The functional simulation and grammatical-morphological isolation must take place only against the background of the corresponding synthetic forms of the same word.

To be able to differentiate between adjectives and participles in -ing, one must remember that in a participle there is reflected a certain characteristic feature of a process as taking place now, or in the past, while in an adjective this property is understood as permanent, most characteristic attribute. The striking thing about both Churchill’s war speeches and his book is how constantly he had to keep coming back to work on his sense of the nature of British life, of what it was that we were defending. (J. Robinson, The Survival of English)

Here striking does not refer to any process connected with speech production, but qualifies it as most important, essential, belonging to it per se.

4. Its functions of an attribute and a predicative complement (a hospitable man; seem happy; be nice to somebody; look ugly; become tired).

Adjectives are said to be a well-defined part of speech in Modern English. Of the two, the more specific function of the adjective is that of an attribute, since the function of a predicative can be performed by the noun as well. However, there is a difference between the adjective and the noun used predicatively. Namely, the predicative adjective expresses some attributive property of its noun referent, whereas the predicative noun expresses various substantival characteristics of its referent, such as its identification or classification of different types. It can be illustrated by the following examples:

e.g. He was a friend. → He behaved like a friend.

It was sensational. → That fact was a sensational fact.

5. Among the words signifying properties of a nounal referent there is a lexemic set which claims to be recognized as a separate part of speech, i.e. a class of words different from the adjectives in its class-forming features (B. A. Ilyish). These are words built up by the prefix -a and denoting different states, mostly of temporary duration. Here belong lexemes like afraid, agog, adrift, ablaze. In traditional grammar these words are generally treated as predicative adjectives, since their most typical position in the sentence is that of a predicative.

Notional words signifying states used as predicatives were identified as a separate part of speech in the Russian language by L. V. Scherba and V. V. Vinogradov. The newly identified part of speech was called “the category of state” and words making up this grammatical class were called words of the category of state. Here belong the Russian words like тепло, зябко, одиноко, жаль, лень и т.д.

On the analogy of the Russian “category of state”, the English qualifying a-words were subjected to a lexico-grammatical analysis and given the heading “category of state”. B. A. Ilyish was the first to conduct this analysis, later shared by B. I. Rogovskaya and B. S. Khaimovich. Their theses supporting this view are as follows:

a) the statives are opposed to adjectives on a purely semantic basis (adjectives denote qualities, statives denote states);

b) statives are characterized by the specific prefix a-;

c) they do not have the degree of comparison;

d) the combinability of statives is different from that of adjectives (they have no right-hand combinability with nouns). These are serious reasons worthy of note.

However, a closer consideration of the properties of the statives discloses the fundamental relationship between the adjectives and the statives, which makes us reconsider the status of English statives. For the lack of time and space we refer the reader to the book by M. Y. Bloch. A Course in Theoretical English Grammar. 2003. – p. 224-229.

References:

1. Александрова О. В., Комова Т. А. Современный английский язык: морфология и синтаксис = Modern English Grammar: Morphology and Syntax: учеб. пособие для студ. лингв. вузов и фак. ин. яз. / О. В. Александрова и Т. А. Комова. – М.: «Академия», 2007. – С. 68-75.

2. Блох М. Я. Практикум по теоретической грамматике английского языка: Учеб. пособие / М. Я. Блох, Т. Н. Семенова, С. В. Тимофеева. – М.: Высш. шк., 2004. – С. 217-220.

3. Блох М. Я. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка: Учеб. – 4 изд., испр. – М.: Высш. шк., 2003. – С. 220-237.

4. Жигадло В. Н., Иванова И. П., Иофик Л. Л. Современный английский язык / Теоретический курс грамматики. – М.: ИЛИЯ, 1956. – С. 37-44, 169-174.

5. Ильиш Б. А. Строй современного английского языка (Теоретический курс): Учеб. пособие. / Б. А. Ильиш. – М. – Л.: Просвещение, 1965. – С. 62-68; 79-81.

6. Хаймович Б. С., Роговская Б. И. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка: Учеб. пособие. – М.: Высш. шк., 1967. – С. 75-86; 199-202.

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