Again, students of linguistics should be familiar with most of
these terms. You should do an auto-quiz on what these terms mean before you
read the notes.
Your reading for adjectives and adverbs is chapter 5 of A
University Grammar of English. At a more elementary level, the chapters on Adjectives and Adverbs from Anthony Hughes' electronic book, An Online English Grammar, are also of interest (see its table of contents).
Adjectives as you know, qualify nouns. They can be easily located in
English when they precede nouns, such as, 'the red house', 'the wonderful
party'. These adjectives are described as attributive.
But adjectives can also function predicatively, in which case they can be
found elsewhere in the clause, such as following the verb 'to be':
'the house is red',
'the party is wonderful'.
In some instances, adjectives can follow the direct object, in which case
it is described as postposed,
such as
'he paints the house red',
'they made the party wonderful'.
Many adjectives can be modified by the intensifier 'very' and
other
intensifiers such as 'fairly' and 'quite', and many of
them have comparative and superlative forms, or, the appropriate comparative and superlative words can be added before them, that is to say
the suffix '-er' (or '-ier') or the premodifying word
'more' for comparatives, and
the suffix '-est' (or '-iest) or
the premodifying word 'most' for superlatives.*
For example, the adjective 'bright' has the comparative 'brighter' and
the superlative 'brightest', while the adjective 'intelligent' has the
comparative 'more intelligent' and the superlative 'most
intelligent'.
Adjectives which can have comparative and
superlative versions, or which can be modified by intensifying words
such as 'very', 'so', 'utterly', etc. are sometimes described as
gradable adjectives.
* It is important to note that the words 'more' and 'most' need not always
qualify adjectives, as they can also qualify nouns; eg.
'most people disagreed with the ruling', 'more students are
coming forward to voice their opinion'.
The use of adjectives for comparison is discussed by Hughes in his electronic book (see the section on Adjectives in its Table of Contents.
As regards the analysis of adjectives in stylistics, one of the first
questions one asks is
Whether there are many of them in a text, or whether
they are used sparingly. As you may know, one of the main functions adjectives
serve is to give more description to the entities found in a text; so, the
use of more adjectives will result in the descriptive richness of the text,
whereas a lack of them may result in descriptive sparseness or thinness. A
lot of adjectives may however make the style of the text ornate (or
flowery), and slows down the action in the text, as one feels that one
has to concentrate one's attention on the details of static entities or
phenomena.
Whether comparatives or superlatives are used.
The use of comparatives is self-explanatory, and shows the interest the
text has in relating the qualities of something to those of another thing, or
in relating them to an assumed yardstick (this of course gives rise to another
question: the basis for the assumed yardstick, which you may want to question
in your analysis). Superlatives may also serve the same purpose, but
they may reveal the interest the text has in viewing things in terms of
extremes (a few of these superlatives, especially when used
colloquially, may even be exaggerated, and this may be a point of interest in
your interpretation of the passage).
In analysing the adjectives, you may also want to try (if it is possible) to
put them in lexical sets, in the sense that:
You may want to place them
in terms of certain categories, such as adjectives describing colour, shape,
size, speed, etc.
You may also want to look at the lexical sets of the
nouns, and whether there is a variation in the use of the adjectives in
relation to them: eg. concrete or abstract nouns, animate / inanimate
entities, male / female etc.
In relation to the abstract / concrete division,
you may notice that this distinction may also apply in relation to some of the
adjectives themselves; for example, 'red' or 'squarish' is concrete,
but 'thoughtful' or 'regretful' is abstract, and you may want to analyse them accordingly.
However, you may have
noticed that there are quite a few adjectives which are problematic; many in fact appear to be concrete, but because they are used to describe
abstract nouns, become abstract in their significance.
Lexical Sets: Also For Other Grammatical Features or Categories
Lexical sets, of course, work not only in relation to adjectives, but in
relation to other grammatical features or categories as well. Lexical sets that
are assembled according to features of nouns –
for example, whether they are countable or
uncountable,
abstract or
concrete –
may have a bearing on stylistic analysis. The same can be said about the
features of verbs, which may also be assembled according to their lexical sets
for stylistic analysis,
such as whether they are transitive or
intransitive, whether their
tense is past
or present, or the significance of
auxiliary verbs, such as
aspect, or the features of likelihood, necessity or
obligation, amongst other features, connected to the
modal auxiliaries. In stylistic
analysis of course, what is important is not the mere assembling of such
features, but it must be connected to your interpretation of the text or
part of the text.
Constituents in a clause which serve an adverbial function may consist
of more than a single lexical item, such as in the following clauses:
'it jumps to and fro',
'he writes in a florid style'.
