Adjective n
March 23, 2006 8:50 PM Subscribe
Which words in the following sentence are adjectives?
"My wife put a 1kg Nescafe coffee tin on top of that oily cardboard box."
If you were being less pedantic - could you not count some that are technically adjectives? Are there schools of thoughts on adjectives?
If you were being less pedantic - could you not count some that are technically adjectives? Are there schools of thoughts on adjectives?
Best answer: In the context of the sentence, the only "true" adjective is the word 'oily'. Some might argue that the other adjectives are really part of the nouns. That is, a 'one-kilogram Nescafe Coffee tin', while it is technically made of adjectives and nouns, functions only as a noun in the sentence.
posted by fvox13 at 8:57 PM on March 23, 2006
posted by fvox13 at 8:57 PM on March 23, 2006
My, a, 1kg, Nescafe, coffee, that, oily, and cardboard function as adjectives in this sentence.
posted by thirteenkiller at 9:04 PM on March 23, 2006
posted by thirteenkiller at 9:04 PM on March 23, 2006
1Kg is an adjectival phrase (one kilogram)
Nescafe Coffee Tin can be viewed as adjective-adjective-noun or as a compound noun, like one of those endless German nouns (I always think of 'flippenfloppenmuckenschmeerenschpreader', which is a fake German word meaning 'windshield wiper')
oily is a true adjective
cardboard is arguably a true adjective.
posted by unSane at 9:11 PM on March 23, 2006
Nescafe Coffee Tin can be viewed as adjective-adjective-noun or as a compound noun, like one of those endless German nouns (I always think of 'flippenfloppenmuckenschmeerenschpreader', which is a fake German word meaning 'windshield wiper')
oily is a true adjective
cardboard is arguably a true adjective.
posted by unSane at 9:11 PM on March 23, 2006
I'm with fvox13. But as grammar isn't my strongest subject (more appropriately, remembering the details and rules of grammar) I didn't want to be the first to say so.
I suppose it comes down to the pedantic schools of thought you mention in the question. I suppose "cardboard" is technically an adjective describing "box" most people would see the phrase "cardboard box" as a compound noun.
Perhaps a better question would be: How anal was your English teacher?
posted by aladfar at 9:16 PM on March 23, 2006
I suppose it comes down to the pedantic schools of thought you mention in the question. I suppose "cardboard" is technically an adjective describing "box" most people would see the phrase "cardboard box" as a compound noun.
Perhaps a better question would be: How anal was your English teacher?
posted by aladfar at 9:16 PM on March 23, 2006
Best answer: Linguists define lexical categories by their where instances can appear in sentences (known technically as their distribution). There are three basic distributional tests for adjectives: they can have a degree word (like "very", "extremely", "somewhat", etc.) precede them, some (though not all) can appear in a copular sentence after the verb BE (e.g. "John is oily"), and some (though not all) can appear between a determiner and a noun (e.g. "the oily man").
These tests aren't always clear, but they are clear in this example -- according to the distributional tests, "oily" is the only adjective in the example. "Cardboard" seems almost like one, except that it doesn't allow degree words -- and since degree words are the most solid of the above tests, "cardboard box" is probably a noun-noun compound. Of course more traditional grammar might (in fact does) have wildly differing definitions of what an adjective is, but linguistically such definitions aren't very reliable or useful (except when they amount to distributional tests).
There is a larger question as to whether every word clearly and cleanly can be shown (by well-defined tests and argumentation) to belong to a single lexical category -- that is, whether lexical categories can be given precise definition using necessary and sufficient conditions. The answer is probably "no".
posted by advil at 9:40 PM on March 23, 2006
These tests aren't always clear, but they are clear in this example -- according to the distributional tests, "oily" is the only adjective in the example. "Cardboard" seems almost like one, except that it doesn't allow degree words -- and since degree words are the most solid of the above tests, "cardboard box" is probably a noun-noun compound. Of course more traditional grammar might (in fact does) have wildly differing definitions of what an adjective is, but linguistically such definitions aren't very reliable or useful (except when they amount to distributional tests).
