Adjective - Distribution

Distribution

Most, but not all, languages have adjectives. Those that do not, typically use words of another part of speech, often verbs, to serve the same semantic function; an example, such a language might have a verb that means "to be big", and would use as attributive verb construction analogous to "big-being house" to express what English expresses as "big house". Even in languages that do have adjectives, one language's adjective might not be another's; for example, whereas English uses "to be hungry" (hungry being an adjective), Dutch and French use "honger hebben" and "avoir faim," respectively (literally "to have hunger", hunger being a noun), and whereas Hebrew uses the adjective "זקוק" (zaqūq, roughly "in need of"), English uses the verb "to need".

Adjectives form an open class of words in most languages that have them; that is, it is relatively common for new adjectives to be formed via such processes as derivation. Bantu languages are well known for having only a small closed class of adjectives, however, and new adjectives are not easily derived. Igbo has an extremely limited number, just eight: mnukwu 'big', nta 'small'; ojii 'dark', ocha 'light'; ohuru(ofuru) 'new', ochie 'old'; oma 'good', and ojoo 'bad'. Similarly, native Japanese adjectives (i-adjectives) are a closed class (as are native verbs), although nouns (which are open class) may be used in the genitive and there is the separate class of adjectival nouns (na-adjectives), which is also open, and functions similarly to noun adjuncts in English.

Read more about this topic:  Adjective

Famous quotes containing the word distribution:

    Classical and romantic: private language of a family quarrel, a dead dispute over the distribution of emphasis between man and nature.
    Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)

    In this distribution of functions, the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state, he is, Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men’s thinking.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    The question for the country now is how to secure a more equal distribution of property among the people. There can be no republican institutions with vast masses of property permanently in a few hands, and large masses of voters without property.... Let no man get by inheritance, or by will, more than will produce at four per cent interest an income ... of fifteen thousand dollars] per year, or an estate of five hundred thousand dollars.
    Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)