The function word very

Some simple English words have MANY meanings, and can be used in many different ways. In this important English lesson, you will learn about five simple words that have multiple meanings: very, too, enough, quite, and rather. I will show you the different ways in which these words are used. You will learn the function of each of these words in a sentence, whether adverb, adjective, or something else, and I will give lots of examples. Not only is it useful to understand the grammar, but it will also help you have a good variety of vocabulary to be a more interesting speaker and writer. Because it is VERY VERY boring to repeat the VERY same words in a VERY repetitive way. This lesson contains basic yet RATHER important concepts of English grammar that are VERY useful for everyday speech. There will be a quiz, TOO, so you can get ENOUGH practice. It would be QUITE a shame to miss out on it!

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5.32. Basis of Comparison

We can make the basis of comparison explicit. The most common ways of doing so include correlative constructions introduced by «than» (correlative of «more», «less») and by «as» (correlative to «as»), and prepositional phrases with «of:

John is more/less stupid than Bob (is).

John behaves more/less politely than Bob (does). John is as stupid as Bob (is).

John behaves as politely as Bob (does). John is the stupider of the (two) boys.

Of the (two) boys, John behaves the more politely. John is the most stupid of the (three) boys.

Of the (three) boys, John behaves the most politely.

(pp. 108-123)

Questions:

1.What makes it difficult to generalize on the part of speech features of the adjective?

2.What additional meanings do postposed adjective convey?

3.What morphological and syntactic features of the adverb do the authors single out?

4.How do they characterize the three classes of adverbials: adjuncts, disjuncts, and conjuncts?

5.What degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs do they single out?

6.What is peculiar to prepositional adverbs?

2 .

Francis W.N. The

Structure of American English

Adjectives

The primary defining or identifying quality of adjectives is their exclusive ability to fit into both the environments left blank in a structure such as:

the … man seems very …

To avoid lexical incompatibility, the noun and noun-determiner in this pattern may be varied without affecting the structure. Likewise, the verb may be replaced by «is», «becomes», «looks», and certain similar verbs from a limited list. Thus, the framework identifies as adjectives all of the various underlined words in the following sentences: this strong man is very strong his uncomfortable position is very uncomfortable the relaxed spectator looks very relaxed the self-centered girl seems very self-centered any interesting story sounds very interesting These two positions may be described as (1) between noun-determiner and noun, and (2) immediately following the function word «very» (or some other qualifier from a list to be given shortly), which in turn follows a verb of the linking or copulative type, which we shall define when we come to consider structures of complementation. In order to qualify as an adjective, a word must be able to fit both these positions. If we adopt this frame as the defining criterion of adjectives, we must accept the consequences. Two of these may bother the reader accustomed to classifications of the traditional grammar. The first is that some words customary considered adjectives do not fit the pattern; thus chief and main can fill the first position but not the second, while alive and alone can fill the second position but not the first. Thus, we can say:

the chief man is very alive

(though many would prefer «very much alive»), but we cannot say:

*the alive man is very chief

A bit of study will lead us to the conclusion that these words do not need to be classed as adjectives. Thus, chief and main are nouns which behave exactly like the noun head, or in more colloquial speech, boss or top. On the other hand, alive and alone are adverbs, functioning just like abroad, away, along, etc. There are a few adjectives, such as sole and unique, which do not fit the second position because they are lexically incompatible with the qualifier «very». But if we substitute quite for very, they fit the second position quite satisfactorily.

The other problem concerns the last three of our examples, which have the suffixes [-t, -d] and [-irj], already identified as inflectional suffixes of verbs. At first glance, it would seem that there is no formal

234 Seminars on Theoretical English Grammar

The result is a situation that can be represented as in the table below. An interesting by-product of this table is the obvious complementary distribution of the noun-forming derivational suffixes {-th} and {-ity}. Historical linguistics supplies a simple explanation of this: the adjectives which form nouns in {-th} are of native (Anglo-Saxon) stock, while those that form nouns in {-ity} are ultimately from Latin, borrowed into English either directly or by way of French.

There are a few base adjectives besides «good» which do not form adverbs in }: small, little, long, fast, ill, hard (hardly is best considered as a function word). A few more have related adverbs both in {-ly,} and without any suffix at all, hence identical with the adjective (the so-called «flat» adverbs): slow, quick, soft, clean.

(3) Most base adjectives are of one syllable, and none have more than two syllables except a few that begin with a derivational prefix like {un-}: uncommon, inhuman.