There is a larger question as to whether every word clearly and cleanly can be shown (by well-defined tests and argumentation) to belong to a single lexical category -- that is, whether lexical categories can be given precise definition using necessary and sufficient conditions. The answer is probably "no".
posted by advil at 9:40 PM on March 23, 2006
louigi has it mostly right in his breakdown, with the following comments.
* "1kg" here is indeed an adjective, but if it were spelled out as "one-kilogram Nescafe," it would be a compound modifier, which is a kind of adjective.
* "oily cardboard" -- note that oily is modifying cardboard, not box. That can throw some people.
* "Nescafe coffee tin" -- Nescafe is a proper noun being used as an adjective to modify coffee, not tin. Coffee, in turn, is an common noun being used as an adjective to modify tin. "What kind of tin? A coffee tin. What kind of coffee? Nescafe."
posted by frogan at 9:59 PM on March 23, 2006
* "1kg" here is indeed an adjective, but if it were spelled out as "one-kilogram Nescafe," it would be a compound modifier, which is a kind of adjective.
* "oily cardboard" -- note that oily is modifying cardboard, not box. That can throw some people.
* "Nescafe coffee tin" -- Nescafe is a proper noun being used as an adjective to modify coffee, not tin. Coffee, in turn, is an common noun being used as an adjective to modify tin. "What kind of tin? A coffee tin. What kind of coffee? Nescafe."
posted by frogan at 9:59 PM on March 23, 2006
These tests aren't always clear, but they are clear in this example -- according to the distributional tests, "oily" is the only adjective in the example. "Cardboard" seems almost like one, except that it doesn't allow degree words -- and since degree words are the most solid of the above tests, "cardboard box" is probably a noun-noun compound. Of course more traditional grammar might (in fact does) have wildly differing definitions of what an adjective is, but linguistically such definitions aren't very reliable or useful (except when they amount to distributional tests).
Why doesn't cardboard allow degree words? e.g. "that packaging is mostly/partly cardboard."
posted by juv3nal at 10:27 PM on March 23, 2006
Why doesn't cardboard allow degree words? e.g. "that packaging is mostly/partly cardboard."
posted by juv3nal at 10:27 PM on March 23, 2006
Why doesn't cardboard allow degree words? e.g. "that packaging is mostly/partly cardboard."
Cardboard is a concrete concept, unlike an abstract concept such as, say, "hot" or "cold." It's either cardboard or it's not. It can't be "very cardboard" or "really f'n cardboard, man, brrr!"
"Mostly" and "partly" in your example are adverbs used as adjectives to modify the amount of cardboard present. They don't change the degree of the inherent cardboardness of the cardboard itself.
posted by frogan at 10:43 PM on March 23, 2006
Cardboard is a concrete concept, unlike an abstract concept such as, say, "hot" or "cold." It's either cardboard or it's not. It can't be "very cardboard" or "really f'n cardboard, man, brrr!"
"Mostly" and "partly" in your example are adverbs used as adjectives to modify the amount of cardboard present. They don't change the degree of the inherent cardboardness of the cardboard itself.
posted by frogan at 10:43 PM on March 23, 2006
"Mostly" and "partly" in your example are adverbs used as adjectives to modify the amount of cardboard present. They don't change the degree of the inherent cardboardness of the cardboard itself.
I don't want to invest the energy to get in an argument over this (mostly because I'm not sure I'm right), but as a parting shot, I still don't get it. How are "very" and "really f'n" not "adverbs used as adjectives to modify the amount of" hot/cold present?
posted by juv3nal at 10:54 PM on March 23, 2006
How are "very" and "really f'n" not "adverbs used as adjectives to modify the amount of" hot/cold present?
Oh, they are, but we're talking about degree words, so we're talking about subjective qualities, so this usage doesn't make sense. You don't say something is "very cardboard" because "very" usually infers a modification of an abstract quality, and cardboard is a real, tangible thing.