As such
constituents consist of more than one lexical item, they should be described
as adverbial phrases.*
* Adverbs are sometimes distinguished from adverbials, but as we
are not doing a course in syntax, we will not put too much of an emphasis on this,
except to note that
adverbs quite often refer to single words, whereas
adverbials may consist of more than one word.
An adverb or adverbial phrase can
also precede a clause (in which case it can sometimes be more appropriately
described as qualifying the whole clause rather than the main verb
which the clause contains).
An example is given below, which serves as a comment on the entire clause:
'Naturally, she thought highly of him.'
However, the placement of the adverb at the beginning may still be primarily
qualifying the verb:
'Slowly, he approached the door.'
the
clauses' connection to previous clauses (i.e. serving a conjunctive function;
'subsequently', 'hence', 'firstly').
Except for most adverbs or
adverbials serving a conjunctive function, which are usually fronted,
the other functions allow adverbs or adverbials to appear
elsewhere in the clause.
As you can see, adverbs or adverbials are more complex as a
lexical category than adjectives. However, although we are interested
in adverbs and adverbials in their various functions in our
lecture, our focus will mainly be on those which qualify verbs, and those
which qualify adjectives. Adverbials or adverbial phrases
serving the function of qualifying the clause are also important, and will
receive some mention in today's lecture, but they will be dealt with again in our
lectures on Hallidayan grammar later in the term (as circumstantial,
modal and conjunctive adjuncts).
Identifying adverbs which qualify verbs should not be too difficult.
They usually follow the verbs: eg., 'he walks clumsily', 'he speaks rapidly'.
Sometimes, it is possible for such adverbs to precede the rest of the
clause, such as 'clumsily, he walks', or 'rapidly, he speaks' (although such a
construction may indicate that it is more the whole clause that is qualified
rather than the verb). (You may be interested to know here that these
adverbs are also known as circumstantial adjuncts [in this
instance, they are the circumstantial adjuncts of manner]; these
adjuncts will be mentioned again in one of the lectures on Halliday's
grammar.)
However, when adverbs qualify adjectives, they precede rather
than follow the adjectives: eg. 'a clumsily rapid delivery', 'a
rapidly diminishing resource'. Unlike adverbs which qualify
verbs, it is not possible to front adverbs which qualify adjectives at
the beginning of the clause; if they are fronted, they cease to qualify the
adjectives.
Adverbs in Stylistic Analysis
From a stylistic perspective, adverbs or adverbials, like
adjectives, give more description to a passage. Unlike adjectives however,
they do not merely serve the function of qualifying only one type of lexical
category. Their stylistic significance may therefore vary according to the
function they serve in a clause, and the functions they serve are more diverse
than that of adjectives – for example.
Lexical sets of adverbs or adverbials may also be
useful for stylistic analysis. Adverbials can be further described in terms of
their modal, circumstantial or
conjunctive characteristics, and their lexical sets be collated accordingly.
We have so far dealt with individual lexical categories or parts of
speech. As you are undoubtedly aware, each lexical category does not
function by itself, but only in relation to others in a clause. In
English, it is possible to have a clause with only two lexical items,
such as
'he dances' or
'they laugh'.
Or even, for that matter (with specific
reference to imperatives) we can have a clause with only one lexical item, such as
'run!',
'march!' etc.[1]*
The subject and predicator can be regarded, at least
traditionally, as essential for a clause.[2]* If a so-called
clause does not have both these grammatical categories, or
constituents, then it may be the case that one of them has been deleted
(or ellipted), but assumed to be grammatically there. If this is not
the case, then we are not dealing with a clause, but with a
phrase.
However, other grammatical categories may be found in a clause, in
addition to the subject and the predicator. Notice that the
clauses given above have intransitive verbs as their
predicators. If the verb used is transitive, we need a direct
object
following it. The direct object falls under the category of
complement in Halliday's grammar.[3]* For transitive verbs such as 'to
kick' and 'to make' to function in a clause, a direct object
needs to immediately follow each of them: 'he kicks the ball', 'they make
cakes'.
An additional term which needs to be introduced
here is the adjunct, which is basically
Thus a clause may have the following
constituents:
Subject - Predicator - Complement - Adjunct
The above constituents may be in the given order if the clause is a canonical
declarativeclause with a transitive verb as its predicator): for example,
'he kicks the ball gracefully',
'they make cakes today',
as illustrated in the tables below
Table 3.1
he
kicks
the ball
gracefully
Subject
Predicator
Complement
Adjunct
Table 3.2
they
make
cakes
today
Subject
Predicator
Complement
Adjunct
An initial complicating factor here is the fact that in language, each of the
constituents above may have more than a single word or lexical item. We
have seen that in 'he kicks the ball', the (singular countable) noun 'ball'
needs a determiner, which is the definite article 'the' in the
above example. So word or lexical item should not be confused with clause constituents. It is possible to have more than just 'the ball' as the complement for the above clause: eg. 'the red ball', 'the
beautiful red ball', 'the remarkably beautiful red ball' etc, as illustrated in the table below:
Table 3.3
Subject
Predicator
Complement
Adjunct
he
kicks
the red ball
gracefully
he
kicks
the beautiful red ball
gracefully
he
kicks
the remarkably beautiful red ball
gracefully
The same can be
done for the other constituents: eg. 'the ladies in red aprons make
cakes', 'they were going to have finished making the cakes', 'they make cakes
in an extremely careful manner', as illustrated in the following table.
