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A discourse approach to the cross-linguistic category ‘Adjective’

Chapter · January 1989

DOI: 10.1075/cilt.61.16tho

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B~ ~t.!).Ll~~,
:ahler, H. (1965) Gmmmntik der l1alra.m ",dolle.~ia. Wieshnden: Otto Ilnrrowitz.
:arttunen, L. (11)74) ·Until". I'I"(/ceedillgs oj tl'e Clriwgo Lill8l/i.Hir Society 10, CHAPTER 7
UniversilY of Chicago, In, 284-97.
and S. Peters (1979) 'Convcntional implic;llure'. In ('. Oh. and D. 1\. Dinncen
(eds), !»'IIta.\ a/l([ Semalllies.vol.ll.I
Press.
••.esll ••••osiliml. New York: Acadcmic A Discourse Approach to the Cross-
:Iare, J. (1958) EIIIJ/elllmg a/l([ f:'lIIl1'ieklrmg da Km'U'.ui,·ell f(olljlmk/icm im Linguistic Category 'Adjective'
Frrlllzosisclrell. Berlin: I\kadclllic Vcrlag.
:Iein, J. (1980) 'Die Kom:essivrclation als argulllelllations·thcorctischcs Problcm.
Sandra A. Thompson
Zeitllscllri[t /iir Gemrallistiselle Lillgl/is/ik, 8, 154-69.
:iinig, E. (1985a) 'On the history of concessive conncctivcs in English. Dil.chronic ! Sandra A. Thompson
~_ tigGisticS Dept.
and synchronic evidencc'. Ullnl/a, 66, 1-19.
(1985b) 'Konzessive Konjunktionen'. To nppear in A. v. Stcchow and D. Santa Barbara. CA 93106
Wunderlich (eds), HI/I,dhl/dl der Semnll/ik. Kiinigstein: Atheniium. i§
(1985c) 'Where do concessives come fromT In J. Fisiak (ed.), /{isto,.ical
Semalltics, Historical Word Fomratioll. Berlin: Mouton.
(1986) 'Conditionals, concessive conditionals and coneessives: areas of conlrast,
overlap and neutralization'. In Traugoll et al. (1986). Hopper and Thompson (1984) addressed the problem of a possible
and P. Eisenbcrg (1984) 'Zur Plagmalik von Konzessivsiitzcn'. In G. Stickel discourse explanation for the way in which the linguistic categories of
(ed.), Pragmatik ill der (jmmma/ik. Dusseldorf: Schwann. Noun and Verb manifest themselves in actual language use. In this paper I
and 1. Van der Auwera (forlhcoming) 'C1;luse inlegllliion in Gcrnwn nnt! Dutch will be concerned with the question of categorization of 'property
condilionals, concessivc condilionals, and conccssivcs'. To appcar in Ilaiman concepts', that is, those concepts referring to properties, qualities or
and Thompson. characteristics of referents .
.lImasser, II. (1952) /{llIIrllmd, da Selllasiologie. lleidclhcrg: Carl Winter. In English, there is a fairly close correspondence between this set of
ehmann, C. (1982) 71,ol/gllls Oil (immmaticalizatioll. Cologne: Arbeilen des concepts and the linguistic category of 'adjective', but it is wel~k~lO~t~that
Kiilner Universalicn Projckls, 48. this is by no means the case for many other languages. In Ius JustIfiably
erch, E. (1929) l1istorisc!1C' hWlzii.\;selre ,\)."I//X II. Leipzig: Reisland.
celebrated 1970 paper, published in 1977, Dixon explores the question
. evinson, S. (1983) I'ragmatic.~. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
yons, 1. (1967) '/\ note on possessive, exislential and localive senlences'.
'how does it Ithat is, a language with either no Adjective class at all or only
FOlllldatiollS oj Lallgl/age, 3, 390-6.
a small non-productive minor class of Adjectivel express concepts that are
tensing, O. (1981) 'Untersuchungen uber die Synlax der Concessivsiilze im AIt- expressed through adjectives in languages, like English, which do have this
und Millelhochdeutsehen'. Doctoral diss .. Kicl. major class' (p. 20)?
tittwoch, A. (1977) 'Negalive senlences with /llIIi/'. CL.\', 13,41 (j-17. What I would like to do in this paper is to take a close look at Dixon's
lank, F. (1979) 'Exklusivierung, Idenlifizierung, rel<ltionale Auszeichnung. answer to this question, and supplement it with some findings of my own. I
Variationen zu einem semantiseh-pragmatischen Thema'. In J. Rosengren will then propose a discourse explanation for these findings. This research
(cd.), S"melre /I//{I I'mgma/ik. I.undcr gennanische Forschungcn 48. I.und: can he thus he seen as a contribution to the study of 'natural grammar', the
( i1certlp. study of what communicative factors arc responsible for the design of
'uirk, It (11)54) 'II,/, (·Oll,./,.I.li,,/, Ucla/im, ill Of:' I'oct/)'. NclV I laven, (·onn.: Yale
grammars.
