The Classification of Words

(сани едут, часы стали, семья ждет, комитет заседает)
which is not the case in English (the cattle are, physics is,
the family is of are).

The number of Russian nouns having no case opposites
is small. They are comparatively recent borrowings like
пальто, депо, такси, кенгуру, etc. In English the majority
of nouns have no case opposites.

Below are some of the connections of English and Rus­
sian nouns compared.

Left-hand con­nections with	Russian nouns	English nouns
Prepositions	1) Not the nomina-	The common case
	tive case	with any prepo-
		sition
	2) Different cases
	with different
Adjectives Numerals	prepositions Grammatical com­binability	Mo grammatical combinability
a) cardinal	Mostly the genitive	both cases
	case
b) ordinal Verbs	Grammatical com­binability	No grammatical combinability
a) notional	1) any case 2) different cases with different	the common case with any verb
	verbs
b) linking	mostly the instru-	mostly the com-
	mental case,	mon case
	sometimes the
	nominative or the
	genitive case

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Продолжение

Left-hand con­nections with	Russian nouns	English nouns
Nouns Articles	mostly the genitive case	the common case both cases (a not before plurals)
Right-hand con­nections with	Russian nouns	English nouns
Prepositions Verbs Nouns	any case any case, but mostly nomina­tive any case	the common case usually the com­mon case both cases

8. In both languages the functions of different case gram-memes are different. In Russian only a nominative case gram-meme can be the subject, only an accusative case grammeme can be a direct object, only a nominative or an instrumental case grammeme is used as a predicative.
In English possessive case grammemes are used almost exclusively as attributes. Common case grammemes fulfil the functions of almost any part of the sentence.
THE ADJECTIVE
§ 101. Adjectives are a part of speech characterized by the following typical features:
1. The lexico-grammatical meaning of 'attributes (of
substances)'. It should be understood that by 'attributes'
we mean different properties of substances, such as their
size (large, small), colour (red, blue), position in space (up­
per, inner), material (wooden, woolen), psychic state of
persons {happyv furious), etc.
2. The morphological category of the degrees of comparison^x.
¹ The absence of number distinguishes English adjectives from adjectives in all the other Germanic languages (see А. И. С м и р н и ц-к и и , op. cit. p. 150).
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3. The characteristic combinability with nouns (a beauti­
ful gitl), link-verbs (...is clever), adverbs, mostly those of
.degree (a very clever boy), the so-called 'prop word' one ^x (the grey one).

4. 
   The stem-building affixes -ful. -less, -ish, -ous, -ive,
   -tc, un-, pre-, in-, etc.
   
5. 
   Its functions of an attribute and a predicative comple­
   ment.
   

§ 102. The category of the degrees of comparison of adjec­tives is the system of opposemes (like long — longer — long­est) showing quantitative distinctions of qualities. More exactly, it shows whether the adjective denotes the property of some substance absolutely, or relatively as a higher or the highest amount of the property in comparison with that of some (or all) other substances.
Accordingly we speak of the 'positive' (long, good, beauti­ful), 'comparative' (longer, better, more beautiful) and 'super­lative' (longest, best, most beautiful) degrees.
§ 103. The 'positive' degree is not marked. We may speak of a zero morpheme. The 'comparative' and 'superlative' degrees are built up either synthetically (by affixation or suppletivity) or analytically, which in the mam depends on the phonetic struc'ure of the stem, not on its meaning. If the stem is monosyllabic, or disyllabic with a stress on the second syllable or ending in -er, -y, -le, -ow, the compara­tive and superlative degrees are usually built up synthetically by adding the suffixes -er and -est respectively.
E. g. bright — brighter — brightest ².
In all other cases the comparative and superlative degrees are formed analytically with the help of the word-morphemes more and most.
E. g. cheerful — more cheerful — most cheerful³.
¹ А. И. С м и p н и ц к и и, op cit , р 152
² Among the exceptions are ad ectnes ending in two consonants,
like ]ubt, lax, etc. Besides, R Volbeda writes. "The words right and
wrong especially in to be right/wrong, but also in other cases where they
express (m)correctness usually take more and most when they are com­
pared- He knew in a/a heart that she was more right than he." (Neophilolcgus,
Groningen, 1929, p 114).
³ In his book Linguistic Change in Present Day English (Edmburg,
1964, p 131) Ch Barber writes. "The continued loss of inflexions and
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§ 104. Suppletive opposemes are few in number but of very frequent occurrence.
E- g- e^ooa — better — best bad — worse — worst
The quantitative pronominal adjectives or adjective pro­nouns (see § 179) many, much and little form opposites of comparison in a similar way.
many
> — more — most much little — less — least
§ 105. Some authors treat more beautiful and (the) most beautiful not as analytical forms, but as free syntactical com­binations of adverbs and adjectives Ч One of their arguments is that less and least form combinations with adjectives sim­ilar to those with more and most, e. g. more beautiful — less beautiful, the most beautiful — the least beautiful.
The similarity, however, is but superficial. Let us com­pare nicer and more -beautiful. In order to prove that more beautiful is an analytical form of the comparative degree, we have to prove that more is a grammatical word-morpheme identical with the morpheme -er in spite of the utter differ­ence in form. Hence we are to apply the criteria of § 12.

1. 
   More and -er are identical as to their meaning of "a
   higher degree".
   
2. 
   Their distrfbution is complementary. Together they
   cover all the adjectives having the degrees of comparison,
   yet those adjectives which have comparative opposites with
   the suffix -er have usually no parallel opposites with more,
   and vice versa. Beautiful has no other 'comparative' opposite
   but more beautiful (* beaulifuller is impossible), and the
   comparative opposite of nice is nicer, not * more nice ².
   

their replacement by syntactic devices is also seen in the comparative and superlative adjectives, where forms with -er and -est are being replaced by forms with more and most " As examples he produce-, the words cloudi/, fussy, quiet, cruel, subtle, clever, profound, simple and pleasant
¹ В H. Ж и г а д л о, И П Иванова, Л Л Иофик,
р cit , р 41
² But see § 29, Note 2 In some case» prettier and more pretty aie
in free alternation
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This is not the case with less:

1. 
   Less and -er have different, even opposite meanings.
   
2. 
   The distribution of -er and less is not complementary.
   One and the same lexical morpheme regularly attaches both
   less and -er: prettier — less pretty, safer — less safe.
   

E. g. I feel less safe than I have ever done in my life. (Gilbert).
A comet usually has a bright centre and a I e s s bright
tail. (Hornby). ,
Besides, unlike more, less is regularly replaced by not so: less pretty = not so pretty.
These facts show that more in more beautiful is a grammat­ical word-morpheme identical with the morpheme -er of the 'comparative degree' grammeme. Hence more beautiful is an analytical form. The word less is not a word-morpheme and less beautiful is not an analytical form.
The meanings of less "to a smaller extenf'contains the lexical meaning "to a small extent" common to all the words of the lexeme little — less — least and the grammatical meaning of "the comparative degree". So less is an ordinary word and less beautiful is a combination of words.