The Classification of Words

He looked more stern than his father. (Dickens). She looked more sad than ever before. (Black). This becomes clear if we take into consideration two cir­cumstances:

1. 
   The morphemes -er and -est cannot be stressed, while
   the word-morphemes more and most can.
   
2. 
   Word-morphemes are regularly used in English as the
   locus for emphatic stress signals. Cf. He studies ... and He does
   study ... (see § 415).
   

§ 115. Following is a brief comparison of the basic fea­tures of English and Russian adjectives.

1. 
   The lexico-grammatical meanings are essentially the
   same.
   
2. 
   The Russian adjective has a greater variety of stem-
   building affixes than its English counterpart. The so-called
   "suffixes of subjective appraisal" (as in длинненький, длин­
   нющий, длинноватый, etc.) are alien to the English
   adjective (the only exception is -ish in whitish, red­
   dish, etc.).
   
3. 
   Russian adjectives have the categories of number
   (длинный — длинные), gender (длинный — длинная — длин­
   ное), and case (длинный, длинного, длинному, etc.) which
   English adjectives no longer possess. The only category
   Russian and English adjectives have in common is the cate­
   gory of the degrees of comparison.
   

Hence, adjectival grammemes in English are monoseman-tic (i. e. having but one grammatical meaning), while in Russian an adjective grammeme is usually polysemantic, e. g. the grammeme represented by умная carries the gram­matical meanings of 'feminine gender' 'singular number', 'nominative case' and 'positive degree'. But the synthetic comparative (сильнее, красивее, etc.) is monosemantic in Russian as well.
4. In Russian as well as in English the category of the
degrees of comparison is represented in three-member oppo-
semes, but there are some distinctions.
a) The 'positive degree' is unmarked in English, whereas it is marked in Russian (Cf. red, красн-ый). Taking into consideration that more than 90% of all adjectives in speech belong to the 'positive degree' grammemes, we may say that in the overwhelming majority of cases the form of an English adjective does not signal to what part of speech the word
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belongs. In the Russian language every full adjective is marked; it shows by its form that it is an adjective.
6) The formations более красивый, самыч красивый re­semble the analytical forms more beiutiful, most beautiful, but they can hardly be regarded as analytical forms since they are not in complementary distribution with the corre­sponding synthetic forms. Длиннее and более длинный are rather stylistic synonyms.
5. In both languages there are qualitative and relative adjectives. In both languages the relative adjectives and some qualitative ones have no opposites of comparison, i. e. they form the subclass of non-comparables. But otherwise there is great dissimilarity between the two languages.

1. 
   Most qualitative adjectives in the Russian language
   have corresponding "short" opposite? (умный — умен, крот­
   кая— кротка, etc.). There is nothing similar in English.
   
2. 
   The proportion of relative adjectives is much greater
   in Russian where, according to V. V. Vinogradov, they con­
   stitute the bulk of adjectives. English 'common case' nouns
   often render the meanings of Russian relative adjectives,
   e. g. домашние расходы. — household expenses, настольная
   лампа — a table lamp, etc.
   
3. 
   Among the relative adjectives of the Russian language
   there is a group of 'possessive' adjectives like Ольгин, мамин,
   отиов, лисий, having no English counterparts.
   

6) The combinability of adjectives is to some extent similar in the two languages. Yet there are some essential differences.

1. 
   In English one can speak only of two levels of combi­
   nability: lexical and lexico-grammatical. In Russian gram­
   matical combinability is of great importance too. Cf. белый
   потолок, белая стена, белых стен, etc.
   
2. 
   The so-called 'short' adjectives and the synthetic
   'comparatives' of Russian adjectives have as a rule no right-
   hand connections with nouns. Cf. This is a better translation.
   Этот перевод лучше, but not * это лучше перевод.
   
3. 
   A peculiar feature of the combinability of the English
   adjective is its right-hand connection with the prop-word
   one; a good one, a better one, the best one.
   

7. In both langaages the typical functions of adjectives in the sentence are those of attribute and predicative. But the Russian 'short' adjectives and the synthetic comparatives are seldom used as attributes. English does not contain such
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grammemes or subclasses of adjectives, but certain individual adjectives are but rarely, used as attributes, e. g. it is im­possible to say * a glad girl. On the other hand, the adjective little is used almost exclusively as an attribute.