns, therefore their determined nouns must be present explicitly (or implicitly, via some pronouns). However, there are instances when qualifying/determining adjectives are missing their determined nouns; consequently, these adjectives become:
A. nouns
B. pronouns

The following topics are summarily presented in this page:

1. Categories of Adjectives
2. Comparing Adjectives
3. Determining Adjectives

ATTENTION
These Grammar Notes are not sufficient to understand the topics presented. For accurate and detailed information we recommend LOGICALLY STRUCTURED ENGLISH GRAMMAR.

CATEGORIES OF ADJECTIVES

First of all, adjectives are:
A. qualifying
B. determining

LSEG: Adjectives

The group of determining adjectives is a bit more complex; it includes:
B1. possessive adjectives
B2. demonstrative adjectives
B3. interrogative adjectives
B4. relative adjectives
B5. indefinite adjectives

Syntactically, qualifying adjectives are (generally) employed as:
1. attributes
2. predicative adjectives (subject/object complements)

The adjectives positioned near the predicate-verbs could be a source of confusion, because that is exactly the way some adverbs work. However, only particular predicate-verbs (copulas) allow predicative adjectives; note that these adjectives still qualify the nouns, only, regardless of their position within the sentence structure.

Another source of confusion is, some adjectives and adverbs have exactly the same form. For example:
1. We took a fast train. (adjective; "fast" qualifies the noun "train".)
2. The train runs fast. (adverb instance; "fast" qualifies the verb "runs")

Fragment from LSEG; categories of adjectives.

LSEG: categories of adjectives

ATTENTION
In the "descriptive" type of grammar books adjectives are considered "modifiers" (same as the adverbs, articles, numerals, nouns and ... whatever). That is just a semantic interpretation without any morphologic or syntactic functionality. The notion of "modification" in English grammar is intended to create only confusion/chaos, therefore it should better be avoided.

Fragment from LSEG: qualifying adjectives of German origin working only as subject complements.

COMPARING ADJECTIVES

Only qualifying adjectives may be compared; the comparison is performed for:
A. inferiority
B. equality
C. superiority

The points A and C above take three "degrees of comparison", as follows:
1. positive (no comparison is performed)
2. comparative (simple comparison)
3. superlative:
3.1 superlative relative (the highest/lowest qualities related to others)
3.2 superlative absolute (the highest/lowest qualities of all )

Adjectives' comparison is performed according to a set of rules--presented in LSEG. Considering the way they comply to the rules, qualifying adjectives are categorized as being:
1. regular adjectives (if they obey the rules)
2. irregular adjectives (they take particular forms for superiority comparison)
3. relative (qualifying) adjectives (they do not allow comparison)

An important aspect is "using adjectives in comparative (complex) sentences". Following is a fragment from LSEG.

Fragment from LSEG: qualifying adjectives in comparative sentences

Fragment from LSEG: qualifying adjectives in comparative sentences

DETERMINING ADJECTIVES

Determining adjectives are also named "pronominal adjectives" because they have exactly the same form as (some) pronouns do. Their functionality, however, is different: pronouns replace the nouns, while adjectives accompany and determine their nouns. All determining adjectives have pronominal equivalents; the reverse is not true.

Determining adjectives take no comparison degrees, but they do agree in number, person, gender, and case with the nouns they determine. The most common categories of determining adjectives are:
1. possessive adjectives
2. demonstrative adjectives
3. interrogative adjectives
4. relative adjectives
5. indefinite adjectives

ATTENTION
There are very many interesting aspects about determining adjectives. However, the most problematic appears to be the category of indefinite adjectives.

Fragment from LSEG; using interrogative adjectives.

Fragment from LSEG: using interrogative adjectives

Fragment from LSEG; using relative adjectives.

Fragment from LSEG: using relative adjectives

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