Job Discussion Forums

[Lobster]

Yes, many of us drink so much that we can't remember yesterday at all.


From OWL at Purdue:

[Mister Al]

My answer is two as well....hot and cold (descriptive) but the TV also gave two as a 3rd adjective without any further explanation. Can't agree with that myself as I see this as a determiner.

Thanks for the interesting comments anyway

[11:59]

I think I can understand why someone might say that 'two' was an 'adjective' here, at least if they mean used as an adjective. Adjectives are not always easy to define, indeed, they are one of those things that many would prefer to simply not exist. They are certainly not easy to analyse. Lobster has hinted at some of the complexities associated with adjectives, but many may not fully comprehend just how complex they are.

There are many different classes of adjectives (I teach my students at least four). First we have those which can be used both in an attributive and a predicative position (that is, the adjective can precede the noun it modifies or may follow it). Adjectives such as 'good' are good (!) examples of this class:

The good boy
The boy is good

'Tall' and 'brave' are other examples:

The tall man
The man is tall

The brave soldier
The soldier is brave

A second class of adjectives consists of those that can only stand in an attributive position (before the noun). 'Eventual' is a good example of this class:

The eventual result
* The result is/was/will be eventual

A third class of adjectives can only be used in a predicative position (after the noun). 'Glad', 'awake' and 'asleep' are examples of this type of adjective:

* The glad woman
The woman is glad

* The awake boy
The boy is awake

*The asleep boy
The boy is asleep

This group of adjectives is quite controversial. Many different speakers have different intuitions regarding these examples. Some native speakers of English for example accept 'ill' in both attributive and predicative positions, but in my dialect (or is it my idiolect?) I find 'ill' in a attributive position a bit odd (I am not going to say ungrammatical, just a bit odd):

The boy is ill
? The ill boy

However, even though I do not seem able to say 'the ill boy' I can say:

The seriously/chronically ill boy

So we have another class or adjectives, those that can be used in an attributive fashion iff they are further pre-modified! Things have already got more interesting, but this is only scratching the surface.

There is another class of adjectives which can be used both attributively and predicatively, but with a radically different meaning. The adjectives 'heavy' and 'concerned' are good examples of this class of adjective:

The heavy smoker
The smoker is heavy

The concerned people
The people concerned

'Smoker' and 'people' do not seem to influence whether or not the adjectives 'heavy' and 'concerned' can take different positions (with a resulting change in meaning). But there is further class of adjectives (the fifth) in which it seems as if the very noun modified by the adjective does play a role in determining whether or not that adjective can stand in an attributive or predicative position. This sounds a bit complex, but I think it is easy to illustrate with some examples:

The top pupil
The pupil was top

Here the semantics of 'pupil' allow for this complex of semantics to be modified by 'top' in both through attributive positions and predicative positions. But other adjectives (examples of the fifth class) disallow one or the other positions of the adjectives. 'Shelf' is a good example:

The top shelf
* The shelf was top

I normally halt proceedings with my students at that point. I figure that five classes of adjectives is enough, even for undergraduate linguistics students. But we can go much deeper, at least if we concentrate on semantics, especially aspects of formal semantics such as logicosemantic relations (contradiction, implication, synonymy and the like). This is where things get really interesting, at least for philosophy of language raincoats.

The 'simple' adjectives of 'blue', 'small', and 'toy' below for example all have the same surface form (adjective-noun combinations) but they all have very different implicational relations:

'This is a blue gun' implies 'This is blue' and 'This is a gun'

'This is a small moon' implies 'This is a moon' but not 'This is small'

'This is a toy gun' implies 'This is a toy' and 'This is not a gun'

Some might object that ''toy' is not an adjective, that it is a noun' but this seems to state/assume that 'words' have some form of exclusive, pre-destined, Platonic Essence part of speech membership (that exists prior to and independently of humans). In his 'Philosophical Investigations' Wittgenstein stated that if you wanted to find the meaning of a word than you had to look at its use ('Don't think, look!'). I think the same can be said for function (and thus part of speech). Thus a 'toy gun' is treated as either an adjectival noun-noun pair or an adjective-noun pair in the same way as a 'kitchen door' would be, and I guess this is what they mean by 'two' being used as an adjective in that example you gave.

