Questions tagged [adjectives]
Words that describe or modify a noun or noun phrase.
108 questions
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What is the origin of the Latin suffix -alis/-alia?
What is the origin of the Latin suffix -alis/-alia? Can it be an Etruscan borrowing? Is Russian adjectival suffix -аль- a borrowing from Latin?
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Are there languages where adjectives are clearly neither noun-like nor verb-like?
Most language I have some knowledge of have adjectives with are either a) nominal in nature or b) verbal in nature. (apologies if this is not the best wording.)
In German, Romanian, and Georgian, ...
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Are there languages with more than three degrees of comparison?
In English and other languages there are three degrees of comparison: positive, comparative and superlative (e.g. tall, taller, tallest). Are there languages with more than three degrees, expressed ...
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Does any language use bound morphology to express the concept "less"?
In English, many adjectives support the -er ending to express a notion of exceeding:
John is taller than Mary (is).
Mary is smarter than John (is).
Of course, you can also have the more analytic ...
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English words which are both verbs and adjectives
A question about UI design led me to speculate about English words which are both a verb and an adjective. My answer to the question addresses this linguistics issue as the root of the UI issue. I ...
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Is there any difference in meaning or nuance when the adjective follows the noun in Georgian?
Many languages allow the order of adjectives compared to nouns to vary, but for different reasons:
Some languages have very free word order in which case there is little difference between adj + noun ...
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How can adjective-noun order in French be explained by parameter theory?
I just finished reading The Atoms of Language. The gist is that languages have parameters, one of which will tell you which side of a phrase to add a new word.
But in some languages, like French and ...
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Are there any other rules for adjective order?
At the English Language and Usage Stackexchange site, the question was asked What is the rule for adjective order? and the answer boiled down to:
(article) + number + judgement/attitude + size + ...
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