Functional and semantic peculiarities of the English adjectives | Статья в журнале «Молодой ученый»


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Рубрика: Филология, лингвистика

Опубликовано в Молодой учёный №13 (199) март 2018 г.

Дата публикации: 02.04.2018

Статья просмотрена: 57 раз

Библиографическое описание:

Шеримбетова М. А. Functional and semantic peculiarities of the English adjectives // Молодой ученый. — 2018. — №13. — С. 331-333. — URL (дата обращения: 15.11.2019).


In the modern English grammar theory, adjectives form part of a personal word. However, the analysis of critical names in English shows that it has functional and semantic characteristics, which are typical for other words, in particular verbs, etymology, nouns. This article discusses common attributes in English with adjectives and other parts of speech.

When speaking about the functional and semantic properties typical of theverbs and adjectives, it is important to remember the general meaning of the cognitive subject determinant: the verb and the adjective are also in the relation of the determinant of a particular person or object, i.e. the action carrier (for example: the sky was clear, the clear sky.

In addition, the lexical meaning of a large group of adjectives is the same as the non-predictive forms of verbs, for example: hesitant — hesitating; dependent — depending, and so on, and the adjective along with connecting verbs corresponds to the verbal forms of verbs depending on their lexical meaning, for example:

My interest in Hunferden was non-existent until one morning... (J.O'Hara) = did not exist...

Palmer had been helpful to Harry's last (L.Walter) = had helped Harry's son.

Could you be more specific, Doctor? (A.Hailey) = Could you specify it, Doctor?

An analysis of adjectives that denote the external feature of a person or thing, such as appearance, color, size, height, height, depth, weight, temperature, etc., indicates that they are incompatible with the Continuous verbs. Example: Mary is beautiful. The leaves are yellow. The boy is very tall. The wall is thick. The potatoes are hot.

The analysis of adjectives that depict the inner manifestation of phenomena (phenomena rarely) indicates that some of them are compatible with the verbs in Continuous, and that some of them are incompatible. Some adjectives as silly, honest, rash, childish, reasonable, nasty, cowardly, greedy, funny, harsh, absurd, sentimental, realistic, forceful, melodramatic, bossy, important, etc., representing the inner state of the person (phenomenon) are not used in the form of Continuous verbs. However, these adjective names may indicate that these signs are variable, that is, the person (phenomenon) can only be labeled or featured at the moment of speaking. In this case, it is required to use Continuous form of binding verb to avoid ambiguity. For example:You are being greedy (H. Robbins) — «Сен сарaңдық танытып тұрсың». Let’s compare: You are greedy — «Сен сараңсың (жалпы)».

I was only being funny (D. Fransis) — «Мен тек әзілдегім келіп еді». Let’s compare: He was funny — «Ол күлкілі еді».

The adjective as happy, unhappy, glad, delighted, upset, sad, angry, furious, cross, tired, thirsty, and others indicate are temporary features and are not used in the Continuous verbs. For example: Iam glad to see you. We were delighted at the news. The child was sleepy.

Thus, the analysis shows that a large group of English adjectives can combine with the verbs of Continuous. These adjectives can also indicate the stability and change in the signs.

There is one more specific feature in English that is closely related to verbs. The ability of the predecessor to establish contact between substances [1,42] is typical of verbs, especially transitional verbs. However, some researchers, including M. Halliley's works [2, 11–13, 18], note that these qualities of verbs are also observed in adjectives. For example: Iwas scornful of people whom I considered to be shallow. (G. Durrel) (= Iscorned people...)

One of the common functional features of the English adjectives with verbs is their compatibility with their editions, adjective phrases, and infinitives. For example: He left to speak to the three in the sedan and obviously he was not immediately convinced, but they came in with him (J. O'Hara). She went thoughtful again (L.Waller). The little boy was suddenly restless.

Summing up the common functional and semantic peculiarities of verbal names in English, J.Layonz says, "... there is a great deal of common denominator and verbs, and in many languages ​​they should be classified into one of the deeper categories» [3, 345].

However, English adjectives also have common features with adverbs. It is important to note that the functional and semantic relationships that are supplemented by the verbs and the adjectives are characteristic of identical common functional and semantic peculiarities for verbs and adjectives: Astudent is smart, a smart student; moves slowly move, slow move [4, 166]

As in the above, the adjectives in English do not change according to gender, form (singular and plural) and case. There are also pluses and adjectives adverbs have their degrees of comparison.

Among the ways of the word formation, it is possible to find the forms that are common to the adjectives and adverbs: the suffix-ly with which many adverbs as well as some adjectives are formed (e.g., friendly, deadly, cowardly, poorly, sickly, and so on).

Describing the common functional and semantic qualities typical of adjectives, it should be noted that in English, many words are objective and sometimes acted as adverbial (in which case they refer to adjectives). These words include, for example, fast, sharp, much, well, hard, late, early, high, low, straight, daily, weekly, monthly, enough, ahead, and more.

The functional-semantic properties of the English adjective are common not only in verbs and adverbs, but also adjectives have some common functional and semantic features with nouns. This common denominator is due to the fact that in English there is a large group of substantivized adjectives that are closely related to their functional semantic properties in English (for example: the young, the blind, the dead, the deaf, the homeless, the wealthy, the unexpected, the new, the unknown, and so on)

In addition, due to the widespread use of English-language words such as conversion, any noun that does not have the exact same-stringed name creates an attribute expressions similar to adjective (for example, a world class, a city council, a district court, party politics, state importance, a radio engineer, a house dress, etc.).

Thus, in this article, we talked about the functional-semantic properties of the adjectives in English with other parts of speech: verbs, adverbs and nouns. The objective of this article is not to find the reason for the diversity of the functional-semantic qualities of English adjectives, but to show some directions to do research in this area.


  1. Моskalskaya О. I. The problem of systemic characterization is syntax. Moscow. 1974
  2. Halliley M. A. Grammar, Society and the Noun. London. 1966
  3. Layonz J. Introduction to the theoretical linguistics. Moscow. 1978
  4. Barkhudarov L. S.language and translation. Moscow. 1975

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