Delahunty and Garvey
but treat the forms elsewhere. Descriptive adjectives are those adjectives that
satisfy Analytic Tests 7, 8, and 9. Like nouns, this group is sometimes subdi-
vided into common (e.g., honest, alive) and proper (e.g., Atlantic, Indian).
Proper descriptive adjectives are typically derived from proper nouns and
many do not allow comparison, though they regularly end in derivational
suffixes typical of adjectives.
Aside from descriptive adjectives, traditional grammars recognize as
adjectives other forms which are not formally adjectives but may modify
nouns. Throughout this section, we have tried to justify their exclusion from
the adjective category. Table 7 identifies some of these subclasses, each of
which confuses a word’s part of speech with its function.
Noun as Adjective Easter bonnet
Pronoun as Adjective This situation
Adverb as Adjective Far South
Possessive Adjective Someone’s lunchbox
Demonstrative Adjective Such effrontery
Interrogative Adjective Whose signature is this?
Relative Adjective The person whom I will help
Numeral Adjectives Five guesses
Article as Adjective The truth
Phrase as Adjective Members in good standing
Clause as Adjective Anyone who desires an education
table 7: traditional subclasses of adjectives
The attempt to classify such a disparate group of structures as adjectives
destroys the possibility of any consistent system of parts of speech. In our
approach, none of the above categories exist. Instead, we would call the
members of Table 7 “noun as modifier,” “pronoun as modifier,” “article as
modifier,” “phrase as modifier,” etc.
Adverbs
The traditional definition of adverb is “a word used to modify a verb, an ad-
jective, or another adverb.” This definition is clearly functional and actually
represents the typical functions of adverbs (or at least, adverb phrases) fairly
well, e.g., Run quickly, extremely adroit, remarkably cleverly.