Science and Technology news... :: View topic - result of an action: adjective or adverb?

Helmut Richter · Guest

My own language does not make a strict distinction between adjectives
and adverbs; so I have a question of whether the result of an action
appears as adjective or adverb. Examples:

"shave smooth(ly)", ie. shave so that the result is smooth,
"tighten fast(ly)", ie. tighten so that the result is fast,
"paint red(ly)", ie. paint so that the result is red.

My feeling is that in English, the adjective form without -ly is used but
I am not sure. Is this right? Would the adjective form also be used in
other languages, eg. in French without -ment? Or in other languages,
provided that they have adjectives and adverbs and a distinction between
them?

And, given there is a reasonable general definition of what constitutes an
adjective or an adverb (is there?), what would be a reason to call such
usage adjective or adverb?

--
Helmut Richter

ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com · Guest

On Jul 28, 10:57 am, Helmut Richter <hh...@web.de> wrote:
[quote]My own language does not make a strict distinction between adjectives
and adverbs;
[/quote]
Mine does, but does English?
Malayalam "I happily be" (literal translation) has to be reworded as
"I am happy" in a translation to English.

Is "I am happy" short for "I am a happy person"? If not, why is an
adjective (rather than an adverb) used with the verb "am"? In
contrast, when the verb is "run", one doesn>t say "I run happy"; one
says "I run happily".

Peter T. Daniels · Guest

On Jul 28, 12:33 pm, Larry Swain <gi...@poetic.com> wrote:
[quote]Helmut Richter wrote:
My own language does not make a strict distinction between adjectives
and adverbs; so I have a question of whether the result of an action
appears as adjective or adverb. Examples:

"shave smooth(ly)", ie. shave so that the result is smooth,
"tighten fast(ly)", ie. tighten so that the result is fast,
"paint red(ly)", ie. paint so that the result is red.

Neither, the result of an action is a noun. In your examples:

to shave smoothly--adverb, you are describing HOW to shave; in everyday
speech someone may say "I shave smooth", but the adjective form is
simply acting as an adverb there, and is grammatically incorrect though
meaning is conveyed. Contrast "a smooth shave" and "a smoothly shave";
or a smooth shave vs. a shave smoothly done.
[/quote]
The skillful barber shaved the customer>s cheek as smooth as a baby>s
bottom.

The skillful barber shaved the customer>s cheek as smoothly as the
skilled carpenter planed the mahogany board.

[quote]to tighten fast-- the form "fast" may operate as an adjective or an
adverb; here as an adverb since it describes HOW the tightening is done
(coompare the adjective quick with the adverbial form quickly. Fast
Eddy, Eddy is fast, Eddy runs fast vs. Quick Eddy, Eddy is quick, Eddy
runs QUICKLY)
[/quote]
I believe Helmut was using the rare form "fast" as in "the barnacles
stick fast to the hull of the ship." As the confusion in the responses
has shown, this word is scarcely present in the consciousness of
English-speakers, and doubtless reflects the German cognate _fest_.

[quote]to paint red(ly)-red is never an adverb. Always an adjective or noun.
Here you have an unstated object: paint (it) red, paint red paint; but
"paint red" does not tell us HOW the painting is being done, but rather
something about the object of the verb, it answers WHAT Condition?

My feeling is that in English, the adjective form without -ly is used but
I am not sure. Is this right?

Often, English adverbs are formed from adjectives by the addition of
-ly, though not always.

Would the adjective form also be used in

other languages, eg. in French without -ment? Or in other languages,
provided that they have adjectives and adverbs and a distinction between
them?

As in English, so in many other Indo-European languages.

And, given there is a reasonable general definition of what constitutes an
adjective or an adverb (is there?), what would be a reason to call such
usage adjective or adverb?

Adverbs answer "how" an action is done, it modifies a verb; adjectives
answer "what state or condition" a noun is in; it modifies a noun,
pronoun.
[/quote]
"Adverb" as a part of speech for English was discarded by descriptive
linguists in the 1940s: in traditional grammar, it served as an
"elsewhere" category. (See Fries>s *American English Grammar* and *The
Structure of English*.)

Larry Swain · Guest

Helmut Richter wrote:
[quote]My own language does not make a strict distinction between adjectives
and adverbs; so I have a question of whether the result of an action
appears as adjective or adverb. Examples:

"shave smooth(ly)", ie. shave so that the result is smooth,
"tighten fast(ly)", ie. tighten so that the result is fast,
"paint red(ly)", ie. paint so that the result is red.
[/quote]
Neither, the result of an action is a noun. In your examples:

to shave smoothly--adverb, you are describing HOW to shave; in everyday
speech someone may say "I shave smooth", but the adjective form is
simply acting as an adverb there, and is grammatically incorrect though
meaning is conveyed. Contrast "a smooth shave" and "a smoothly shave";
or a smooth shave vs. a shave smoothly done.

to tighten fast-- the form "fast" may operate as an adjective or an
adverb; here as an adverb since it describes HOW the tightening is done
(coompare the adjective quick with the adverbial form quickly. Fast
Eddy, Eddy is fast, Eddy runs fast vs. Quick Eddy, Eddy is quick, Eddy
runs QUICKLY)

to paint red(ly)-red is never an adverb. Always an adjective or noun.
Here you have an unstated object: paint (it) red, paint red paint; but
"paint red" does not tell us HOW the painting is being done, but rather
something about the object of the verb, it answers WHAT Condition?

