The Positions of Adjectives in English
P. H. Matthews
Abstract
This book is a study of the uses of adjectives in different constructions, and of the problems that arise in their analysis, both in terms of syntactic theory and philosophy of grammar. The history of English has been one in which their uses in the attributive and predicative positions have increasingly diverged. This raises problems in general for the definition of the category, and for analyses that have tried to relate one use to another, by syntactic transformations or other devices. It also raises problems in individual positions, which concern in particular the basic structure of noun ph ... More
This book is a study of the uses of adjectives in different constructions, and of the problems that arise in their analysis, both in terms of syntactic theory and philosophy of grammar. The history of English has been one in which their uses in the attributive and predicative positions have increasingly diverged. This raises problems in general for the definition of the category, and for analyses that have tried to relate one use to another, by syntactic transformations or other devices. It also raises problems in individual positions, which concern in particular the basic structure of noun phrases and the justification for binary constituents; the status of the copular and its uses in the progressive; the indeterminacy of what were once described as raised constructions; and the function of postmodifying adjectives and adjective phrases in relation to others. The nature of these problems is often as much theoretical, or philosophical, as factual.
Keywords:
adjectives,
English,
philosophy of grammar,
syntactic theory,
noun phrases
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2014 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199681594 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199681594.001.0001 |
