GRADABLE ADJECTIVES IN LANGUAGE AND SPEECH
Journal Title: Науковий вісник Дрогобицького державного педагогічного університету імені Івана Франка. Серія: Філологічні науки (мовознавство) - Year 2017, Vol 8, Issue 2
Abstract
The article shows correlation between different types of English gradable adjectives in language, pays special attention to the emotional aspect of adjectives in speech, examines the role of the context in amplifying the emotive component of gradable adjectives. We believe that some adjectives like beautiful, shocking may be treated as both scale and limit adjectives. They refer to the group of scale adjectives because they are used in comparative and superlative forms and are modified by adverbs which express a high degree (extremely beautiful/shocking, very beautiful/shocking), a medium degree (quite beautiful/shocking, rather beautiful/shocking) and a small degree (slightly shocking). Beautiful means “extremely nice”, shocking has a meaning of “very bad, very upsetting”, thus they can be modified by “highest degree” adverbs (absolutely beautiful, utterly beautiful, extremely beautiful/shocking) and by “closeness to the highest degree” adverbs (almost beautiful). This clearly demonstrates that these adjectives also refer to the group of limit adjectives. If we take pure limit adjectives, we can see that they are modified only by “highest degree” and “closeness to the highest degree” adverbs. While conducting our research, we found out some specific speech means of expressing the highest degree of adjectives whose meaning already contains the idea of an absolute degree in language. The adjective ridiculous belongs to the class of causative emotional adjectives, which describe psychological states caused, stimulated by something. Ridiculous means “extremely stupid” and is negative. The use of comparative worse than ridiculous makes the meaning even stronger. The context has the ability to highlight a particular meaning element of gradable extreme adjectives.
Authors and Affiliations
I. P. Polonska
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP439642
- DOI -
- Views 127
- Downloads 0
The Means of Expression of the Evaluation in English and German paroemias with the Nominal Components of Natural Elements
The article provides the analysis of the means to express the evaluative meaning in English and German proverbs and proverbial sayings. The relevance of the paper is determined by the lack of research in the sphere of ev...
Morphological categories of attributive participles in the modern Turkish language
The article deals with the morphological categories of attributive participles in the modern Turkish language. Particular attention is paid to the participles active voice and passive voice, as well interrelated grammati...
CONCEPT “EVIL” IN CHANNELING-DISCOURSE
The article continues the series of author’s scientific insights into the problem of conceptual reconstruction of the picture of the world presented in the channelings of different multidimensional entities. It analyzes...
Forms of weakened negation in Spanish
The article explores weakened forms of negation in Spanish speech; we motivate their widespread usage and emphasize their special functions in Spanish. The important role of weakened negative models in speech process was...
СТАН ДОСЛІДЖЕННЯ ПРОБЛЕМИ АВТОМАТИЗОВАНОГО БАГАТОМОВНОГО ПАРАЛЕЛЬНОГО ПЕРЕКЛАДУ ТА ВИЛУЧЕННЯ КОЛОКАЦІЙ У СПЕЦІАЛІЗОВАНИХ ДОКУМЕНТАХ НАТО, ООН ТА СОТ
У статті визначено стан дослідження автоматизованого паралельного перекладу та вилучення колокацій у спеціалізованих документах НАТО, СОТ та ООН. У контексті аналізу лінгвістичних праць сучасних українських та зарубіжних...