Descriptive and classifier adjectives

jimsug

Aug 3, 2015 01:11

> an old political idea
a political old idea

political old idea seems at least weird.

Anonymous

Yeah.

Anonymous

Over on ELU, this is popular: english.stackexchange.com/a/56874/28567

jimsug

> "Descriptive" vs "classifier" sounds like something made up to make learning easier.

Yeah, all grammar is made up to make learning easier :P

Or harder, one might argue.

Anonymous

I was tempted to respond to that answer because of that line, but I didn't

Anonymous

I leave too many comments lying around as it is ;-)

Damkerng T.

Aug 3, 2015 01:13

@jimsug it would be better if they included PEU entry in the question.

jimsug

@DamkerngT. It's not as though I didn't immediately recognise it as a variation on the epithet/classifier distinction found in SFL.

Anonymous

A lot of people reject distinctions they aren't familiar with and decide they can't possibly be useful simply because they haven't heard of them

Anonymous

It's a pretty common theme on ELU and ELL.

Damkerng T.

Oh, PEU doesn't really use the words descriptive adjectives and classifier adjectives.

jimsug

Well, I tried to provide examples. It's a very real distinction, even if the tests aren't all watertight.

Damkerng T.

Aug 3, 2015 01:18

Swan simply says "description before classification".

And continues: "words which describe come before words which classify"

Very smooth!

Anonymous

Swan's writing a pedagogical grammar, and he has lots of technical references, but his goal is to keep things simple

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

Argh . . .

Anonymous

Some people should probably not be allowed to comment

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Agreed.

The "alongside" question is going to continue to be ambiguous until the OP says more about the context, I think.

It's a curious use of "alongside", imho. I mean, semantically.

I'm not sure whether the Queen was there with the speaker or not.

> When stative verbs are cast in the progressive it usually signals one of two things: either the "state" is regarded as temporary and likely to end soon, or the verb has been recategorized semantically: it has a different sense in the progressive.

> ell.stackexchange.com/a/63339/3281

^Worth noting.

> (1) I am completely honest with you right now.
(2) I am being completely honest with you right now.

> (3) I am completely honest with you now.
(4) I am being completely honest with you now.

I think (3) is less jarring than (1), and (4) is about as okay as (2).

Oh, the ELU's HNQ is similar to my recent chblog!

5

Q: What's a word for the ability to discern another's mental state?

I want to avoid some common implications of empathy: that it's mostly involuntary, and that it involves some re-experiencing of the other's feelings. I'm looking for a more general word (or, less ideally, short phrase) that could easily apply both to someone empathetic and to Hannibal Lecter. On...

single-word-requests

Jul 18 at 1:13, by Damkerng T.

> Empathy and sympathy are often used interchangeably. Sympathy is a feeling, but the two terms have distinct origins and meanings.[2] Empathy refers to the understanding and sharing of a specific emotional state with another person.

> Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within the other person's frame of reference, ...

> Sympathy (from the Greek words syn "together" and pathos "feeling" which means "fellow-feeling") is the perception, understanding, and reaction to the distress or need of another human being.

So, one is ability (or capacity), the other is an act (or a feeling).

@jimsug No such thing ("political old idea") in the Ngram results.

books.google.com/ngrams/…

But I think a politically correct idea is correct.

(Hmm... because a "correct idea" is not a type of idea, probably.)

jimsug

Aug 3, 2015 01:53

[politically correct] idea

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

Aug 3, 2015 02:17

@DamkerngT. There are very few verbs in English that are always stative.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I wonder what they are!

Anonymous

But for a number of verbs, the dynamic uses are fairly limited. It depends on the particular verb how limited.

Damkerng T.

(I mean, even be can be used dynamically.)

Must be some verbs that I overlook.

Anonymous

Beware has no dynamic uses ;-) Although it's defective and not what you'd call a stative verb, so that's cheating.

Damkerng T.

Oh, yes!

Anonymous

Aug 3, 2015 02:20

Again, 'defective' means it's missing verb forms (no past participle, for example)

Anonymous

Any verb which is missing the -ing form can't be used in the progressive―for example, all modal auxiliaries are missing the -ing form

Anonymous

What the CGEL authors call the 'waxing/waning' use allows the progressive with almost any verb:

Anonymous

> He claims that fewer and fewer students are knowing how to write English when they come up to university.

Anonymous

(p.170)

Anonymous

They also list 'temporary state' and 'agentive activity' as two other ways dynamic meaning can be added:

Anonymous

Aug 3, 2015 02:25

> He is being tactful.

Anonymous

> She is cycling to work this week.

Anonymous

Note that neither of these work with know

Anonymous

The progressive is more restricted for some verbs than others

Anonymous

A verb like understand may not be entirely restricted from appearing in the progressive, but the vast majority of the time the progressive wouldn't work.

Damkerng T.

I can't think of a good example of be knowing as the main verb.

Anonymous

Aug 3, 2015 02:27

I quoted one above from CGEL

Damkerng T.

Oh, yes!

After thinking about being and cycling, I forgot knowing!

It was that soon!

(See, being and cycling are bold, so they both put knowing in the shade!)

Anonymous

Hah

jimsug

Aug 3, 2015 02:53

> The very latest, very educational reform; a reform which is later and more educational than another.

I would assert that your acceptance of very educational is an acceptance of the fact that the reform itself is educational rather than being a reform of education, which is obviously the intended meaning. Also, while you might be able to compile an exhaustive list of mutually exclusive adjectives describing age, remember that you can also intensify this, something that you cannot do to classifiers. Remember that these tests are not conclusive proof on their own, but rather are evidence when used in conjunction with others. — jimsug 57 secs ago

> I think, by and large, I disagree with this whole system of categorization. That said, let's try applying the rules he gives to distinguish them to these sentences.

I would also question the grammaticality of very leatheriest - what does that mean? You accept very latest and very old as epithets but then say they are classifiers. Even the internal logic of your post doesn't support your conclusion. I'm sorry, but this post is just... very confusing and suffers from fallacies in logic, as well as a very clear lack of understanding of the nuances in English language. — jimsug 7 secs ago

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