
16-Sep-2007, 18:22
|
| Senior Member Threadstarter  
| | Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 1,192
Home Country: Iraq Native Language: English Current Location: Germany Member Type: Academic | |
Re: -ic vs. -ical Quote:
Originally Posted by albertino Sometimes people use a noun modifier instead of an adjectival form of the same word. More often than not, there is no difference in meaning between the two but sometimes there is, such as The Education Bureau(which only tells us the Bureau is responsible for education) and an educational material(which otherwise tells us that the material is useful and helpful as far as education is concerned.
How to distinguish?
When a noun modifier is used, it is usually used to avoid the evaluative, descriptive or emotional characterisitcs of the primary functions of an adjective. Therefore, a horror film vs a horrible film, and the construction site vs a constructive idea.
Sometimes this type of distinction between evaluative and non-evaluative can also be made bewteen two similar adjectives like the one you raise:
an economic policy means a policy for managing the economy, whereas an economical housewife means a housewife who is clever at using her money. | True, the adjective is subjectively restrictive. The evaluative idea can apply to some ic/ical adjectives. Using a noun modifier maybe is a way to avoid the subjectivity of the adjective but I think it is also typical Germanic. Thanks for this interesting contribution. LwyrFirat's PDF file is very helpful as well.
Last edited by Dr. Jamshid Ibrahim; 16-Sep-2007 at 18:34.
|