Languages & Linguistics
Proper Adjectives
Proper adjectives are adjectives that are derived from proper nouns, such as names of people, places, or organizations. They are always capitalized and are used to describe specific things or people. Proper adjectives are often used to distinguish between similar things or people.
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eBook - ePubProper Names versus Common Nouns
Morphosyntactic Contrasts in the Languages of the World
- Javier Caro Reina, Johannes Helmbrecht, Javier Caro Reina, Johannes Helmbrecht(Authors)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
This paper aims at investigating proper names – mostly in the form of personal names, as will be discussed in the next section – in their own right, and not as defective as compared to common nouns. Since a full-scale study of the morphological and syntactic properties of names in the languages of the world is still a desideratum, this paper is limited to discussing illustrative examples without making any claims on how common or rare certain structures are in crosslinguistic comparison. The data presented are not meant to give a full typological overview. It rather focusses on presenting languages that have interesting and morphosyntactically rich marking for proper names. Examples are drawn from my ongoing research on the morphosyntax of personal names, for which I have checked the descriptions of about 250 languages so far (not all of which include information on names at all).The structure of this paper is the following: In Section 2 , a brief overview on previous work on linguistic differences between proper names and common nouns, as well as differences between different name classes, is given. Afterwards, such differences are illustrated aiming at including a set of languages as diverse as possible (both, genetically and areally). Section 3 focuses on the encoding of morphological categories such as gender, number, or case. Syntactical properties, mainly the combination with modifiers and appositional structures, are then tackled in Section 4 . Finally, the findings are summarized and implications for further research are discussed in Section 5 .2 Not all names have been created equal
So far, either the everyday-term name has been used to refer to the central object of study of this paper or the more scientific one proper name. In this section, the terminology of the linguistic domain of names and nouns will be discussed ( 2.1). Afterwards, different types of names and possible grammatical differences between these are briefly presented ( 2.2).2.1 Terminology
The primary distinction within the wordclass of nouns is often made between common nouns and proper nouns.3 In the literature on names, the term proper name is used rather than proper noun
eBook - PDFThinking and the Structure of the World / Das Denken und die Struktur der Welt
Hector-Neri Castañeda's epistemic Ontology presented and criticized / Hector-Neri Castañeda's epistemische Ontologie in Darstellung und Kritik
- Klaus Jacobi, Helmut Pape, Klaus Jacobi, Helmut Pape(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter(Publisher)
Proper Name 47 The idiolects of a language and their exercise in speech acts play the central part in linguistic activity. A language exists only through its idiolects. This elementary truth has slowly and only until recently been entering the stage of the discussion on proper names. On a long diachronic view of the debates about proper names, this is the truth from which each round of debate has removed a veil. Frege and Russell were quite sure that no ordinary proper name is systematically connected with one description or a set of descriptions, that not even one and the same person would relate his uses of a proper name Ν to exactly the same set of descriptions. This evinces an awareness, albeit a very inarticulated one, of the location of singular reference by proper names at the level of speech acts, i. e., at the level of the exercise of an idiolect. Yet the problem was assumed to belong to the language system. The motivation is that proper names lie in some sense in the common language with which we communicate. This suggests that we need an account that places proper names in the language system. Since they are already there in the syntax, what remains is to locate their semantic nature. Given that proper names are essentially involved in singular reference, it is hard to resist the temptation to engage in a program of developing a theory that assigns the singular reference of proper names to the language system. The natural way is to connect proper names with definite descrip-tions. The strongest semantic connection is synonymy. Thus, very natu-rally, the problem becomes that of finding the right descriptions for synonymy with given proper names. Strawson and Searle saw very clearly that there was no easy synonymous connection between a proper name and a set of descriptions. But they still wanted a connection with the community of speakers who use the name.
eBook - PDF- Martin J. Endley(Author)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- Information Age Publishing(Publisher)
Thus, after one particular class, one of my colleagues might say the follow- ing to me: Adjectives and Adverbs in Linguistic Perspective 93 (29) The students were being very Korean today. In one sense, this is an odd thing to say. We do not normally think of “Korean” as a property that is subject to change. Surely one either is Korean or one is not. When used in this way, however, the adjective is being treated as if it were a dynamic property, something that is changeable. Given an appropriate context, it would not be difficult to make sense of an utterance like (29). If I heard someone say this, I would understand it to mean that the students had been displaying many of the characteristics we often as- sociate with Korean students, but to a greater degree than normal. (I will leave you to decide what those characteristics are!) Adjectives as Attributive and Restrictive One basic function that adjectives perform is to attribute some property to an entity identified by a noun. Consider a noun phrase such as the students. Of course, it is certainly possible to use this without an adjective. However, speakers will very often want to add something more. For example: (30) a. The happy students. b. The thoughtful, witty students. c. The intelligent, diligent, attentive students. The adjectives happy, thoughtful, diligent, and so on provide additional information about the students. One effect of this is to restrict the range of possible items to which the entire NP (including the adjective) can apply. To give another example, the expression All the students in the class includes everyone in the room; however, All the smiling students in the class restricts the reference to only some students (those who happen to be smiling). Adding further adjectives restricts the reference still further: All the smiling, attentive students. You get the idea. By attributing some property to the noun, adjectives help to establish the reference of the noun more precisely.
eBook - PDF- Kamil Zvelebil(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
In spite of the attempts of some transformationalists to derive adjectives from underlying verbal or nominal forms, we agree with Jakobson that ad-jectives are linguistic primes the fundamental function of which is 'to qualify', 'to attri-bute' (Jakobson's lecture on children's language [Ann Arbor, April 11,1969]). For a pure-ly synchronic picture of the system of a Dr. language, cf. e.g. W. Bright's/ln Outline of Colloquial Kannada (1958), where the author gives the following classes: (1) Adjectives, such as T 'this',>>/W/5 'all'. (2) Nouns, such as antfa 'elder brother', cak/u 'knife'. (3) ad-verbs, such as bega quickly', punha 'again'. (4) Verbs, such as mad/u 'do', kudi 'drink' (5) Interjections, such as hu ' y e s a y y o 'alas' (p. 19). 4 Whereas Andronov would have us believe that it is verce versa, that adjectives were deri-ved from nouns, cf. p. 56 of DJ. He would derive ce-n-in centamil from cemmai and nan-in nannul from nanmai (DJ 56). Even the morphophonemic rules (sandhi) show that this is exactly the reverse of the actual process (nal+mai>nanmai, nal+nul> nannul, and not vice versa). 5 A. Master, JRAS (1949), 106-107. 6 T. Burrow, BSO [A ] S, XII: 1 (1947), 253-55. 7 Cf. IHGTL 15. As already pointed out, nouns, adjectives and verbs form one larger set - a NAV class based on similarities in syntactic patterns. According to Glazov in IHGTL 113-14, although he classifies adjectives as a separate part of speech, he derives them gene-tically from verbal/nominal roots. I find it difficult to agree with this conclusion, at least as far as a limited number of PDr adjective stems goes, and I find it quite impossible to agree with Andronov in his derivation of adjectives from abstract nouns. 8 Including Kurukh because the independent existence of primary adjectives, and even derived adjectives, has been strongly denied as far as Kurukh is concerned (cf. Andronov, DJ , 66). 9 A.C. Sekhar, Evolution of Malayalam, 93. 10 All instances from G.S.
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