Functional Grammar   Lesson 14

OTHER FUNCTIONAL CLASSES OF ADJECTIVES

In going through the exercises in the previous lesson you will probably have noticed that there were a number of words which we have not mentioned hitherto, and which need to be accounted for in our description. The easiest of these to describe are colours.

Consider the best ordering in the following jumbled group:-

e.g. little vase that green pretty porcelain

We can begin by distinguishing the headword "vase", and the deictic "that". This gives:-

that vase

There is then a noun modifier, "porcelain", which will be placed to the immediate left of the headword:-

that porcelain vase

This leaves two qualitative epithets, "pretty" and "little", and the colour "green", which we have to decide where to place. Since "pretty" is attitudinal, and "little" experiential, we can place them accordingly:-

that pretty little porcelain vase

Finally we can place the colour, and the preferred position would seem to be following the two qualitative epithets but in front of the noun modifier:-

that pretty little green porcelain vase

If we then add a classifier such as "Chinese" we see that this will follow the colour:-

that pretty little green Chinese porcelain vase

Thus we can say that colours tend to follow qualitative epithets and to precede classifiers and noun modifiers in the nominal group. Here are a few more examples:-
 
e.g. that imposing old grey Gothic architecture
those ominous big black storm clouds overhead
a magnificent calm blue tropical lagoon
the beautiful lush green mountain scenery
a garish multi-coloured batik shirt
 

There is still another class of words which we have yet to describe, and these are those GENERAL adjectives which refer to the headword in terms of its situational or textual status generally. Such words may point to its familiarity or fame, its normality or ordinariness, similarity or difference from some other point of reference. They tend to come before other classes of adjective in the chain, usually following the deictic or post-deictic quantifier. The following table illustrates some typical words which can fill this slot:-
 

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There are many other words which can be used in this way, and although they usually follow a post-deictic quantifier, they may also precede it.
 
e.g. the usual few boring old political speeches
the same two people
my regular two pints
 

General adjectives are difficult to define comprehensively since there are a lot of them. They can be distinguished in some degree, however, in that they are words which tend to modify the nominal group as a whole, and in a sense relate the particular elements of meaning which are provided by the other classes of modifier to the wider situational or textual context. They thus have the "quasi-deictic" function of pointing to something in the context or general background knowledge and experience which is shared between speaker and hearer, and rely upon this common "context of culture" for their meaning to be fully understood.

EXERCISES

Some words can be used to express a variety of meanings, and their contrasting uses can be shown to relate to different structural functions which they may perform. An interesting word in this regard is "only", which occurs in a number of different ways. Consider the following examples and try to account for the contrasts expressed in terms of the different, modifying functions this word variously performs - i.e. whether it functions as an adverb, adjective, pre-deictic, post-deictic, qualifier etc.

For each example identify the particular modifying function performed and the meaning expressed, and consider whether "only" could appear in a different slot, and if so, what effect this would have on the meaning. Are there other words which could substitute for "only", and do these show similar positional versatility?

How many distinct semantic functions of "only" can you identify in the examples, and what structural slots are they associated with? For each example, try and find other words which could be used in place of "only" to have the same meaning. 
 

(1) He is my only brother.

(2) They are only students.

(3) This bar is for men only.

(4) She is only sixteen.

(5) It is only my watch.

(6) It is my only watch.

(7) We only laughed.

(8) They can speak only English.

(9) Only they can speak English.

(10) The bell only rang once.

(11) Only Bill came twice.

(12) Bill only came twice.

(13) Bill came only twice.

(14) Only you can sit and watch.

(15) You can only sit and watch.

(16) She is an only child.

(17) She is only a child.

(18) Only she is a child.

(19) She is only my friend.

(20) She is my only friend.
 

** SUGGESTED READING.

Young DJ, "Introducing English Grammar", Chapter 4, pages  54 - 70.

Quirk & Greenbaum, "A University Grammar of English", sections 13.27 - 13.39 pages 395 - 402.

Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech & Svartvik, "A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language", 17.94 - 17.112, pages 1321 - 1337.

Other modifiers Adjective submodivication