(4) A fair number of base adjectives form verbs by adding the derivational suffix {-enj}, the prefix {en-}, or both: brighten, cheapen, enlarge, embitter, enlighten, enliven.

DERIVED ADJECTIVES. The other large class of adjectives, the derived adjectives, are those which are formed by the addition of adjective-forming suffixes to free or bound stems. There is a relatively large number of these suffixes, and the resulting array of adjectives is much larger than the class of base adjectives. The relative frequency of the two types varies a great deal from one type of discourse to another. Ordinary speech and simple prose tend to have few adjectives of any sort, with a preponderance of base adjectives; formal, technical, or «highbrow» speech and writing use more adjectives, with the derived type predominating. […]

Some of the more important suffixes which form derived adjec-

tives are the following:

(a){-y}, added to oneand two-syllable nouns and bound stems, as in faulty, leafy, healthy, rickety, holy.

(b){-al}, added to nouns and bound stems:/ata/, natural, nation

al, traditional, local, physical, racial.

(c) {-able}, added to verbs and bound stems. This very common suffix is a live one which can be added to virtually any verb, thus giving rise to many new coinages and nonce-words. Since it is the descendant of an active derivational suffix in Latin, it also appears as part of many words borrowed from Latin or French. Examples formed from verbs: remarkable, understandable, adaptable, conceivable’, ex amples formed from bound stems: viable, portable, capable, terrible, visible. Many words of both groups have related nouns formed by adding {-ity} to a special allomorph of {-able}: adaptability, capabil ity, visibility.

(d) {-ful} and {-less}, added to nouns: hopeful, hopeless, useful,

useless, plentiful, penniless.

(e) {-ar}, {-ary}, {-ic}, {-ish2}, and {-ous}, added to nouns and bound stems: columnar, popular, regular, legendary, literary, climat ic, comic, childish, lavish, marvelous, pernicious.

(f) {-ent} and {-ive}, added to verbs and bound stems: abhorrent, significant, convenient, active, native, impulsive.

(g) {-en2}, added to nouns: woolen, waxen, oaken. [. ..]

Verbs

a man eating fish a job killing chickens a speech rousing the rabble he was boring his friends

Adjectives

a man-eating tiger a soul-killing job

a rabble-rousing speech he was very boring to them

240 Seminars on Theoretical English Grammar

adverbs, but much less frequent as such; goodly is never an adverb in standard English.)

3. Another well-marked group of adverbs consists of those that are formed by adding the derivational prefix {a-} to nouns, verbs, adjec tives, and stems, like our example aloud [...]. Of about 60 of them in more or less common use, nearly half are formed from nouns: ahead, away, abroad, etc. The rest are about equally divided among those formed from verbs (adrift, astir), from adjectives (anew, abroad), and from bound stems (akimbo, anon). The traditional grammar classes most of these as both adjectives and adverbs, and they are so listed in most dictionaries. But since they all fit our basic adverb position and since none of them can fit the basic adjective positions between deter miner and noun (we do not say the aloud voice or the adrift boat), it is clear that from our structural point of view they are always adverbs. 4. A group of adverbs originally small but at present exhibiting signs of rapid growth includes these formed by adding the deriva tional suffix {-wise} to nouns. A few in this group are well-estab lished words like lengthwise; others are recent coinages or nonce-uses like crabwise and our example actor-wise. In the speech of some Americans, {-wise} is a very active «live» suffix, which can be at tached to many nouns to create adverbs like personnel-wise. The ephemeral nature of such forms is recognized in writing by the use of the hyphen. Whether the popularity of these forms will add a new large class of adverbs to the language or whether it is only a passing linguistic fad, only time can tell. Careful speakers are inclined to view

the proliferation of noun + {-wise} adverbs as linguistically disrepu table. From our descriptive point of view we need only note that this is the principal way in which adverbs are made directly from nouns without an intervening adjective form. It might further be conjec tured that the present popularity of this derivational paradigm is re lated to the popularity of the noun-adjunct, or noun used as nounmodifier.

