An Analysis on the Differences Between Adjectives and Determiners

LIU Jing

【Abstract】An adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun. A determiner is a noun modifier that expresses the reference of a noun phrase in the context. Thus， this research mainly analyzes the differences between adjectives and determiners from three aspects which are morphology， syntax and noun selection. It attempts to illustrate that the main differences based on determiners can not be subsumed within adjectives.

【Key words】adjectives； determiners； differences

1. Introduction

In grammar， an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun， giving more information about the noun or pronouns referent. Adjectives belong to lexical categories because the words belonging to these categories have descriptive content （Radford， 1997）. In English， adjectives are a set of open-class items. The number of this category is infinite and new adjectives can be created continually. A determiner is a noun modifier that expresses the reference of a noun phrase in the context， including quantity， rather than attributes expressed by adjectives. Determiners belong to functional categories. Function words serve primarily to carry information about the grammatical properties of expressions within the sentence. Most of the determiners belong to the closed-class. The number is limited and the members exclude each other.

Determiners are positioned in front of nouns and adjectives can similarly be positioned prenominally. But we can not subsume determiners within the category of adjectives since there are many differences between determiners and adjectives. Determiners do not have the properties adjectives should have. This paper is going to illustrate how determiners are different from adjectives and thus why determiners can not be subsumed within the category of adjectives. Their differences lie in morphology， syntax and their selection of the nouns or noun phrases they modify.

2. Morphological Differences

Adjectives and determiners have distinct morphological properties. Adjectives have comparative and superlative forms while determiners do not have these two forms except many， much， little and few. For example， adjectives generally have a comparative form in –er （if they are not more than two syllables in length）， whereas determiners do not. Adjectives as quicker， nicer and happier are well-formed and they form new members in the adjective class. However， determiners with suffixes –er， such as thiser， everier do not exist.

Moreover， adjectives generally have adverbial counterparts ending in –ly， such as quickly， nicely， happily. The negative prefixes un+ and in+ can be attached to adjectives to form a corresponding negative adjective （such as happy/unhappy） whereas determiners do not have these properties.

3. Syntactic Differences

The morphological distinctions are not the only differences between determiners and adjectives. These differences are not sufficient to categorize determiners out of adjectives. Syntactically， Determiners and adjectives are distinct in a variety of ways.

Firstly， adjectives and other modifiers of noun phrases can be omitted without destroying the structural integrity but determiners can not be omitted freely. This is because determiners have essential relation， i.e. structural relation with the noun phrases they modify and are the necessary modifiers of the noun phrases. Other modifiers， including adjectives， only have lexical meaning connections with nouns they modify. Descriptions on lexical meaning do not influence the basic structure of the sentence. Descriptions of things types， properties or states are optional and dispensable. Determiners are necessary in order to give grammatical meaning to a singular noun but separate adjectives can not. For in stance， a/the/another chair are grammatical but comfortable chair can not stand on its own as a complete noun expression.

The second syntactic distinction between determiners and adjectives lies in their distribution. One example is that， adjectives can be recursively stacked in front of the noun they modify， so we can go on putting more and more adjectives in front of a given noun， such as tall dark handsome men； whereas determiners can not be stacked in this way. Generally， there is only determiners of a given type premodifying a noun so the car is grammatical but a that car is ungrammatical.

Whats more， determiners can be coordinated （i.e. joined together by and） with other determiners of the same type. Likewise， adjectives can be coordinated with other adjectives. However， determiners can not be coordinated with adjectives. For example， each and every member of the class （determiner + determiner） and a thoughtful and considerate person （adjective + adjective） are grammatical expressions. Expressions like silly and these ideas are not grammatical （Radford， 1997）.

Moreover， when determiners and adjectives are used together to modify a noun， any determiner modifying the noun has to precede any adjective（s） modifying the noun. For example， his good old days， but not good his old days or good old his days.

4. Differences in Noun Selection

A more general property which differentiates determiners from adjectives is that their selections of nouns to modify are not the same. Determiners tend to be restricted to modifying nouns which have specific number or countability properties. For example， the determiner a modifies a singular count noun， much modifies a （singular） mass noun， several modifies a plural count noun， more modifies either a plural count noun or a （singular） mass noun. By contrast， typical adjectives like nice， big， comfortable， modern， etc. can generally be used to modify all three types of nominal. For example，

（1） He needs a nice， big， comfortable， modern house.

（2） He needs some nice， big， comfortable， modern houses.

（3） He needs some nice， big， comfortable， modern furniture.

After all， there is an obvious sense that adjectives have descriptive content but determiners do not.

Another difference is that adjectives can generally only be used to modify a restricted class of nouns because of their semantic properties. For example， we can say a thoughtful person， but not a thoughtful fish/cat/problem. Restrictions such as those are known as Selection Restrictions， it means that an adjective like thoughtful can only “select” certain kinds of nouns to modify， e.g. a noun designating a rational entity， which seems to be unlinguistic in nature. By contrast， determiners seem to be semantically much more “neutral” or “transparent” in some sense as we see from [a/the/this] person/cat/fish/pan/problem.

It is a striking fact that many determiners can not only be used to modify a following noun expression， but can also be used on their own without any following noun. In this second type of use， they are traditionally categorized as pronouns， for example，

（4） All guests / All are welcome.

In structures such as we/you students， the pronoun we/you function as determiners which take the noun students as their complement. It therefore seems natural to suppose that simple pronouns like we/you could be analyzed as determiners used without any noun complement. It seems plausible to say that in both uses， the relevant items have the categorical status of determiners （or quantifiers）， and that they can be used either pronominally or pronominally （Radford， 2000）.

Although most determiners can be used both pronominally and pronominally， there are a few which can only be used pronominally： the， every. However， third person pronouns like he/she/it/they are typically used only pronominally—hence the ungrammaticality of expressions such as they boy in standard varieties of English.

5. Conclusion

Determiners are a set of closed-class items whereas adjectives have infinite members. Determiners and adjectives do not only have morphological and syntactic distinctions they also differ in the selections of nouns they modify. Adjectives have different morphological properties from determiners. In general adjectives have comparative and superlative forms of–er and–est while determiners do not have. Morphological properties can not exclude determiners out of adjectives. Syntactic differences are necessary in this way. Adjectives describing types， qualities or states of things are dispensable for sentence structure and can be omitted. In noun selection， determiners tend to modify nouns which have specific accountability properties whereas adjectives can generally be used to modify a restricted class of nouns because of the semantic properties.

From the above analyses， it can be seen that determiners are different from adjectives in variety of ways. It illustrates the main differences based on which determiners can not be subsumed within adjectives.

References：

[1]Radford，Andrew.（2000）.Syntax：A Minimalist Introduction[M].Beijing：Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

[2]Radford，Andrew.（2002）.Syntactic Theory and the Structure of English：A minimalist approach[M].Beijing：Peking University Press.

[3]宋洁（Song，Jie）.漫谈英语限定词[J].中国科教创新导刊，2008（13）：28.

作者简介：刘静（1985-），女，河南周口人，助教，硕士研究生，主要研究方向为认知语言学。