University Press.
eichenbach, H. (1947) UemelltI oJ.\).",holic Logic. New York: The Free Press.
aebe K. (1986) 'Causal nnd purposive clauses'. In A. v. Stechow and D.
Wunderlich (cds). Halldlwefl der Selllalllik. Kiinigslcin: Athcniiull1.
lump. G. T. (1985) 77,1' Semalllic Variability oj Absolute COlls/metiollS.
Dordrecht: Reidel.
oulmin, S. (1958) 77,1' Uses oj A,.g"melll. Cambridge: Cambridge University Dixon introduces the notion of 'semantic type', suggesting that 'the lexical
Press. Hems of a language fall into a number of "semantic types" (each item
raugulI, E. C. ter Meulen. A., Reilly, J. S. and Ferguson C. A. (cds) (1986) 011 belonging to just one type) ... Each semantic type has, in a I?articular
COllditiOllals Camhridge: Camhridge University Press. language, certain "norm" syntactic and mOrJ~hological.~ropertles. ~{/clr
ipr, G. K. (1949) H""'/l1I Heht/I'io" /l1I/1/he !',.illl'iple of /'I'/IS/ I:JJiJrl. Cambridgc. member of the type exhibits the norm propertIes. In addltton, there Willhe
Mass.: Aduison-Weslcy. a number of "extensional" properties, each applying only to certai"
~.'.',
.:l
 _______ s _" --.b-H
m~mbers ~f the typ~' (p. 25, emphasis original). (Today such a description types of Property Concepts in Dixon's list above: DIMENSION,
nllg~t be discussed III terms of the notion of 'prototype'.) COLOR, AGE, and VALUE.
J)lx~m relates the notion of 'semantic type' to linguistic categories in the n

followlll.g wa~: he a~sumes that each 'semantic type' has a basic or 'norm' (2) Whether or not there is a category of Adjectives, the words expressing
connection with a smgle part of speech (p. 27), and that since Property Concepts tend to fall into categories which either share
many properties with the class of Nouns, or many properties with the
alliangu<~ges.appear to have NoUl~and Verb but some lack a major class of Verbs.
class Adjective, ... some semantic types must be associated with
diffe.rent parts of speech in different languages ... M<)'J'ION, My own research, based on a further sampling (again not random) of some
AffECT, GIVING, CORPOREAL le.g. lallgh, sneezel, and other forty languages, has confirmed these findings.
types seem almost always to be classed together -this is the class that The problem, then, is this: It seems to be a fact that the distinction
is in all languages called Verh. OIl.JE<TS, KIN, and olher types arc belween Noul/.\' and V('fb,~ ilself is a language universal, where largely the
almosl always classed together - this is the class Ihat is in all sallie sel of concepls are found in each of Ihese categories from language
languages called Noun. (p. 2H).' to language (see Givlln 1979, 19.H4), Hopper and Thompson 19H4,
Jacobsen 1979, Schachler 1985 and references cited in these works for
Later he suggests 'what it means to say that a language has "a class discussion). Independently of whether or not there is an identifiable class
of ?djectives". Thi~ is a set of lexical ite~ls, distinguished on morpho- of Adjective, Ihe lJuestion which then arises is:
logical ami syntactic grounds from the uJ1lversal classes Noun and Verb'
(pp.62-3). Why should a given set of concepts, namely Property Concepts, he
Becaus~ Dixon assumes that each semantic type has, in a given distributed across these two quite distinct lexical categories, namely
langua¥e, lis own "no~mal' grammatical properties, he proposes to isolate Noun and Verb, in the world's languages (as opposed, say, to being
the ulllversal Adjective types by looking at the 'basic members' of the exclusively treated by grammars of languages as a subclass of either
Adjective c1.a.ss)ust ~n En¥lisl~, and .t1~ento investigate their linguistic Noun or Verb, or as a separate class of Adjective)?
category affiliations III Adjective-deficient languages. The types which
emerge, based on semanlic, syntactic and morphological criteria, are Before considering Ihe discollrsc proposal, let us hrieny consider some of
these: the sorts of evidence lhallead 10 these conclusions.
