LINGUIST List 8.1132

Sun Aug 3 1997

Qs: Ask-A-Linguist Query, Adjectives

Editor for this issue: Martin Jacobsen <martylinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Theriault Alain, Qs: A question from ASK-A-LINGUIST
2. Charles J. Fillmore, terminology question: adjectives

Hi there!

 I am sure you all know about the marvelous service that
"ASK-A-LINGUIST" offers to the public. We received the following
request on July 14 and until last night,there was no answer to it:

From: Anja Platz-Schliebs,M.A. <aplatzuni-wuppertal.de>

I'm searching for the French translation of the linguistic term
'hedges' (in German 'Heckenausdruecke'). Thank you very much in
advance!

Though I have a good idea of what it is about, I have no idea what the
corresponding French expression would be. I would be very greatfull to
you all if you could answer to Anja Platz-Schliebs and to me. I will
post a summary of the answers I get.

Thanks to you all!

Alain Theriault |
Etudiant au doctorat | Vegetarians eat vegetables;
Departement de linguistique et traduction | Beware of humanitarians!
Universite de Montreal |
theriaalere.umontreal.ca |

Colleagues:

Do terms already exist for a distinction that I want to label 
"pertinative" vs. "predicative"? (Read on.)

The WordNet folks have invented the useful notion "pertainym" which
names the relationship an adjective can have with a specific noun for
which the adjective is defined as "of or pertaining to ...". Thus,
"mental" is a pertainym of "mind".

The terms I need will distinguish adjectives, or uses of adjectives,
that do or do not function as pertainyms, but the contrast I want is
between adjectives that can be used pertinatively as opposed to being
used predicatively/intersectively/attributively.

Lots of adjectives have only the predicative use. Maybe this is true
of most of the adjectives you'd think of if you just sat back to think
up a bunch of adjectives. old, young, green, red, big, little,
hungry, complex, etc.

Lots of adjectives seem to have only pertinative use. mental (mental
disease), intestinal (intestinal problems), etc.

Sometimes two different adjectives are derived from the same base, one
used pertinatively, one predicatively: economic (policy), economical
(head of household).

And very often the same adjective can be used in both functions. 
Compare educational experience with educational institution; muscular 
athlete with muscular aches and pains.

(Of course there are uses of adjectives that don't fit either of
these.)

At first it seemed to me that pertinative uses are limited to
pre-nominal function, but that's not quite true. "These problems are
economic in nature" & "the institutions we support are educational in
character" etc.

I worry about using "predicative" because in some traditions that's a
positional notion; but the adjectives I want to call pertinative can
occur "in predicative position". Etc.

Anyway, I want to write up some instructions on carrying out certain
kinds of lexicographic research, and I want these instructions to
differ according to whether we're looking at "pertinative" or
"predicative" adjectives. Maybe semanticists, grammarians, or
lexicographers already have a terminological tradition for just this.
If so, please let me know! One problem has to do with the word
"pertinative" itself; the other problem concerns the other member of
the contrast set.

Thanks,

Chuck Fillmore

(FrameNet: http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~framenet)


For certain lexicographic research purposes I want to define different
instructions for the treatment of pertinative and predicative (uses
of) adjectives, and before I write this up I've just been wondering if
there are some established terms, in grammar, semantics, or
lexicography, for labeling this distinction. Help!