[Grammar] identify the adjective

[notkie2oz]

Good evening,
Please tell me the adjective(s) in the following sentence:
Those two puzzles are hard to put together.
We have an argument brewing here and although it's rather funny we have a bet on who is correct. By the way, this was on a second grade test.
Thanks for your time.

 

[jutfrank]

Those is a determiner. Determiners are not commonly considered as adjectives though there are some significant parallels.
two is an adjective.
hard is an adjective.
together is best considered an adverb here.

So only two and hard.

 

[PaulMatthews]

The only adjective in your example is "hard".

 

[jutfrank]

The only adjective in your example is "hard".

Please explain how two does not qualify for you.

 

[GoesStation]

Those is a determiner. Determiners are not commonly considered as adjectives though there are some significant parallels.
two is an adjective.
hard is an adjective.
together is best considered an adverb here.

So only two and hard.

If a second-grade pupil could identify hard as an adjective in that sentence, I'd certainly mark it as correct. Understanding that cardinal numbers function as adjectives seems way beyond their level.

 

[jutfrank]

I'm assuming that notkie2oz is not a second-grade student.

 

[PaulMatthews]

Please explain how two does not qualify for you.

The cardinal numbers, one, two, three etc., belong to the category (part of speech) 'determinative'.

Their function in a clause is that of 'determiner'.

 

[Rover_KE]

So who's going to adjudicate on the OP's bet?

I notice that norkie2oz hasn't responded yet. Their head's probably spinning.

 

[jutfrank]

It comes down to how you want to define 'adjective'.

In order to win the bet, you'd have to agree on that first.

 

[Rover_KE]

Any response, notkie2oz?

 

[PaulMatthews]

For Huddleston and Pullum. It's the other way round for Quirk et al. For earlier grammarians, cardinal numbers were adjectives. All part of the fun of grammar.

Yes, I'm aware. Here's what Geoff Pullum says about it:

"The term "determinative" for the category of words like articles, demonstratives, and quantifiers is at least as old as A Grammar of Spoken English on a Strictly Phonetic Basis by Harold E. Palmer and F. G. Blandford (1939), and they take it from the French "adjectif determinatif". And "determiner" doesn't seem ever to have been a clearly defined lexical category. Huddleston and I like the appealingly mnemonic suffixal parallels: "adjective" and "determinative" are both categories (word classes); "determiner" and "modifier" are both functions.

It is most unfortunate that Quirk et al. used the terms the other way round; they were needlessly going against Rodney Huddleston's earlier works, such as his Cambridge University Press textbook Introduction to the Grammar of English, and we are not aware of any precedent they were following."

Interesting!

 

[jutfrank]

Harold E. Palmer and F. G. Blandford (1939) ... take it from the French "adjectif determinatif".

Does this suggest they considered 'determinative' as a subclass of 'adjective', which would suggest that determinatives are in fact adjectives? (un adjectif determinatif meaning a determinative adjective). That's how I've always viewed them.

Huddleston and I like the appealingly mnemonic suffixal parallels: "adjective" and "determinative" are both categories (word classes); "determiner" and "modifier" are both functions.

Nice. But why does it make more sense to consider adjective and determinative as distinct classes rather than one as a subclass of the other?

 

[Phaedrus]

I've just had a quick look through some of the dictionaries at www.onelook. come. 'Their' is classed as an adjective, possessive adjective, possessive pronominal adjective, possessive pronoun, and determiner in those I have looked at so far. I think that's enough for today.

It's pretty easy to eliminate words like "their" and "two" from the class of adjectives, isn't it? These days we have tests. Without consulting my books, I can think of at least two (elliptical for "two tests"):

1) The "Very" Test: Most (I won't be so foolish as to say all) adjectives accept the intensifier "very."

Their car is very red.
*[strike]The car is very their.[/strike]
*[strike]Their very two cars are red.[/strike]

2) The "Seem" (or Copula-Other-Than-"Be") Test: Most adjectives can follow a copula.

The car seems red.
*[strike]The car seems their.[/strike]
How many cars are there? *[strike]There seem two.[/strike]

 

[jutfrank]

1) The "Very" Test: Most (I won't be so foolish as to say all) adjectives accept the intensifier "very."

Doesn't that just test whether the adjective is gradable?

2) The "Seem" (or Copula-Other-Than-"Be") Test: Most adjectives can follow a copula.

Interesting.

 

[Rover_KE]

I guess the OP has lost the will to live.:-(

 

[jutfrank]

*[strike]The car seems their.[/strike]

The first word of your test shows its weakness. That 'their' cannot follow a copula does not, in itself, demonstrate that 'their' is not an adjective.

Phaedrus -- Are you implying that you don't consider their to be an adjective?

PaulMatthews -- Is their an example of a determinative, rather than an adjective?

 

[Phaedrus]

Phaedrus -- Are you implying that you don't consider their to be an adjective?

I don't even see how it's possible to consider "their" an adjective. Possessive determiners ("his," "your," "their," etc.) work like "the" and "an." You wouldn't call "John's" an adjective in "John's bicycle," would you? So why would you call "his" an adjective in the substitution "his bicycle"?

And why is it so important to get the order right with possessive determiners? While we might strongly prefer to speak of "a big blue bicycle" rather than of ? "a blue big bicycle," the awkwardness of the latter is as nothing compared with the ungrammaticality of *"[strike]the his bicycle[/strike]" / *"[strike]the blue his bicycle[/strike]."

Why is that?

 

[Phaedrus]

Well, grammariams who have considered such possessives adjectives include:

Hornby (1954),Wood (1957), Eckersley (1960), Thomson and Martinet (1960), Alexander (1988).

Do they also have the notion that attributive nouns are adjectives? Is "credit" an adjective in "credit card"?

Perhaps they even consider articles themselves to be types of adjectives ("limiting adjectives").

Imagine if we could form noun phrases like "the his credit black card" for "his black credit card."

 

[jutfrank]

I don't even see how it's possible to consider "their" an adjective. Possessive determiners ("his," "your," "their," etc.) work like "the" and "an." You wouldn't call "John's" an adjective in "John's bicycle," would you? So why would you call "his" an adjective in the substitution "his bicycle"?

And why is it so important to get the order right with possessive determiners? While we might strongly prefer to speak of "a big blue bicycle" rather than of ? "a blue big bicycle," the awkwardness of the latter is as nothing compared with the ungrammaticality of *"[strike]the his bicycle[/strike]" / *"[strike]the blue his bicycle[/strike]."

This is really a question of terminology. Of course, I agree with what you're saying. I don't think anybody is denying that his/your/their are determiners/determinatives. The question is whether they can also be labelled as adjectives, no?

Why is that?

That's a rhetorical question, right? (I'm asking as I think it's a genuinely interesting one.)

 

[jutfrank]

Do they also have the notion that attributive nouns are adjectives? Is "credit" an adjective in "credit card"?

Probably, yes. (Waiting for Piscean to confirm.) That's how (most?) EFL teachers and references refer to them, too.

Perhaps they even consider articles themselves to be types of adjectives ("limiting adjectives").

Probably not but I see your point.

Imagine if we could form noun phrases like "the his credit black card" for "his black credit card."

I don't see your point here. There's no reason to posit that if determiners are adjectives you could do that.