First, Ihere arc languages in whit:h Properly Concepls form a semantic
I DIMENSION - big,lillle, long, wide, ... subclass of the category Verh. For example, in Acehnese (northern
2 PHYSICAL PROPERTY - hard, heavy, smooth, ... Sumatra) (Durie 1985), there are a number of pieces of evidence showing
3 COLOUR that Property Concepts do not form a separate lexical category from
4 HUMAN PROPENSITY - jealolls, happy, clever, generolls, prolld, Verbs. First, they may take optional Undergoer cross-referencing just as
other non-controlled Verbs do:
5 AGE -I/ew, yo III/g, old, ...
6 VALUE - good, bud, pllre, delidolls, ... (2) gopnyan saket =geuh
7 SPEED - jil.\l, slow, quick, ... 3 sick =UNDGOEH
's/he's sick'
Fo~ the remainder of this paper, I will take these seven types of concepts,
which express ~rorerties of entities, as definitional for the term 'Property (3) gopnyan rhet =geuh
Concept. That IS, If a word expresses one of these types of properties in a 3 fall=UNDGOER
language, I will call it a Property Concept Word. 's/he is falling'
Dixon's findings, based on a non-random sample of seventeen lan-
guages,2 are summarized in (I ):

(I) Languages may have a category of Adjectives which can be identified (4) gopnyan ka saket =geuh
on language-internal morpho-syntactic grounds. No matter how small 3 INCHO sick =UNDGOER
or restricted this category is, it is likely to include at least these four 's/he's gollen sick'
 (5) gopnyan ka geu~woe they take the same possessive suffixes and enclitic pragmatic particles
3 INCIIO AG-return (Karlsson 1983: 22). :rhus, in the sentence:
's/he has already returned'
~ (10) Auto on sininen
Third, any Verb can be used attributively with no morpho-syntactic ado: car:NOMCOP blue:NOM
'the car is blue'
(6) aneuk muda nyan
child young that
'that young child' the form si"i"ell 'blue' inflects for case and takes the copula,just as a Noun
would:
(7) ureueng pula pade nyan
person planl rice that
(11) iso-ssa auto-ssa
'that person planting rice' big-INESS car -INESS
'in the big car'
Finally, many non-controlled Verbs may take that 'very':
(12) Pekka on mies
(8) ureueng nyan carl;ng that P.:NOM COP man:NOM
person that clever very 'Pekka is a man'
'that person is very clever'
(9) Ibn galak that kcu jih Similarly, in a language with gender or noun class, such as Diyari
I like vcry DAT 3 (Austin 1981), spoken in South Australia, as well as a number of Indo-
'I like him/her very much' European and African languages, there is a class 'nominal', which can be
said to subsume 'Nouns' and 'Adjectives' as subcategories, with common
Other languages in my sample for which similar arguments can be made morpho-syntactic categories, such as case, number and gender or noun
include: class, though of course Noun and Adjective will always be kept distinct by
the fact that only Nouns, but never Adjectives, are subcategorized for
Aghem (Bantoid) (Hyman 1979) inherent gender.
Chinese (Chao 1968, Li and Thompson 1981) Other languages in my sample for which analogous arguments can be
Lakhota (Buechel 1939) made include:
Noni (Cameroon, Beboid Bantu) (Hyman 1981)
Thai (Noss 1964) Arabic
Turkana (E. Nilotic) (Dimmendaal 1983) Asmat (Papuan) (V oorhoeve 1965)
W. Makian (Papuan) (Voorhoeve 1982) Bantu languages
Wappo (California) the Chadic languages Hausa (Cowlln and Schuh 1976) and Margi
the Austronesian languages: Samoan (Marsack 19(2), Indonesian (Mac- (Hoffman 19(3)
Donald 1976), MokiJese (Harrison 1976), Palauan (Josephs 1975), Dyirbal (Dixon 1972)
UJithian (Sohn and Bender 1973), Woleaian (Sohn 1975), Kusaiean the Dravidian languages Kannada (M. Nadkarni, personal communica-
(Lee 1975) and Wolio (Indonesia) (Anceaux 1952).' tion) ami Malayalam (George 1971)
Fore (E. New Guinea) (Scott 1978)
That is, in each of these languages, whether or not a class of Adjectives can Israeli Hebrew (Rosen 1977)
be identified on language-internal distributional grounds, Property Con- the Indo-European languages Persian (Elwell-Sutton 1979), Polish
cept Words share many features with verbs. (Laskowski 1979), Icelandic (Glendening 1961), Latin, DUlch
Second, it is also well-known that thcre are a number of languages in (Donaldson 1981) and German (Schulz and Griesbach 1960)
which Property Concept Words pattcrn very similarly to Nouns. For Kalkatungu (Pama-Nyungan, Australia) (Blake 1979)
example, in Finnish, Nouns and Property Concept Words have much in Quechua (Adelaar 1977)
common: they are inflccled in the same way, for number and case, and Tagalog (Schachter and Otanes 1972).
