A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

118 Chapter 6 Adjectives and adverbs

1.5 Gradable and non-gradable adjectives

We have said that prototypical adjectives have comparative and superla­
tive forms and take degree modifiers such as very, too ("excessively") and pretty.
Adjectives of this kind are said to be gradable. They denote scalar properties that
can apply in varying degrees. Good, old, big and so on denote properties of this
kind - and one can ask about the degree to which the property applies with how:
How big is it ?, etc.
Not all adjectives are of this kind. There are also non-gradable adjectives, as in
an alphabetical list. It makes no sense to ask how alphabetical a list is, or to say that
one list is more alphabetical than another. Alphabetical thus denotes a non-scalar
property. Other examples of non-gradable adjectives are seen in [17]:
[1 7 ] the chief diffi culty fe deral taxes glandular fe ver my !&.f1 arm
a medical problem phonetic symbols pubic hair their tenth attempt

Some adjectives can be used in either way: like the distinction between count and

non-count in nouns, the gradable vs non-gradable distinction applies to uses rather

than lexemes as such. Compare:

[ 1 8] NON-GRADABLE USE

a. in the public interest

11 a. the British government

GRADABLE USE

b. a very public quarrel

b. a very British response

1Il a. The motorway is now open. b. He was more open with us than the boss.

Typically, as in these examples, the non-gradable sense is the basic one, with the

gradable sense representing an extended use.

1.6 The structure of adjective phrases

An AdjP consists of an adjective as head, alone or accompanied by one

or more dependents. The dependents may be complements, licensed by the head,

or modifiers, less restricted in their occurrence.

(a) Complements

The complements are almost always PPs, as in [19], or subordinate clauses, as

in [20]:

[ 1 9]

[20]

afra id of the dark

kind to children

glad it was over

busy making lunch

bent on revenge

remote fro m reality

uncertain what to do

diffi cult fo r us to see

conversant with it

unaltered bv heat

good at chess

unfit fo r use

eager to win hard to grasp

thankful that no one had been hurt

The choice of preposition in [19] depends on the head adjective: we couldn't

have, for example, *afraid on the dark or *bent of revenge. With certain adjec­

tives (in particular senses) the PP is obligatory: the sense of bent shown here, for