Questions tagged [adjectives]
Words that describe or modify a noun or noun phrase.
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1answer
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Different types of color adjectives
One the one hand, Berlin and Kay found a linguistic hierarchy of colors. On the other hand, some languages have several kinds of colors.
In French, color adjectives are invariable if they come from ...
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0answers
72 views
Name for adjectives modifying the verb within a noun rather than the noun itself (as in “illegal immigrant”)
I'm interested in the phenomenon where people object to "illegal" as though it is inaccurate because the person implied by "immigrant" cannot be illegal in merely being a person. While moral and legal ...
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0answers
30 views
Is there a database which tags the “high/low” sense of comparative adjectives?
For example, “faster” is “high” (speed) whereas slower is “low” (speed). Similarly, "longer" is "high" and "shorter" aligns with "low".
4
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1answer
106 views
Is gradable vs absolute a universal distinction?
Inspired by multiple questions on ELU and in particular this recent question about 'correct', I wonder whether French has the similar concept of gradable vs absolute adjectives.
The idea is that some ...
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0answers
43 views
Past Participial Relatives are the sourse of Participial Adjectives, why?
I came across this statement in a work (Ph.D. Dissertation, p.158) by Asier Alcázar Estela in which he assumes that the Past Participial Relatives are the source of the Participial Adjectives. And he ...
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2answers
53 views
Is “bien décidés” an adjectival phrase?
Mais il me faut quelques volontaires bien décidés.
in that sentence, décidés is considered as an adjective right? So does the phrase bien décidés an adjectival phrase or adverbial phrase?
1
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2answers
115 views
Triggering emotions with language
Emotional responses to certain words is often argued to be a result of nurture(acquired through development), while emotional responses to Tone is largely attributable to nature(born with).
Shouldn't ...
1
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1answer
67 views
Terminology for chained, nested adjective anatomy
For the moment I am just considering adjectives and adverbs as the same sort of thing, basically modifiers for the noun or verb. I will probably only focus on nouns here for simplicity.
Some examples ...
2
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3answers
85 views
Are there languages where the imperative of “to be” (as in “be happy”) is non-existent or achievable through vastly different means?
I know many languages don't have the word "to be" (e.g. Hawaiian), but I don't know how they form "to be" imperatives. I'm not asking specifically about Hawaiian, though that is welcome as well. ...
6
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2answers
154 views
What is the syntax of “second” in phrases like “the second most common problem”?
In English, words like "second", "third" etc. (also "next", I guess) can be used with a superlative to count down from the maximum.
Some dictionaries call "second" an adverb in this context (e.g. MW, ...
0
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2answers
105 views
Stolen, part of speech
I've checked several dictionaries for the word "stolen" only to find it labeled a verb. Virtually all of the examples sentences use it in a manner that I would have considered an adjective:
"The ...
1
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1answer
42 views
Infinitive clauses referring to an adjective before a noun [closed]
We know that infinitive clauses can sometimes refer to adjectives before nouns. I feel with what adjectives they can do that, but I don't have any reason for it.
Examples;
You can buy the best ...
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0answers
53 views
Are there languages which have ways to distinguish between an adjunct noun and an adjective?
(Take some example). Do other languages (than English) have means distinguish between their adjunct nouns and adjectives or is it a very complex/grammatical structure that cannot possibly be ...
0
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1answer
185 views
A concept called extreme-opposites
I am novice in linguistics but I have a keen interest in natural (spoken) languages. There is this concept in my mind called "extreme-opposites" or "extreme-antonyms". The concept goes like this:
...
3
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0answers
68 views
How can be these two types of adjective distinguished terminologically?
In adjectives there are two main groups:
First Group: adjectives that their 3 grades (base, comparative and superlative) are changed whether regularly (nice > nicer > nicest) or irregularly (good > ...
0
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1answer
25 views
Is there a technical term for the kind of adjective A which appears in sentences of the form 'The object O is A.'?
Question.
Is there an attested technical term for the construction
'Object O is A.'
where O is a noun and A is an adjective?
Remarks.
The phenomenon that I am hoping to read about, and find a ...
1
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1answer
68 views
Is there a term for an adjective or noun becoming a verb, like “to adult”?