 However, while both of these pallerns exist, that is, Property Concepts should exhibit features related to the fact that they are more time-stable
sharing many features with Verbs and with Nouns, they do not necessarily than Verbs; similarly, we would also predict that in languages where
characterize languages, since it also happens, as in some West African 'Adjectives' are a subclass of Nouns, they should exhibit features relaled to
languages (for examplc, Kusaal (Gur) (Ladusaw 1985) and Yoruba (Kwa) the fact that they are less time-slable than Nouns. Now, while support for
(f. Serzisco, personal communication» or Japanese (Y. Koide, personal the former prediction is abundanl, support for Ihe laller prediction is nol.
communication), for example, that within a given language some Property Thus, as a subclass of Verbs, Property Concepts onen exhibit morpho-
Concepts will be categorized with features shared with Nouns, while syntactic evidence of their stat;!';t)', their greater lime-stability when
others will havc features shared with Verbs. compared to prototypical Verbs; they are often constrained not to occur
Finally, of course, there are languages, such as English, Fula (Arnott with certain tense-aspect morphemes, for example.
1970), Jacaltec (Craig 1977), Cherokee (Lindsey and Scancarelli 1985) But the primary way in which Property Concepts can be identified as a
and Manam (Austronesian) (Lichtenberk 1983), in which a class of subclass of Nouns different from prototypical Nouns is, as mentioned
Adjective can bc identified which shares fcw or no obvious propcrties ahove, Ihal Iheir gender calegories arc derived, while those of Nouns arc
wilh eilher Nouns or Verbs. Iypically inhercnl. I do not see a way to relale Ihis fact 10 the lower degre.c
The fact remains, howevcr, that cross-linguistically, Property Concepts of time-stability of Property Concepts as compared to Nouns. Rather, 1\
may show up as either Nouns or Verbs (see Dixon 1977 and Schachter has to do with the use to which Property Concepts are put by speakers.
1985 for further discussion). Givon's semantic explanalion in terms of time-stabilily, then, does not
BUI why should this bc so'! This is the question which I will try to answer help me to explain the facts given in ( I). In fact, while I believe that such
in the rest of this paper. semantic features as the stativity of verb-like Property Concepts have
significant morphosyntactic consequences, I Ihink that the explanation for
the specific cross-linguistic facts in (I) may not be found in semantics at
all. I suggest instead that a satisfying account of the lexical categorization
of Property Concepts in the world's languages can only be stated in terms
Giv6n (1979, 1984) has suggested a semantic factor underlying the of the use of Property Concepts in actual d;scourse.4
categorization of cognitive 'percepts', namely, time stability. 'Experiences
... which stay relatively stable over time ... tend to be lexicalized in
human language as nouns ... At the other extreme of the lexical-
phenomenological scale, one finds experiential clusters denoting rapid
changes in the state of the universe ... languages tend to lexicalize them
as verbs' 11984: 51-2, emphasis original). According to Givon, the class To support this claim, I have taken a first step by investigating the use of
Adjective, for languages which have it, occupies 'the middle of the Property Concept Words in two languages: English and Mandarin
time-stability scalc' (1984: 52). But there are two problems with this Chinese. In English, of course, it is a straightforward maller to argue for a
explanation. class of Adjectives to which Property Concepts belong. In Mandarin, on
First, while time slability may be involved in distinguishing prototypical Ihe other hand, there is an extremely restricted category of Adjective, but
cxcmplars of the eategorics Noun and Verb in the world's languagcs, I most Property Concept WOlds are indislinguishablc from Vcrbs (for
question its relevancc for the calegory Adjectivc, since, as Givlln admits, discussion, see Li and Thompson 191{I and Schachler 1(85).
the 'prototypical adjectival qualilies' are 'Ihose of stclble physical qualilies So far, these are the only two languages whose discourse use of Property
such as size, shape, texture, color, taste, or smell' (1984: 53, emphasis Concept Words I have investigated in any depth. However, the results are
mine). In fact, all of Dixon's seven 'semantic types' which characterize the similar enough in these two genetically and areally unrelated languages to
class of Adjectives in English, except possibly SPEED, denote relative suggest thai investigations of similar data in other languages will yield
stable characteristics. Thus, it does not appear to be true that 'adjectives similar results.5
occupy the middle of the time-stability scale'. For English, since Property Concepts correlate largely with the
The second problem with the time-stability explanation for the category of Adjectives, I will describe my findings for this language in
categorization of Property Concepts is that it makes the wrong prediction terms of the shorter term 'adjective' rather than 'Property Concept'.
about a particular set of morphosyntactic facts. That is, if 'Adjectives' I have looked at more Ihan 100 pages of transcribed natural spontane-
indeed occupied the 'middle of the time-stability scale', then we would ous conversational discourse with 301{ Property Concept words, or
predict that in languages where 'Adjectives' are a subclass of Verbs, they adjectives. I did not counl Nouns used as modifiers, such as steak place or
 broccoli pie ,nor did 1count adjective-Noun combinations which 1took to (I R) But 1did have lots of fun up at Lehigh. That was a good school (C 14)
be single lexical items, such as blind llate.