[Beyond1984]

"There are many different classes of adjectives (I teach my students at least four) .... another class or adjectives ... can be used in an attributive fashion iff they are further pre-modified!" -11:59

Your excitement about the varieties of adjectives is infectious, 11:59! Your examples are exemplary, and if you wrote them yourself you should consider writing a syntax text.

I have formed the impression that you teach in the SNET program, and am curious: do you include the exhaustive study of adjectives in your syllabus as a means to prepare students for an upcoming MOE exam?

In the US, the teaching of prescriptive grammar is usually abandoned by grade 9.

The delight of blossominig metalinguistic awareness is often squelched by pedants who overwhelm students with the naming of classes of words. For example, I gave up on learning prescriptive grammar when my middle-school teacher began droning away about the predicate noun. It sounded oxymoronic, like "military intelligence." When I had to teach this stuff it turned out that the phrase refers to a noun that follows a linking verb and re-names the subject:

He is a student.

I wager that fewer than 10% of adults who hold college degrees could give an example of a sentence that includes a predicate noun. Fewer, I predict, could provide examples of the five kinds of adjectives.

Is the nomenclature of prescriptive grammar a major component of the exams your students will be taking?

Or have your students been crafting otherwise workmanlike essays deplorably and grievously marred by their use of adjectives that have not been appropriately pre-modified in an attributive fashion?

-HDT

"How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it."
-Henry David Thoreau, "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience," 1849

[Nabby Adams]

I would just like to add my praise to 11.59. I don't know if it's the unbearable niceness of the cherry blossom in Japan today, but this thread has really sparked my interest in linguistics for the first time since....well, ever really.

[AussieGuyInChina]

Overall, a very good explanation of types and uses of adjectives except for the finale.

This is blue is not a good example of anything. It cannot function as a standalone statement; it can only be a demonstrative, accompanied by a physical action.

This is a small moon is also not a good example of anything. Saturn has small moons - small is clearly an adjective. As for the Earth's moon; The moon looks small tonight / The moon is small tonight.

If toy gun is not a compound noun but, in fact, toy is acting as an adjective, then it's time for me to give up teaching.

The biggest difference between my approach to teaching grammar and that of Chinese colleagues (those whom I have observed) is that I use practical examples to explain grammar points. Also, I require my students to practice lessons taught by using the grammar to write / talk about their own lives, experiences, hometown, country, etc.

I think that teaching grammar without using a context which the students can relate to is like teaching someone how to drive a car sans car.

[Lobster]

Because "toy gun" is not a fixed expression, I'd think that "toy' would be a noun modifier rather than a part of a compound noun. If it were a compound, we could refer back to it as "the gun". That doesn't sound correct, and it would indeed be less misleading to refer back to it as "the toy". However, if we consider the expression "toy poodle" we can see that this is in fact a compound, as we could refer back to it as "the poodle". The problem with "a small moon" is the factor of relativity. This/that is blue wouldn't necessarily require any gestures but only relate to proximity to the speaker.

RED

[AussieGuyInChina]

In what country where English is the native language is toy gun not a 'fixed' (common/ standard) expression?

Not that you should need to, but do a Google 'exact phrase' search.

Toy gun is a compound noun.

[Lobster]

I'm not being contentious for the sake of it, nor am I in the habit of making such definitive statements as would require the use of bold text or patronising comments. I don't consider toy gun as a compound noun, but rather as a noun modifier being used productively. A fixed expression is not the same as a standard expression. A fixed expression, like an idiom, can only be understood in context (R. Moon, Oxford) and is inalterable. Also, as opposed to the toy poodle example, it is not clear whether the object in question is to be considered a gun or a toy. Other examples of noun modifiers are cat food, car door or football player. Examples of compound nouns are swimming pool, air raid and baby-sitter. Now, exactly why these expressions fall into one category or the other seems extremely intricate, and a comparison of definitions and uses has not really offered me much further insight. I do note, however, that hyphenization, or the potential for it, seems to be possible for compound nouns but not for noun modifiers, Before you start assailing my knowledge of grammar, I suggest you do a bit more research on the topic. As for "this is blue", the context can be provided by prior reference and requires no physical gesture.

