A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

116 Chapter 6 Adjectives and adverbs

the sense "fairly, quite"; and too, in the sense "excessively". The adverb too can also
mean "as well", and in this sense it can modify verbs, so in the following examples
we add the subscript 'x' to make explicit that we are concerned with too in the
"excessively" sense:

[12] V

ii

iii ADJ

{ *1 very love her.

*1 love her very.

I'm very fo nd of her.

*He pretty regrets it.

*He regrets it pretty.

He 's pretty sad.

*She toox enjoyed it.

*She enjoyed it toox•

She was too" allpreciative.

Not all adjectives are semantically compatible with the degree modifiers very, too
and pretty. They have to denote a property that can hold to a greater or lesser
extent - what we will call a scalar property. For those adjectives that do denote
scalar properties, the degree modification seen in [12iii] provides a very clear indi­
cation of their status as adjectives as opposed to verbs.

(c) Function

A major difference between verbs and adjectives is that verbs function as predicator
(head of a VP) in clause structure whereas adjectives do not. In their predicative use,
adjectives occur not as predicator but as complement to a verb such as be, become,
seem, etc.:

[13] i V

ii ADJ

Th ey love you.

Th ey are fond of you.

We regret it. Yo u �it.

We became sad. Yo u seem appreciative.

The predicator in each case in [ii] is the double-underlined word, not the adjective.

Overlap between the categories

Again we need to bear in mind that there are some items that belong to both cate­
gories. Tame, for example, is a verb in We tame them but an adjective in They are
tame. In pairs like this, where the adjective is identical with the plain form and plain
present tense of the verb, it is very easy to distinguish between them in terms of the
above criteria.

. The verb has the preterite form tamed and the 3rd person singular present tense
tames. And it can't take very as modifier: We very tame them or We tame them
very.
" The adjective has the comparative form tamer and the superlative tamest. And it

can be modified by very: They are very tame.
When the verb-form involved is a gerund-participle or past participle form, things
are not so obvious, because these verb-forms can occur after be in the progressive
and passive constructions. That means there can be ambiguity between verb and
adjective interpretations, as in [14]:

[14] a. They are entertaining. b. The clock was broken.

For [a], the verbal interpretation is "They are currently receiving guests", while

the adjectival interpretation is "They are enjoyable". The former is excluded if