Is there a term for a word that is traditionally an adjective or noun becoming a verb over time? A word I'm thinking of is "adult", which Merriam-Webster has reported has become increasingly used as a ...
5
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2answers
73 views
Has there been cross-linguistic work on differential adjective-noun order?
In recent years, a massive amount of attention in linguistics has been devoted to the variation within language varieties of grammatical structures caused by semantic and discourse-pragmatic factors, ...
1
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2answers
140 views
What is the part of speech of 'modifiers to adjectives'?
This is something I was just thinking about. Adjectives in a lot of languages can also take modifiers of their own: very big, more intelligent, etc... But is there an actual word for the part of ...
2
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0answers
71 views
Data/Resource for adjectives related to nouns
I am looking for resource or some way(maybe using multiple resources) which can help me figure out which adjectives to use. For example:
weight > 40 : heavier
age > 40 : older
I am not sure how to ...
3
votes
1answer
185 views
Case assignment with prepositions
Consider these examples:
'I am happy with my parents'
my parents gets assigned Case by 'with'.
*'I am proud with my parents'
My question is as follows:
What is the reasoning for 2 being ...
0
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2answers
499 views
What is the x-bar tree of 'I am proud of my students'? (having trouble with proud)
I am having trouble attaching the 'proud' to the 'am'. 'Am' is a verb and 'proud' is an adjective for the noun 'I', so should come as an adjunct for 'I', but here it would have to somehow come from ...
1
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2answers
69 views
Where can I find a lexicon of adjectives?
I am currently looking for a list of adjectives that I can use as a seed for a machine learning model. These do not need to be annotated. Are there any open source lexicons that exist which could be ...
4
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2answers
104 views
Term for -ed as an adjectival suffix?
By which I mean changing a noun into an adjective by adding '-ed'.
For example: the noun 'horn' becomes the adjective 'horned'
Is there a term for the type of adjective that is formed from a noun by ...
5
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2answers
118 views
How is the the adjective in a definite noun phrase different from a nondefinite one in Germanic and Balto-Slavic languages?
In the wikipedia article about definiteness I came upon this:
In the Germanic languages and Balto-Slavic languages, for example (as still in modern German and Lithuanian), there are two paradigms ...
0
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1answer
90 views
Do other languages than English have verbals ,too?
As I understand it, verbals are nouns,adjectives and adverbs which are derived from verbs.
I don't understand if a verbal is indeed one of the three parts of speeches mentioned or a part of speech of ...
0
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0answers
73 views
Is “down at the bar” an adjective phrase or adverb phrase?
There are three parts of speeches attributed to "down" in the dictionary: adjective, adverb and verb.
I understand , that at the bar is a sub phrase and a prepositional phrase.
I don't know the rules ...
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0answers
41 views
Can adjectives be concrete in an ontological sense? [closed]
Hello everyone,
I'm trying to further define adjectives such as "beautiful" in an ontological sense.
Can any adjectives which denote abstract OR concrete nouns, be concrete?
Can "beautiful" be an ...
2
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0answers
133 views
Type of adjective, “more” vs. “less” [closed]
Does Linguistics group adjectives by their nature to denote an absolute quantity, as opposed to those that denote a relative quantity? If so, are there terms for such adjectives pointing out this ...
2
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0answers
57 views
Governors of adjectives in dependency grammars
In some dependency treebanks for Germanic languages, nouns in subject position are assigned the governors of their corresponding predicative adjectives, as opposed to the copular verb connecting the ...
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3answers
138 views
What is it called when one “conjugates” adjectives?
If one conjugates verbs and declines nouns, what is it called when an adjective is "conjugated," as it is in French to agree in gender and plurality with the noun? (E.g. "beau" is masculine singular ...
2
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0answers
46 views
How do I distinguish between traits and states using NLP?
In an English sentence:
Harry was displeased.
– displeased is a state
Harry was benevolent.
– benevolent is a trait
Given an adjective, how can I distinguish between a trait and a state?
The ...
1
vote
1answer
164 views
Is the word the name of a person or an adjective? [closed]
I don't know hebrew and I was reading a transliteration of the following phrase,
"חכו ממתקים וכלו מחמדים זה דודי וזה רעי בנות ירושלם׃"
Is the word "מחמדים" referring to a person name or an adjective ...