Yes -- "This is very pretty, very cool, very fast, very small."
No -- "This is very desk, very car, very house."
But it is subjective, of course. Rules can be very squishy. ;-)
posted by frogan at 11:13 PM on March 23, 2006
Oh, they are, but we're talking about degree words, so we're talking about subjective qualities, so this usage doesn't make sense. You don't say something is "very cardboard" because "very" usually infers a modification of an abstract quality, and cardboard is a real, tangible thing.
Yes -- "This is very pretty, very cool, very fast, very small."
No -- "This is very desk, very car, very house."
But it is subjective, of course. Rules can be very squishy. ;-)
posted by frogan at 11:13 PM on March 23, 2006
So by that logic, proper adjectives fail the test:
This is VERY Chinese tea
I agree with Louigi except "oily" is an adverb modifying the adjective "cardboard," which clearly modifies the noun "box."
posted by Joseph Gurl at 12:43 AM on March 24, 2006
This is VERY Chinese tea
I agree with Louigi except "oily" is an adverb modifying the adjective "cardboard," which clearly modifies the noun "box."
posted by Joseph Gurl at 12:43 AM on March 24, 2006
Something can't be very perfect, can it? Extremely perfect?
Yet "a perfect score" is a reasonable phrase with perfect unquestionably acting as an adjective.
I've never heard that rule. More detail, please?
posted by SuperNova at 1:11 AM on March 24, 2006
Yet "a perfect score" is a reasonable phrase with perfect unquestionably acting as an adjective.
I've never heard that rule. More detail, please?
posted by SuperNova at 1:11 AM on March 24, 2006
"My" is a determiner and not an adjective, according to what my syntax class taught me. Other than that, oily definitely is, but I'm not sure about "1kg" and "cardboard box" could be an adjective+noun or a compound noun...
posted by Jeanne at 4:46 AM on March 24, 2006
posted by Jeanne at 4:46 AM on March 24, 2006
Best answer: You cannot look at the words in isolation. You have to determine how they combine into simpler phrases according to rules of a grammar. In Joseph Gurl's example Chinese and tea form a Noun Phrase. Once you've abstracted to the phrase, it generally words like the head of that phrase, in this case, 'tea.'
[very] [chinese tea] not [very][chinese][tea]
As others have warned above, doing sentence analysis is sometimes more of an art than a science and linguists often argue over cases. If you want a good introduction, I find Radford's book pretty good
posted by miniape at 4:59 AM on March 24, 2006
[very] [chinese tea] not [very][chinese][tea]
As others have warned above, doing sentence analysis is sometimes more of an art than a science and linguists often argue over cases. If you want a good introduction, I find Radford's book pretty good
posted by miniape at 4:59 AM on March 24, 2006
Something can't be very perfect, can it? Extremely perfect?
It can be absolutely perfect.
posted by booksandlibretti at 6:31 AM on March 24, 2006
It can be absolutely perfect.
posted by booksandlibretti at 6:31 AM on March 24, 2006
I agree with Louigi except "oily" is an adverb modifying the adjective "cardboard," which clearly modifies the noun "box."
In linguistic X-bar theory, if you are assembling the syntax of a sentence from phrases, where XP consists of a specifier and X' then you have:
X(noun phrase) --> spec, spec, x'
box = X', which is a noun in the noun phrase of which both oily and cardboard are adjective specifiers. In other words, both oily and cardboard are adjectives modifying box.
posted by mrmojoflying at 6:48 AM on March 24, 2006
In linguistic X-bar theory, if you are assembling the syntax of a sentence from phrases, where XP consists of a specifier and X' then you have:
X(noun phrase) --> spec, spec, x'
box = X', which is a noun in the noun phrase of which both oily and cardboard are adjective specifiers. In other words, both oily and cardboard are adjectives modifying box.
posted by mrmojoflying at 6:48 AM on March 24, 2006
I think...But it's been a long time since I parsed a sentence so I'll double check when I get home.
posted by mrmojoflying at 6:48 AM on March 24, 2006
posted by mrmojoflying at 6:48 AM on March 24, 2006
I can only add this, if the speaker/writer had wanted oily to modify cardboard shouldn't he have written it "oily-cardboard box"?