(19) (talking about apartments)
~ 1found that English adjectives are used in essentially Iwo ways: see tahle
7.1. Let us look at some examples." Examples of adjectives playing a 1/: Well, theirs is a lIice apartmellt really. (rrie25)
predicale role fell into two synlactic categories, having to do with
peculiarities of English grammar. First, there were those in which the (17-19) show instances of an attributive adjective functioning as it
adjective appeared as a predicale adjective with a copular verb, as in: predicate because its predicate nominal head is anaphoric. But there are
also cases where an attributive adjective functions predicatively because
(13) and her parents apprently weren't even that wealthy (C I) its predicate nominal head is (relatively) empty. Here is an example of
such a case:
(14) I was getting kind of good at playing in Ihe rain, really (Frie 19)
(20) She and 1 are gonna go out and get drunk at four o'clock in the
(15) that golme so mad (11035)
afternoon. It's a religiolls thillg we're gonna have (Fra9)
(16) aren't some chapters of Understanding Media appropriate?
(Frie35) In (ZO), a grammatically atlributive adjective (religious) is functioning as
the predicate of its clause, because its predicate nominal head is non-new-
Most of my examples of adjectives functioning as predicates (209, or 86 information-bearing. The difference between (20) and (17)-( 19), how-
percent of the 242 instances of predicate function) were of this predicate ever, is that this time the non-new-information-bearing head is an empty
adjective type. noun (thillg).
Here is another example of this type of situation:

(21) (talking about wedding girts)

I said why don't you pack it away, and save it to give away to other
Predicating a property or an e~lahli~hed discourse rderenl: 79%(N - 242) people for wedding gifts, and she said, 'Hey, that's a great idca' (C I9)
Inlroducing a new discourse rderent 21%(N=66)
Total: 100% (N - 308)
In each of these examples, the atlributive adjective is functioning
predicatively, since it modifies a non-informative predicate nominal head
noun. Paraphrases in which the adjective figures as the sole element after
The other, minority (14 percent), syntactic context in which I found the copula would often be appropriate ('their apartment is lIice really'), for
adjectives functioning predicatively was that in which the adjective was an example.'
attribute to a predicate nominal head noun which is relatively 'non-new- If English weren't so inclined to express predicative notions in the form
information-bearing', Ihat is, a relatively empty or an anaphoric head noun of noun phrases with empty or anaphoric heads, these clauses could
in predicale nominal posilion. Let us look carefully at one such example: appear with predicate adjectives, and translations inlo other languages
could easily find them coded as predicates rather than as nOlln phrases.
(17) (talking ahout a potenlial dale) What I have shown, then, is that the primary function of adjectives in
The last time she saw him which was three years ago he was pretty English, accounting for 79 percent of the adjective usage in my data, is as
good looking, and um, you know she says he's a very nice guy, he's a the predicate of their clause, whether they are the sole predicate word or
real good persoll (HOZI) an attribute to a non-informative predicate noun.
The second discourse function of adjectives, according 10 table 7.1, is to
In (17), the predicale nominals guy and pel:wn are anaphoric (that is, they introduce new participants into the discourse. As expected, the adjectives
are interpreted as co-referential with a nominal earlier in the discourse) serving this function are all attributive.
and, hence, non-new-information-bearing, since their referent has already Let us consider an example.
been introduced much earlier in the conversation. Thus, while it is clearly
the case thaillice and WJOdare attrilJllti"e ad.ieclives grammatically, they (22) (Ialking about how to find something in the bookstore)
are counted here as predicates fill/ctiollally. Here are two further examples S: Hey, you got a fill/llY baggie.
of this situation: If: (It all wraps up.)
