The syntactic functions of English adjectives

In a sentence English adjectives can perform attributive or predicative syntactic functions. Accordingly, they are divided into:

1) attributive only, e.g. the main reason, a total stranger, a runaway horse, a daily newspaper, a constant companion;

There is a variety of the attributive position – the postposition. The adjectives that can be used only in postposition (e.g. the bishop designate, the president elect) semantically are very much like predicative adjectives. Most of English attributive adjectives can be used both in pre- and postposition. Both perform a qualifying communicative function but in postposition the property denoted is temporally limited, e.g. the only river navigable – the only river that happens to be navigable at the moment (temporally limited characterization); the only navigable river – the only river that is navigable in those parts (temporally non-limited characterization);

2) predicative only, e.g. asleep, afraid, afloat, ablaze, etc.;

3) both attributive and predicative, e.g. an arguable point – this point is arguable; a responsible man – this man is responsible.

Fig. 6.1. Features of adjectives according to their syntactic function

6. THE CATEGORIAL STATUS OF A- ADJECTIVES

There is a distinct group of English adjectives which are characterized by the following features:

1) the lexical/grammatical meaning of state, namely, the psychological state of a person, e.g. afraid, aghast; the physical state of a person, e.g. asleep, awake; its location in space, e.g. afloat, asquint; the physical state of an object, e.g. afire, abalze, aglow;

2) the prefix a-;

3) no grammatical categories;

4) combinabilty with link verbs, e.g. to be afraid;

5) the syntactic function of a predicative complement.

In the 60-70-s of the XX^th century, certain scholars suggested that a- adjectives are to be considered as a separate part of speech. B.A.Ilyish suggested a name for the latter – the category of state words, B.S. Khaimovich and B.I.Rogovskaya called them adlinks (Cf. adverbs/ad-verbs are combined with (notional) verbs, adlinks/ad-links – with link verbs).

L.S.Barkhudarov puts forward the following arguments against this approach:

1) the state is a variety of the property of a substance;

2) as it were, a- adjectives are not totally excluded from the morphological category of degrees of comparison and the lexical/semantic category of intensity,
Cf. Of all of us, Jack was the one most aware of the situation in which we found ourselves; I saw that the adjusting lever stood far more askew that was allowed by the direction;

4)the number of a- adjectives in English is relatively small: a couple dozen of stable ones and perhaps twice as many of coinages.

Thus a- adjectives, though forming a unified set of words, do not constitute a separate part-of-speech class which exists in English on a par with nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. They should rather be treated as a subclass within the part-of-speech class of adjectives.