5. A smaller group of adverbs is formed by the addition of the derivational suffix {-ward(s)} to a limited group of nouns: backward(s), forward(s), homeward(s). Most adverbs of this group have two forms, one with final {-s} (phonemically [-z]) and one without, variously distributed. The forms without final {-s} are ambiguous, since they

may be either adjectives or adverbs. Usually position prevents ambiguity; thus, in the «backward child» backward is clearly an adjective, since it occupies an adjective position, while in «he walked backward» it is equally clear an adverb. When one of these is found in a position that can be occupied by both adverb and adjective, structural ambiguity results, as in:

the child looks backward

This may mean «the child appears to be backward» (backward as adjective) or «the child gazes backward» (backward as adverb). The forms with final {-s}, however, are always adverbs; there is no ambiguity about «the child looks backwards».

7. Another relatively small group of adverbs includes those that are formally identical with certain function words of the class called prepositions. […] A large number of them have homophonous adverbs: in, on, out, up, down, over, under, inside, around, etc. As adverbs, they frequently appear, as we should expect, in the characteristic adverb position at the end of an utterance, with primary stress, as in he brought the cat in the drowning man went under I left my hat and coat inside

8. The last group of adverbs is the miscellaneous class of those that have no formal markers at all to distinguish them in isolation; we know them as adverbs because we find them in adverb positions in utterances in which the other parts of speech are clearly identifiable. Many in this group are exceedingly frequent in occurrence and are memorized by all speakers of the language, just as function words are; such are now, then, here, there, often, seldom, perhaps, still, even, always. Others in this group are words which may also appear as other parts of speech, such as yesterday, downstairs, home, later, little, fast, slow, early, far, near.

ADVERB INFLECTIONS. A few adverbs make comparative and superlative forms by means of the inflectional suffixes {-er} and {-est}, already discussed in connection with adjectives. Most of those that do so are the so-called «flat adverbs», that is, those that are morphemically identical with certain base adjectives like slow, quick, cheap, hard, fast. Some irregular and suppletive forms are well-known:

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Seminars on Theoretical English Grammar

ADVERB QUALIFIERS. Like adjectives, most adverbs may appear with function words of the kind we have called qualifiers. The complete rules governing the distribution of the various qualifiers with various types of adverbs are matter for a full grammar, not for a sketch such as this, but we may note a few of the more important ones here.

(a)All adverbs in -ly and a few others, such as often and alive may appear with any of the list of qualifiers given above, as in very easily, more slowly, rather often, alive enough.

(b)Many adverbs in group 7 (the «preposition-type» adverbs) and some in group 3 (formed with {a-}) use/ar or much as a qualifier: far ahead, far down, much alive.

(c)Adverbs in the comparative degree, whether formed with the inflectional suffix {-er} or with the qualifier «more», may use the same set of qualifiers that comparative adjectives use, as in lots oftener, still more easily, a little slower.

(d)Some of the adverbs of group 7 and 8 use right as a qualifier, as in come right in, he drove right past, I want my dinner right now.

(e)Older English used well and full as qualifiers. The latter sur vives in the phrase know full well.

ADVERB-SUBSTITUTES. Four adverbs, then, there, thus, and so and the adverb-phrases this way and that way frequently act as adverb-substitutes. That is, they appear in place of an adverb already expressed in the immediate linguistic context. In this respect they operate just as do the noun-substitutes he, she, it, and they, and the verb substitute do. Thus, in each of the following examples, the second underlined adverb is the structural and lexical equivalent of the first, and could be replaced by it:

I didn ‘t see him yesterday because I wasn ‘t here then.

lam looking forward to going abroad, since I have never been there. He writes very gracefully: I wish I could write so (or thus, that way).

: PRESSI ( HERSON )

SUBSTITUTE-GROUPS. Just as nouns can be grouped according to the substitutes which may replace them, so may adverbs. Specifically we may recognize three groups: a then-group, a theregroup, and a thus/so-group. A few examples from each will show that, like the substitute-groups of nouns, these groups of adverbs are based on meaning rather than on form.

These classes are rather flexible and subject to change, and some adverbs like instead, perhaps, again, do not fit readily into any of them. But this classification is important because it governs the order in which adverbs appear in certain complex structures of modification.

(pp. 268-288)

Questions:

1.What criteria does W.N. Francis apply to the identification of the adjec tive and the adverb?

2.What classes of adjectives does he recognize? On what principles are they singled out?

3.How does W.N. Francis treat the a-adjectives?

4.What classes of adverbs does he single out? What principle underlies this classification? What does the classification of adverbs by substitute groups reveal?

References

Blokh M. Y. A Course in Theoretical English Grammar. — M., 2000. — P. 197222.

., ,, . —

. — ., 1981. — . 34-39, 87-89.

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