 , •• ••••••••••'••••••• •• n1lllllllr••••• _ ••• __ •••• ••••• 1~:---
s: Your haggie is hetter than mine conveyed by the adjectives. This new referent, then, is contrasted with
II: Sure is (Frie2) other similar referents. Once again, the new referent is being introduced by
the adjective(s), not by the head noun, which is anaphoric (or what Halliday
Here S brings up the participant fllllllY baggie, which has not been and Hasan 1976 call 'replacive'), and hence, non-new-information-
mentioned before, and which figures in the successive discourse, at least bearing.
for one turn. Here is another examplc 10 illustrate the case of an adjectivc introducing
In (22), it is clear that both the adjective and the noun in the phrase a new referent with an anaphoric head noun:
[I/IIIIYbaggie are functioning to introduce the new referent. That is, both
the item baggie and its property of being funny are new. Here is another (27) (talking ahout apartments)
example of the same type: I don't know, I think we're made more for ethllic apartlllellts than
{)allish modemallartlllt.lI(S (Frie25)
(23) (lOll king about apartments)
Arcn't those fabulous; Tom Smith used to live there. And he had Example (2M) is a particularly interesting illustration; the head noun
black'(//ul-white-striped sheets in his bedroom (Frie21) food is not, strictly speaking, an alH~phoric noun, since there had been no
earlier mention of food in the conversation. But it is non-new-information-
However, the majority of the instances in which the adjective is bearing in juslthe same way, given lhe verh eat just a few words earlier.
functioning to introduce a new discourse referent in my data are cases
where the head noun is, again, lIoll-information-hearing, that is, either (28) (talking about acne)
empty or anaphoric. For example, consider (24): Yeah, but what you eal ... if you eat grea,lYfood ... (HG5)X

(24) (talking ahout a movic) In all of these examples, thc adjectives are playing lhe role of introducing a
and there's something really sad that happens (HG 13) new participant into the discourse.
Now, if adjectives are heavily involved in the introduction of new
In (24), the new referent is something unspecified except for its property participants into the discourse, then we would expect lwo corollaries: ( I)
of being sad. In the successive discourse, the speaker goes on to describe we would expect the noun l'lhrases in which these refcrcnt-introducing
the sad thing, so it is clear that it is being introduced as a new referent in the adjectives arc found to bc grammalically indefinite or non-referential; (2)
discourse - the point is that it is the adjective which is carrying the burden we would expect that the nominal positions in which these referent-
of tagging this new referent for subsequent use in the later discourse, introducing adjectives occur will he just those recorded independently for
namely by identifying it as sad. This, then, is an example of the new new participants.
referent being introduced by an adjective plus an empty head noun. Both of these predictions are borne out by the data. First, these referent-
Here is a similar example: introducing adjective phrases are all grammatically indefinite or non-
referential, with one exception. What I found hardly any examples of,
interestingly enough, were t!t1illite noun phrases with adjectives in thcm.
In fact, only Ollce among allthc 30Madjectives in my corpus did I find an
fl.'. "
In (26) you can see an example of the other situation in which an
'j' instance of an adjective re-idelltijyillg or distingllishing an already
~~ introduced referent. This one example is shown in (29):
adjective plays the major role in the introducing of the new referent: that in
which the new referent is introduced by an adjective plus an allapllOric
head noun: (29) (descrihing a movie)
and this boy is Jewish
(26) H: We've got to get umbrellas. (several turns later)
S: Why don't we get two, since there are two of us, good, that means There's this one part between lhis lewish glly and the girl (HG 13)
I can get a pretty fallcy felllillille olle (FrieI8-19)
Clearly the adjective in the phrase this lewish glly in (29) is functioning to
In (26), we see that the new referent, a pretty fancy feminine umbrella, is re-identifY, and not to introdllce, a discourse referent. The fact that these
distinguished from other referents in this discourse only by the properties cases, while perfectly easy to produce as examples, are so rare in these
 dala, though, serves to underscore my claim that the two major functions
of adjectives are their referent-introducing function and their predicating
function. The referent-disti1lRl/ishi1lR function turns out to be an
extremely rare function in actual conversntionnllanguage. a fact which is Predicating a property or an e~tllhlished discourse rderent: 7t%(N=24.1)
contr:""7 10 eX'p~cta~i~lI1 and which could not have been arrived at by Introducing a new di~cour~e rderenl 29% (N = 97)
examll1l1lgone s II1tulltons. TOlal: 100% (N = .140) I
The second prediction of my hypothesis is also borne out by the data:
the nominal posi.tions in which these attributive adjectives occur are in just
Here is a Mandarin example of the predicating function for Property
thos~ recorded mdependently for the introduction of new participants,
Concept Words:
and III roughl.y the same proportions (Du Bois, 19H 7): that is, patient (45
percenl). obhque (I () per cent) and the S of an intransilive clause (30
(30) xue yuwen fangmiande ... suanshi bijiao chixiallgyidian
percent), but never the t\ position of a transitive clause.
sludy lang. aspect can:be:considered relatively popular a:little
The discovery of this referent-introducing function of adjectives, then,
'studying languages could be considered relatively popular' (kh IR)
is intriguing in two respects. First, it is intriguing hecause it is unexpected.