RED

[AussieGuyInChina]

Pure semantics! A toy gun is singularly a toy gun. It is a plaything for children in the form of a gun. It could never be considered a gun by any thinking person because it cannot fire bullets. A toy gun can, and probably has innumerable times in bank robberies, perceived as a gun by visualization but never by spoken reference.

[Lobster]

Yes, of course it's pure semantics. That's the whole idea, right? Now given that the toy gun is considered to be a toy, and not a gun, the reference would be considered to be 'toy'. That's why I maintain that this is not a compound noun in the sense of 'toy poodle' (which is admittedly ambiguous). This is what I infer from my grammar reference, but I'm not 100% on it for the reasons given in my previous post. The reference says it's a productive feature and not fixed. At any rate, grammatical terminology doesn't seem to be so concrete. Progressive or continuous? Article or determiner? Verbal or noun? In terms of teaching, unless you're 11:59 and teaching linguistics, it probably wouldn't matter in your everyday English class.

To look at a fixed expression, we can consider the following:

It's a toy gun. (it is a toy that is shaped like a gun)
The gun is a toy.
*The toy is a gun.

Here again we can get bogged down in ambiguity:

The gun is a toy for gangsters. (all guns)
Al Capone's toy was a gun. (He loved to play with them.)

It's a toy poodle. (it is a poodle in the toy (size) class)
*The poodle is a toy.
*The toy is a poodle.

Perhaps 'toy poodle' should be a proper noun? Isn't English wonderful?

Two guys are talking about buying a car. The seller tells the buyer that the car is green. Later, after the buyer inspects the car, he calls the seller back and says, "This is blue!". Even without a physical gesture, both understand that "this" refers to the car as it is the point of prior reference.

RED

[arioch36]

good argument (about the gun)

(the one about blue, I believe both are misperceiving the point made. There has to be some kind of additional, previous reference, input, whatever. it does not have to be an actual physical gesture. Shouldn't stick my nose into this one. this is trouble

[AussieGuyInChina]

If a person is obstinately trying to avoid admitting a mistake, the person could endeavour to create an illusion of ambiguity for almost every English word.

A toy gun - a single object in the shape of a gun intended as a play thing for children

The toy gun - a specific single object in the shape of a gun intended as a play thing for children

The toy is a gun - referring to a specific single play thing for children which is in the form of a gun. No implication whatsoever that any other toy is a gun nor that any gun is a toy.

The gun is a toy - referring to a specific single object that looks like a gun but is, in fact, a play thing for children. No implication whatsoever that guns are toys, no implication that all toys are guns, no implication that anyone other than children play with toys, no implication that gangsters play with toys, no implication that gangsters play with their (real) guns and no implication that any other object is either a toy or a gun.

A telephone call is made by a potential buyer of a car (John) to the seller of a car (Jim). Neither party is at the car. It has been said that both parties understand that the conversation is about the car as it is the point of prior reference.

ring, ring
Hello
Hello Jim. This is John. Your car's blue!.

ring, ring
Hello
Hello Jim. This is John. That car's blue!

ring, ring
Hello
Hello Jim. This is blue! - Not from a native speaker of English!

[Lobster]

Yes, there are toy poodles, standard poodles and giant poodles.

AGIC: I hope that you're not implying that I'm "obstinately trying to avoid admitting a mistake". Ambiguity is not an illusion, but a matter of perception. Here it's based on the lack of context for the phrase. Your interpretation removes the context I provided in the explanatory statements.

The toy is a gun, to me, suggests that it's a real gun.
The gun is a toy, to me, suggests that it's a toy in the shape of a gun.

You could easily imagine a slew of examples that would lead to the same conclusion.

"The child soldier lives in the harshest of conditions; his school is the battlefield, his toy is the gun."

As for "This is blue"; I provided an example of a situation where the potential buyer was looking at the car (therefore establishing proximity to the speaker) and made the call. Why would you change the context?

ring, ring
Hello?
Hi Jim, it's John, which car is it?
It's plate number ESL 666; it's light green.
OK, I think I see it. Hey! This isn't green. This is blue.
John, either you're colour blind or you're not a native English speaker.
Jim, you're lucky you can't see the gesture I'm making right now.
So, you don't want to buy the car?
No, I said I wanted green. This is blue!
Well, in Australia we'd say that's green.
I guess it's a cultural thing.
I must have made a blue! No need to rubbish me!



RED

[AussieGuyInChina]