Lexical Semantics of Adjectives - CiteSeerX

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None of the taxonomies above have been tested on the basis of practical use because they have never,
to our knowledge, been used in any practical application. For our microtheory, all these taxonomies
have at least a potential heuristic value, either positive or negative. Each distinction suggests
the following type of decision point for the ontologist and/or lexicographer: consider introducing
an ontological feature reflecting this distinction. We will also see later, again in Section 2.3, that
the major ontological distinction underlying our taxonomy and crucial for our approach has never
gained much currency in the literature.
1.4 Predicating and Nonpredicating Adjectives
The central issue of adjective syntax--and semantics--is the distinction between the predicating and
nonpredicating adjectives, which can also be seen as the distinction between qualitative (scalar,
gradable) adjectives, on the one hand, and relational (non-scalar, non-gradable) adjectives, on the
other, notwithstanding the existence of a class of mixed relational/qualitative adjectives (see Section
1.5 below).
The view of this distinction as predicating/nonpredicating is, of course, purely syntactic and thus
much more manageable. Levi (1978--see also 1973, 1975) is perhaps the most definitive source on
the dichotomy. While most adjectives can appear both in the attributive position, i.e., modifying a
noun (in English, prenominally, cf. red rose), and in the predicative position (as in the rose is red),
some adjectives are used exclusively attributively. Thus, none of the adjectives in (7) (Levi’s (1.3)-
-1978: 2) can be used predicatively at all (8i -- Levi’s (2.1) -- 1978: 15) or without a change in
meaning (8ii -- Levi’s (2.2) -- 1978: 15).
(7) electric clock musical clock
electric shock musical criticism
electrical engineering musical interlude
electrical conductor musical comedy
electrical outlet musical talent
Thus, for instance, in a criminal lawyer, criminal means “dealing with crimes (committed by others),”
but in a lawyer who is criminal, it means “who commits a crime” (see more on these meaning
shifters in Section 1.6 below).
(8) (i) a. a rural policeman b. *a policeman who is rural
a chemical engineer *an engineer who is chemical
a corporate lawyer *a lawyer who is corporate
a dental appointment *an appointment which is dental
a linguistic scholar *a scholar who is linguistic
(ii) a. a provincial governor b. a governor who is provincial
a criminal lawyer a lawyer who is criminal
a logical fallacy a fallacy which is logical
a constitutional amendment an amendment which is constitutional
dramatic criticism criticism which is dramatic
Levi’s purpose is to prove that such adjectives are transformationally derived from the nouns to
which they are morphologically related. Additionally, she puts forward six features that the non-