Simply knowing that adjectives can function 'nllributively' does not allow
In .(3 I) and (32) .you can see examples of Ihe referent-introducing
us to predict that tirey, Hnd not their 'head nouns'. do the majority of the
function for Mandann Property Concept Words:
work of introducing new referents in the noun phrases in which they
occur. Thus Hn examinHtion of how people talk ha.s uncovered a hitherto
(31) (talking about Chinese children studying English in school)
underestimated use of adjectives, which is not the one usually discussed in
trealmcn1.s of contcxl-free artificial examples. Second. thi.s discovery is zai hen yukuaide qifell -zhong xue, na shi zui haode
inl riguing because of the finding that the noun in such constructions is so at very happy atmosphere-in leal'll, that he most good
often superfluous. II is reasonable, then, to describe adjectives as referenl- 'to learn in a very happy atmosphere, that's Ihe best' (kh22)
inlroducing:
Example (31) is parallel to the English (22) above: both the Property
So far, then, we have seen that adjectives in English function in
spontaneous. natural conversation to predicnte a property of a referent Concept word yukuaide 'happy' and the noun qifell 'atmosphere' are
int.roducing the new referent, an atmosphere which has the property of
and to introduce a new referent into the discourse.
bemg very happy.
Implicit in my discussion so far is a claim which I can now make explicit:
Mandarin also exhibits the other type of situation, in which the Property
these two functions may also be viewed as differing in the discourse status
Concept Word is taking most of the burden of introducing the new
of the referent to which a given Property Concepl is being ascribed. That
referent: (32) shows a Property Concept Word with an al/apllOric head
i.s, a predicaling Property Concept ascribes H property to a referent
noun:
already established in the discourse, while a referent-introducing Prop-
erty Concept ascribe.s a property to a new referent, one which has not
(32) (talking ahout entrance examinations)
heen estahlished in the discourse. Semantically, of course, one could say
lhal in bolh funclion.s Ihe Property Concepl serve.s as a predicatc (as suoyi women zhcnde shi xiwang ncnggou you yige hcn gcng
implied in analyses of attributive adjectives as being semantically related so we rcally be hope able have a very IJIOIT
to relative clauses); however, the data reported here clearly suggest that 'so we really hope that we can have a much 1110reideal exam'
grammars renect the discourse status of the referent to whom the property /iximlgde kaoshi
is being ascribed rather than Ihe semantic function of predication. ideal exam
For Mandarin, I have looked at similar data again of natural spon- (kh2S)
taneous language. The results, for 340 Property Concept Words, are
strikingly similar to those found in English, as shown in table 7.2. From the In (32), the noun kaos!li 'exam' has already been introduced into the
table it is clear, then. that the same two functions as I found for English discourse; the whole discussion at this point is about the entrance
adjectives can be seen with Mandarin Property Concepts, and with examinations. As we saw with the analogous English examples, the new
roughly the .same frequency in the data. Thi.s time, there were 110 in.stances referent is contrasted with similar referents; what is lIew here is an
of a Property Concept serving to rc-idclI/i!y an already established examination which has the property of being ideal.
referent. That is, there were no analogues to the English case of (29). Analogous to the English cases described above in which Ihe Properly
 b--
Concept Word was attributive to an empty head noun are instances in
Mandarin of a Property Concept word standing alone, that is, with a zero
head noun. About 3 percent of the referent-introducing Property Concept
Words in my data are of this type, of which (33) is an example: In this paper I have tried to suggest a discourse explanation for the way in
which languages tend to categorize Property Concepts. I have taken
(31) (talking abollt the grading of exams) Dixon's semantic study of Property Concepts as a starting-point, and
... geng zlumgyllo -de shi women yao tigao xuesheng shown that Property Concept Words tend to share features with both
even:more important-NOM COP we want raise student Nouns and Verbs cross-linguistically. I rejected a semantic explanation for
'... Ithel even more important Ithingl is that we want to raise the this fact, since semantically, Property Concept Words tend to denote
stable precepts like Nouns do, so that the widespread tendency to
xlIexi Yingyll-de nengli
categorize Property Concepts as Verbs remains unaccounted for. Instead
learn English-GEN ability
I have suggested Ihal a consideration of the jilllction of Properly Concepl
ahilily of our students to learn English'
Words in discourse might shed somc light on the pattcrns we find in the
way they are categorized in many languages. That is, given that Property
So far, what I have shown, then, is that in ordinary conversational
Concept Words share the predicating function with Verbs, and the
language, Property Concept Words, or adjectives if we're talking about
referent-illlrodllcing function with NOII/lS,this sharing of both verbal and
English, have exactly two functions, as listed in tables 7.1 and 7.2: one, to
nominal functions in discourse provides an explanation for the fact that
predicate a property of an established discourse referent, and two, to
Property Concepts will sometimes be categorized with morpho-syntactic
introduce a new discourse referent.