Here is a possible solution to the degrees of perfection problem in the previous posts. A similar problem comes up when we consider the adjective "best." It is clearly an adjective but it does not seem to admit of degrees. We don't say this is more/less best. But, perhaps the attempt to quantify "best" in this way is just wrongheaded. "Best" seems to be a quantity of goodness (taking goodness to loosely mean something like appropriate for the task it is being used for). In this sense, when we say "that is the best hammer", or "that is the best solution," we are really saying "that hammer is the most (i.e more than any other) appropriate tool for hammering," or "that solution is the most appropriate for this problem." So, it turns out, on this analysis, that "best" just means having more applicability for a task than other contenders, or something in that neighborhood (if it is a strong statement we might say more applicability than any other contender can have). Thus, though it doesn't admit of degrees, it is itself just shorthand for a degree of a proper adjective.
If that analysis seems o.k., then we can run a similar argument for perfection. It does not come in degrees, but it is shorthand for something that does, flaws. Perfection just means having no flaws.
This does mean that being the best, perfect, etc., is not a condition in and of itself, but merely a point on the spectrum of a condition.
posted by oddman at 7:41 AM on March 24, 2006
Here is a possible solution to the degrees of perfection problem in the previous posts. A similar problem comes up when we consider the adjective "best." It is clearly an adjective but it does not seem to admit of degrees. We don't say this is more/less best. But, perhaps the attempt to quantify "best" in this way is just wrongheaded. "Best" seems to be a quantity of goodness (taking goodness to loosely mean something like appropriate for the task it is being used for). In this sense, when we say "that is the best hammer", or "that is the best solution," we are really saying "that hammer is the most (i.e more than any other) appropriate tool for hammering," or "that solution is the most appropriate for this problem." So, it turns out, on this analysis, that "best" just means having more applicability for a task than other contenders, or something in that neighborhood (if it is a strong statement we might say more applicability than any other contender can have). Thus, though it doesn't admit of degrees, it is itself just shorthand for a degree of a proper adjective.
If that analysis seems o.k., then we can run a similar argument for perfection. It does not come in degrees, but it is shorthand for something that does, flaws. Perfection just means having no flaws.
This does mean that being the best, perfect, etc., is not a condition in and of itself, but merely a point on the spectrum of a condition.
posted by oddman at 7:41 AM on March 24, 2006
oily is an adverb because it ends with ly.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 9:11 AM on March 24, 2006
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 9:11 AM on March 24, 2006
oily is an adverb because it ends with ly.
An adverb modifies a verb. The adverb form would be oilily.
Ex. The butter slid oilily down the knife onto my hand.
Oily, oiliest, oilier are adjectives.
Oil is a noun or a verb or an adjective depending on how it is used.
Oiliness is a noun.
posted by mrmojoflying at 9:50 AM on March 24, 2006
An adverb modifies a verb. The adverb form would be oilily.
Ex. The butter slid oilily down the knife onto my hand.
Oily, oiliest, oilier are adjectives.
Oil is a noun or a verb or an adjective depending on how it is used.
Oiliness is a noun.
posted by mrmojoflying at 9:50 AM on March 24, 2006
Something can't be very perfect, can it? Extremely perfect? Yet "a perfect score" is a reasonable phrase with perfect unquestionably acting as an adjective. I've never heard that rule. More detail, please?
"Perfect" is not a degree word like "very" or "extremely." Perfect is not a variable point on a sliding scale. Something is either perfect or not. Therefore, "perfect score" is a logical construction -- the score (a concrete concept) is being modified by the adjective.