*(1) It can be argued however, that an imperative has a missing subject, and
thus, there are two constituents even here.
[Back to position in the text.] *(2) As we have seen above, this is arguable, but yet again, as we are not
doing a course in syntax, I won't bother you with this (eg., the analysis of
subjectless clauses in certain languages).
[Back to position in the text.] *(3) What Halliday calls the complement also includes what Quirk et al.
describes as the subject complement: for example, the word following
the verb in each of the following: 'they are teachers', and 'he seems
intelligent'.
[Back to position in the text.] *(4) Quirk et al.'s grammar, has a definition of complement which is
quite different from that of Halliday, and will not be used in our module in
order to avoid confusion.
[Back to position in the text.] *(5) I have added the 'finite' column here to indicate that it is, strictly speaking, separate from the predicator constituent in Halliday's grammar.
[Back to position in the text.]
A clause however, is a
grammatical entity, and as we have seen, is traditionally regarded as
needing at least two constituents: the subject and the
predicator.
There are other terms in traditional grammar which you may find useful to know in stylistic analysis:
If the sentence has only one clause (i.e.
only one subject - predicator set, or -- as subjects can be
missing -- one predicator) then it is regarded as a simple
sentence (note that all the examples given earlier are simple
sentences).
However, a sentence may have more than one
clause in it, in which case, in traditional grammar, the
sentence is regarded as either compound or complex.
A compound sentence is one in which the clauses have a coordinate relationship with each other.
A complex sentence
is one in which one or more clauses have a subordinate
relationship with the main clause.
Traditionally, a coordinate clause is regarded as having an 'equal' or grammatically 'independent' relationship with the other clause or
clauses in the sentence. One way to locate a coordinate
clause is to look at the coordinate conjunction which connects it
with an earlier clause. Some of the familiar coordinate conjunctions
are 'and', 'but' and 'or'.
To test whether a clause performs a
coordinate function with an earlier clause, one tries to front the
clause, together with the conjunction preceding it: if this does not succeed,
then the clause is more likely to be a coordinate clause.
For example,
in relation to
'he dances and they make cakes',
it is not possible to have
'and they make cakes, he dances'.
The clause beginning with 'and' is therefore
a coordinate clause.
However, it is grammatically possible to
move the clauses beginning with 'when' and 'to' in the following to the front:
'he dances, when they make cakes', and
'they bake cakes to make him dance'.
The clauses beginning with 'when' and 'to' are therefore regarded as
subordinate clauses. There are of course exceptions to this rule. As we
will see later in our module, exactly the opposite applies when one talks of
sentences involving projection.
Subordinate conjunctions are more varied than coordinate
conjunctions, and include 'when', 'where', 'because', 'although', 'since',
etc. Subordinate clauses can also be preceded by a non-finite verb,
such as the 'to infinitive' 'to make' above, or an '-ing infinitive', such as
'they bake cakes, making him dance' (although the fronting of the subordinate
clause does not seem to work that neatly for this example: the sentence
'making him dance, they bake cakes', although grammatical, does appear to lose
its causal sense: i.e. 'after/while making him dance . . .' instead of ' . . .
thus making him dance').
There are some further notes on some of the issues dealt with above, such as the subordinate and coordinate clauses and complex and compound sentences in the document on
clauses in the University of Victoria's Writer's Guide.
Before we go on to our analyses, we may briefly mention a further complication
(which will be dealt with again in a later lecture): some of the
clauses which appear superficially as subordinate clauses may
not function as such within a sentence, as they are, or are part of, the
constituents in a clause. In other words, these so-called 'clauses'
have been 'downranked'. For example, all the following italicisedclauses function as constituents within the clause, or as part
of them, rather than as subordinate clauses in their own right:
'they
made the cakes which my mother bought' (as part of the complement);
'they made what was wanted' (as the complement itself);
'whoever needs
cakes should make them themselves' (as the subject). We may note that
all the three examples here are actually simple sentences, as the
sentences do not actually have subordinate or coordinate
clauses in them.
Extract from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness
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