What's the grammatical difference between determiners and adjectives?

[Zan-mir]

I'm looking for a grammatical way to distinguish between determiners and adjectives. I've found some advice, but it isn't definite:

• Adjectives can come after a linking verb (there are exceptions like asleep)
• Adjectives are gradable (there are exceptions like nonexistent)
• Determiners aren't used next to each other (there are exceptions like 'all these books')

Do you know the ultimate way or at least more advice like this?

 

[shootingstar]

Adjectives give us more information about people, animals or things represented by nouns and pronouns.
They modify or describe features and qualities of people, animals and things.

Determiners are words such as the, my, this, some, twenty, each, any, which are used before nouns.

Determiners include the following common types:

Articles: a, an, the
Demonstratives: this, that, these, those
Possessives: my, your, his, her, etc.
Quantifiers: (a) few, some, many, etc.
Numbers: one, two, three, etc.

 

[Zan-mir]

You mostly refered to sementics not grammar. And most adjectives are also used before nouns, so it's not helpful at all

 

[emsr2d2]

You mostly referred to semantics, not grammar. And Most adjectives are also used before nouns, so it's not helpful at all.

Please note my corrections above. If you install an English spell-checker on your browser, it will pick up basing spelling errors like the first two. Don't forget to end every sentence with an appropriate closing punctuation mark.
Your response wasn't very respectful to someone who was trying to help you.

 

[5jj]

I'm looking for a grammatical way to distinguish between determiners and adjectives. I've found some advice, but it isn't definite:

• Adjectives can come after a linking verb (there are exceptions like asleep)
• Adjectives are gradable (there are exceptions like nonexistent)
• Determiners aren't used next to each other (there are exceptions like 'all these books')

In any classification system of word classes (parts of speech), there are exceptions. There is therefore no 'ultimate way'. The only thing nearly all grammarians agree on is that adjectives are an open class of words - new ones can be, and are, added daily - and determiners/determinatives are a closed class - new members are rarely, if ever, added. There is no universal agreement on the list of members of this class. Here is one list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_determiners

 

[SoothingDave]

When I learned grammar in school, there was no such thing as a "determiner." They were classified as adjectives.

 

[5jj]

When I learned grammar in school, there was no such thing as a "determiner." They were classified as adjectives.

It was the same for me in my school and undergraduate years (1951 -1967), though the word had been used by some grammarians as early as the 1920s.

Palmer 1924) posited a determinative class as a sub-class of Pronouns and Determinatives. By the third edition (Palmer and Blandford, 196n, determinative had become determiner.

Bloomfield (1933) is the first writer I can find to use the word determiner for this class. For him, it was a sub-class of adjectives.

Fries (1952) uses determiner, as does Gleason (1965). Quirk et al (1985) use determiner, and Huddleston and Pullum use determinative.

 

[Skrej]

I too learned articles as simply 'adjectives' back in the day. However, about fifteen years ago, I first heard them referred to as 'article adjectives' by a colleague - a new term to me at the time. Later I started hearing the term 'determiner'.

I don't personally bother making much distinction in their terminology when teaching them. I sort of gloss over them as just a special kind of adjective and focus instead on correct usage.

If my students can master their usage, then I'm happy to let them call them whatever they want. I still call them articles, however.

 

[Annabel Lee]

I'm looking for a grammatical way to distinguish between determiners and adjectives.

Thinking about this difficult topic intuitively, I find there are five grammatical differences.

First, determiners must always precede adjectives in noun phrases in which both occur. We can say the black cat, but not black the cat. We can say my new car, but not new my car. We had a good time, not We had good a time.

Second, determiners do not cooccur with other determiners (setting aside the "predeterminer" class), whereas adjective do cooccur with other adjectives. We can have the fluffy black cat and my fluffy black cat, but not the my fluffy black cat.

Third, determiners herald the coming of a noun, whereas adjectives often appear outside of noun phrases. If you just hear the, the natural question is The what? That is not so when we hear adjectives.

Fourth, in the modification of indefinite pronouns, where the adjective always comes after the indefinite pronoun rather than before it, only adjectives work. Determiners do not work at all.

something strong
someone helpful
anything inappropriate

something our
someone the
anything this

Fifth, in premodification of nouns, adjectives can be coordinated with other adjectives, but determiners cannot be coordinated with adjectives or with other determiners:

intelligent and healthy men
the intelligent and healthy men
healthy and intelligent men
the healthy and intelligent men

intelligent and healthy and the men
intelligent and the and healthy men
the and intelligent and healthy men

 

[shootingstar]

In any case, please have a look at this thread (above all, at Skrej's post #8).

 

[jutfrank]

I'm looking for a grammatical way to distinguish between determiners and adjectives.

Are you asking for academic definitions of these terms or do you want help working out how to distinguish one from the other in real contexts?