A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

§ 1.3 Adjectives vs verbs 115

Less obvious, however, is the construction in [iii] with its special interpretation.
In most cases, nevertheless, the form in the special construction can be clearly iden­
tified as an adjective.

.. This is shown first of all by the modifier test: the extremely rich provides evi­

dence that rich is an adjective because it is preceded by a modifying adverb (a

noun would be modified by an adjective).

• Notice also that in this special fused modifier-head use, the only determiner per­
  mitted is the -a person who is rich can't be referred to as a rich or some rich.
  And although the NP the rich is plural (hence the verb agreement in The rich are
  the beneficiaries), it doesn't have plural inflection on rich -two rich people can't
  be referred to as *two riches. Rich thus behaves very differently from a noun.

Overall, there is strong evidence that the rich in [9iii] contains an adjective but no
noun.

1.3 Adjectives vs verbs

The properties given in § 1.1 together with those presented in Ch. 3, § I
for the verb enable us to distinguish adjectives from verbs in a similar way. We'll
apply a selection of the most decisive properties to distinguish the adjectives fo nd,
sad, appreciative from the verbs love, regret, enjoy.

12 Grade and comparison

Verbs have a richer system of inflection than any of the other parts of speech. Most
distinctive are the preterite and 3rd person singular forms. As already mentioned,
comparative and superlative inflection is found with adjectives but not verbs. We
illustrate in [10] with preterite and comparative forms:

[10]

i a. V

ii a. ADJ

PRETERITE FORMS

loved regretted

*fonded * sadded

enjoyed

*appreciatived

COMPARATIVE FORMS

b. *lover

b. fo nder

*regretter *enjoyer

sadder [n/a]

The asterisks in rib] mark impossible comparative forms (lover is of course estab­
lished in a quite different sense as a noun, but the point here is that it's not the com­
parative of love). We wouldn't expect a comparative inflectional form for apprecia­
tive, because adjectives of this length don't take grade inflection, but even with
appreciative there is a comparative marked by more. And that suffices to distinguish
it from a verb, since when more combines with a verb it doesn't precede it:

[11] 1 V *1 more love you. 1 love you more.

ii ADJ I'm more a[!preciative than you. *I'm a[!preciative than you more.

(b) Modifiers

Unlike nouns, verbs take largely the same modifiers as adjectives: compare Kim
loved Pa t immensely and Kim was immensely fo nd of Pat. Nevertheless there are
some adverbs that can modify adjectives but not verbs. They include very; pretty, in