properties similar to those of Verbs, and sometimes with morpho-
As I mentioned earlier, I think that these same discourse functions for
syntactic properties similar to those of Nouns, while sometimes, since they
Property Concept Words will be found in any language; if this is so, they
are neither prototypical Nouns nor prototypical Verbs, they are categor-
provide the basis for an explanation of the facts about how languages
ized as a separate lexical category of Adjective.
categorize Property Concepts given in (I):

Property Concept Words (as exemplified in English and Mandarin)

function in spontaneous, natural conversational discourse (i) to
predicate a property of an established discourse referent or (ii) to Criteria for determining noun-like or verb-like tendencies for property concept
introduce a new discourse referent. I note that these two functions were words
not decided upon in advance of my investigation; rather they emerged
from examination of the data.~ I Do PCs havc nominal inncclion as predicates or as altributes'!
2 In the predicate role, how are PC's different from Nouns?
2 Property Concept Words share the predicating function with Verbs, 3 In the predicate role, how are PC's different from Verbs?
and the referellt-introdllcing function with Nouns (see Hopper and 4 In the attributive role, how is the PC attached to Ihe Noun?
5 Can the PC be used anaphorically?
Thompson 1984).11I
I'C~/III/H'likl' NI/I/m 1'0' /III/H'lik/' J'(',b,~
J This sharing of both Verhal and Nominal jilllctions ill discollrse I yes I no
provides an explanation for the fact that Property Concepts will 2 fewor no differences 2 nol similar
sometimes be categorized with morpho-syntactic properties similar to 3 not similar 3 Few or no differences
those of Verbs, and sometimes with morpho-syntactic properties 4 as Nouns are 4 as Vcrbs are
similar to those of Nouns, while sometimes, since they are neither 5 yes 5 nol without a Nonn, Pronoun
prototypical Nouns nor prototypical Verbs, they are categorized as a or RelativeMarker
separate lexical category of Adjective.11

I wish to thank Ilenning Anderscn, Johan Vllnder Auweru, JOlinBybce,Jack Du

Bois, Mark Durie, Matthew Dryer, Aryeh Faltz, Mike Hannay, Teun Hoekstra,
 Paul Hopper, Ekkehard Konig, Christian Lehmann, Lachlan MacKenzie, Hans-
Jiirgen Sasse, IIansjakob Seiler, Leon Stassen and Ilarrie Wetzer for helpful
comments on the ideas in this paper and Manny Schegloff for sharing some of his
conversational datll with me. None of these people is responsible for the use I have AdeJaar, W. F. II. (1977) Tm.",a Queclllla: Gralllllll/r, Texts, /)ielionary. Ussr:
made of their advice. I am also gratdulto Ihe Nethcrlands Institute for Advanced The Peter de Ridder Press.
Study for the fellowship year during which this paper was written. Anceaux, J. C. (1952) 11u! Wolio Language. The Hague: N. V. de Nederlandse
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I Interestingly, in some languages, such as those in the Yuman family, 'KIN' Arnott, D. W. (1970) 11,e Nominal and Verbal SyslenL~ of Filla. Oxford: Oxford
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2 See Perkins (19HO) and Bybee (19H5) for a discussion of the importance of Austin P. (1981) J1 Gramlllar of Diyari, SOIl/Ir/\ ,wm/ia. Camhridge: Camhridge
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thc present study cOllltlnot be rllndom. National University.
3 The criteria which I used to determine whether Property Concept Words lluecheJ, E., S. J. (1939) J1 Gramlllar of LakllVla. St Francis, S. Dak. Rosehud
shared features with Nouns or Verbs are listed in the Appendix. Educational Society.
4 This is not to deny Givlln's insightful remarks (I'. 55fl) on the likelihood that Bybee, J. (1985) MOIp!rology: J1 Siudy of lire RelatiollJ!rip between Form and
more and less time-stable adjectives, in a language with this category. may he MeaninR. Amsterdam: John Bcnjamins.
realized as more noun-like and more verb-like respectively. Nor do I wish to deny Chafe, W. (cd.) (1980) 11lt ['ear Swries. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
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6 Codes after each eXlllnple rder to locations in my transcripts. Dimmendaal, G. J. (1983) nU! "/il/'kalla Lallguage. Dordrechl: Foris.
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