With "very perfect" or "extremely perfect" you have adverbs attempting to modify the adjective "perfect," but this is a silly construction, because "perfect" shouldn't take any modification of degree at all. It is or it ain't.
posted by frogan at 2:22 PM on March 24, 2006
"Perfect" is not a degree word like "very" or "extremely." Perfect is not a variable point on a sliding scale. Something is either perfect or not. Therefore, "perfect score" is a logical construction -- the score (a concrete concept) is being modified by the adjective.
With "very perfect" or "extremely perfect" you have adverbs attempting to modify the adjective "perfect," but this is a silly construction, because "perfect" shouldn't take any modification of degree at all. It is or it ain't.
posted by frogan at 2:22 PM on March 24, 2006
I've never heard that rule. More detail, please?
It's not a rule -- it doesn't tell you what to say or how to speak. It's a generalization about English syntax (that most adjectives can be preceded by degree words); a test which can be used to try to answer the question. You probably haven't heard it simply because you haven't taken a syntax (or intro to ling) class, and I don't think it's the kind of thing that grammar teachers teach. It's certainly not something you need explicit knowledge of to speak or write English. The question becomes important when one is trying to build a theory of why the words of a language can appear in the order they do (e.g. the linguistic field of syntax), where it is useful to have a (falsifiable) theory of parts of speech. This is one generalization that linguists came up with.
And "perfect" sounds strange with "very", but this isn't about whether "perfect" is an adjective -- it's meaning is not compatible with increasing the degree of perfection. You can see this by negating "very"; "not very perfect" is just fine.
By the way, I don't know whether "mostly" and "partly" should be considered degree words, but they might well be (since they appear in the same place and can precede clear adjectives, as in "the partly blue box"), which would mean that I was wrong -- and "cardboard" is an adjective, but one which just isn't compatible with every degree word.
posted by advil at 2:36 PM on March 24, 2006
It's not a rule -- it doesn't tell you what to say or how to speak. It's a generalization about English syntax (that most adjectives can be preceded by degree words); a test which can be used to try to answer the question. You probably haven't heard it simply because you haven't taken a syntax (or intro to ling) class, and I don't think it's the kind of thing that grammar teachers teach. It's certainly not something you need explicit knowledge of to speak or write English. The question becomes important when one is trying to build a theory of why the words of a language can appear in the order they do (e.g. the linguistic field of syntax), where it is useful to have a (falsifiable) theory of parts of speech. This is one generalization that linguists came up with.
And "perfect" sounds strange with "very", but this isn't about whether "perfect" is an adjective -- it's meaning is not compatible with increasing the degree of perfection. You can see this by negating "very"; "not very perfect" is just fine.
By the way, I don't know whether "mostly" and "partly" should be considered degree words, but they might well be (since they appear in the same place and can precede clear adjectives, as in "the partly blue box"), which would mean that I was wrong -- and "cardboard" is an adjective, but one which just isn't compatible with every degree word.
posted by advil at 2:36 PM on March 24, 2006
Therefore, "perfect score" is a logical construction -- the score (a concrete concept) is being modified by the adjective.
Perfect is a superlative, which means it has already been increased by degree as far as it can go.
Superlative = An adjective or adverb expressing the superlative degree, as in brightest, the superlative of the adjective bright, or most brightly, the superlative of the adverb brightly (dictionary.com).
posted by mrmojoflying at 5:52 PM on March 24, 2006
Perfect is a superlative, which means it has already been increased by degree as far as it can go.
Superlative = An adjective or adverb expressing the superlative degree, as in brightest, the superlative of the adjective bright, or most brightly, the superlative of the adverb brightly (dictionary.com).
posted by mrmojoflying at 5:52 PM on March 24, 2006
This thread is closed to new comments.
My - adjective (or possessive personal pronoun)
wife - noun
put - verb
a - article
1kg - adjective
Nescafe - adjective
"coffee tin" - noun
on top of - preposition
that - adjective (or demonstrative pronoun)
oily - adjective
cardboard - adjective
box - noun.
posted by louigi at 8:54 PM on March 23, 2006