2
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0answers
81 views
Origin of Buchowski's paradox
According to Wolfram Math World, Buchowski's paradox concerns the use of comparative adjectives in apparently paradoxical statements such as "My younger brother is older than me" (possible if the ...
4
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1answer
234 views
verbal or adjectival suffix -ed in the word “excited”
is the suffix -ed verbal or adjectival in the sentence:
I was excited about my new job.
Would the answer be different if the sentence was:
I was excited by my new job.
Maybe by indicates that ...
2
votes
2answers
143 views
For adjectives which change meaning by position: why are they subjective before nouns but objective after?
Meaning-changing adjectives
[Source:] Some adjectives can mean different things depending on their placement around the noun they modify.
When placed after the noun like normal, the ...
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2answers
49 views
Can a personal adjective be categorized as a noun phrase?
In 'File Change Semantics and the Familiarity Theory of Definiteness' by Irene Heim, she calls 'its' in 'Every cat ate its food' a type of definite NP. Could a possessive adjective be classified as a ...
4
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2answers
169 views
Can one word be classified as two different word classes?
Over at German Language Stack Exchange, the question was asked what the structure of the sentence
Ihr Antrag ist abgelehnt.
is, and what the word abgelehnt can be classified as. Traditional German ...
5
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2answers
146 views
What is the name of this class of grammatical modifiers?
In French (and many other languages), adjectives and pronouns have different classes, e.g.:
Adjectives
demonstrative
indefinite
interrogative
numerical
possessive
Pronouns
demonstrative
indefinite
...
1
vote
1answer
243 views
What's a good test to distinguish past participles from predicate adjectives?
Most past participles can act as predicate adjectives:
"The island was inhabited."
but there are some words that may look like both parts of speech, but can only be used in one way or the other:
"...
5
votes
2answers
700 views
Why in most (all?) languages don't adjectives have gender independently of the nouns they modify?
In many languages where nouns have gender, adjectives agree in gender with the nouns they modify. But it would be possible to imagine a language where each adjective had its own gender, which it kept ...
2
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5answers
230 views
Are there any languages that mark predicative and attributive adjectives differently?
For example:
distal dog ugly-ADJ.PRED 'yon dog is ugly'
would be distinct from:
distal dog ugly-ADJ.ATTR 'yon ugly dog'
I wonder if this is attested in the world's languages, and if not, if it ...
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1answer
266 views
Colloquial use of adjective that is actually acting as an adverb — examples or formal use?
In a song by rap group NWA they say this:
"The bitch sucked one hell of a dick"
Disregarding the potentially offensive nature of the quote, it stood out to me that although "hell of a" is an ...
2
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0answers
329 views
What is the type of adjective that denotes capability?
I have encountered a number of adjectives while programming that all have the same use case of describing capabilities of a noun. "Clonable", "serializable", "runnable", "hashable", "immutable", "...
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2answers
96 views
Trying to understand why adjectives do not refer
[Question rewritten and retitled, now that I have a better understanding of what I didn't understand, due to comments]
This is probably information I could find on the Internet elsewhere, but I am ...
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2answers
655 views
adjectives and adverbs functioning as prepositional complements
what kind of adv and adj are these? what is prep. complement. Can you give ma a couple of examples of adj. and adv. which may function as prepositional complements?
3
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2answers
150 views
Do Persian Adjectives have Masc. Fem. and Neuter forms
For adjectives in Farsi (Persian), do they have Masculine, Feminine, and Neuter.
For Example:
The adjective خوب (Khoob, meaning good), does it have different forms, like in French or Russian?
...
2
votes
2answers
171 views
Determine adjective order algorithmically
Does NLTK (or any other Python natural language module) have the ability to determine the order of multiple modifier adjectives? For example:
metal round huge bowl (incorrect)
huge round metal bowl (...
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73 views
adjective features - similar to beth Levin's verb classes?
Beth Levin published research on verb classes/alternations - is there similar for the adjective category of words?
I can see references to countable/uncountable, gradable,absolute, of quantity/quality ...
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Definite or indefinite adjectives with possessive personal determiners in Germanic?
While both German and Danish have different forms of adjectives in definite and indefinite noun phrases, noun phrases with possessive personal determiners pattern with the indefinite noun phrases in ...