[quote]My feeling is that in English, the adjective form without -ly is used but
I am not sure. Is this right?
[/quote]
Often, English adverbs are formed from adjectives by the addition of
-ly, though not always.

Would the adjective form also be used in
[quote]other languages, eg. in French without -ment? Or in other languages,
provided that they have adjectives and adverbs and a distinction between
them?
[/quote]
As in English, so in many other Indo-European languages.

[quote]And, given there is a reasonable general definition of what constitutes an
adjective or an adverb (is there?), what would be a reason to call such
usage adjective or adverb?

[/quote]
Adverbs answer "how" an action is done, it modifies a verb; adjectives
answer "what state or condition" a noun is in; it modifies a noun,
pronoun.

António Marques · Guest

Helmut Richter wrote:
[quote]My own language does not make a strict distinction between adjectives
and adverbs; so I have a question of whether the result of an action
appears as adjective or adverb. Examples:

"shave smooth(ly)", ie. shave so that the result is smooth,
"tighten fast(ly)", ie. tighten so that the result is fast,
"paint red(ly)", ie. paint so that the result is red.

My feeling is that in English, the adjective form without -ly is used but
I am not sure. Is this right? Would the adjective form also be used in
other languages, eg. in French without -ment? Or in other languages,
provided that they have adjectives and adverbs and a distinction between
them?
[/quote]
Romance -mente is a *mood* adverb; it indicates how the action is
performed, not its result. E.g. 'paint black' = 'peindre en noir', not
'peindre noirment' - the latter would mean something like 'paint in a
somber state of mind' or 'paint using somber prime matter' (for
instance, in the figurative meaning 'paint a grim picture'; in this
case, the romance adverb may be construed as qualifying the result, but
in fact it>s qualifying the process/materials - say, words - involved -
and it>s only as the outcome of such a process that the result agrees,
itself, with the adverb).

Of course, this applies to romance. I have zilch idea on how other
languages work.

[quote]And, given there is a reasonable general definition of what constitutes an
adjective or an adverb (is there?), what would be a reason to call such
usage adjective or adverb?
--[/quote]
António Marques
--
This signature does not include a prefab parting phrase
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

Harlan Messinger · Guest

Helmut Richter wrote:
[quote]My own language does not make a strict distinction between adjectives
and adverbs; so I have a question of whether the result of an action
appears as adjective or adverb. Examples:

"shave smooth(ly)", ie. shave so that the result is smooth,
"tighten fast(ly)", ie. tighten so that the result is fast,
"paint red(ly)", ie. paint so that the result is red.
[/quote]
Well--there is no such thing as "fastly" or "redly" anyway. Color names
don>t really lend themselves to use as adverbs, and "fast" is unusual in
being its own adverb: "He runs fast." But more generally, the adjective
is called for in these situations.

"He shut the door tight."
"He pounded the sheet metal flat."
"He shouted himself hoarse."

Nathan Sanders · Guest

In article <5uadnUZZ_a8haRDVnZ2dnUVZ_sPinZ2d@comcast.com>,
Larry Swain <giles@poetic.com> wrote:

[quote]Helmut Richter wrote:
My own language does not make a strict distinction between adjectives
and adverbs; so I have a question of whether the result of an action
appears as adjective or adverb. Examples:

"shave smooth(ly)", ie. shave so that the result is smooth,
"tighten fast(ly)", ie. tighten so that the result is fast,
"paint red(ly)", ie. paint so that the result is red.

Neither, the result of an action is a noun. In your examples:

to shave smoothly--adverb, you are describing HOW to shave
[/quote]
I think Helmut might be asking about what syntacticians call
resultatives. For shave, it would be something like "shave your face
smooth", in parallel to "paint the wall red".

I agree that non-resultative "shave smooth", without an overt direct
object, would be ungrammatical in standard English (though I freely
use adjectives as adverbs, so it>s fine for me).

Nathan

--
Nathan Sanders
Linguistics Program
Williams College
http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/

Bart Mathias · Guest

ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com wrote:
[quote]On Jul 28, 10:57 am, Helmut Richter <hh...@web.de> wrote:
My own language does not make a strict distinction between adjectives
and adverbs;

Mine does, but does English?
Malayalam "I happily be" (literal translation) has to be reworded as
"I am happy" in a translation to English.

Is "I am happy" short for "I am a happy person"? If not, why is an
adjective (rather than an adverb) used with the verb "am"? In
contrast, when the verb is "run", one doesn>t say "I run happy"; one
says "I run happily".
[/quote]
Might depend on who "one" is. I can imagine myself running happy.

As for the "am" case, since I have usually restricted my public
appearances as a "linguist" to Japanese (which might match Malayalam in
this case), I>ve been able to handle that privately by classifying
"happy" in "I am happy" as the verbal, and "am" as an auxiliary. (Cf.
near-English "Me happy.")

Bart Mathias

Ron Hardin · Guest

Helmut Richter wrote:
[quote]
My own language does not make a strict distinction between adjectives
and adverbs; so I have a question of whether the result of an action
appears as adjective or adverb. Examples:

"shave smooth(ly)", ie. shave so that the result is smooth,
"tighten fast(ly)", ie. tighten so that the result is fast,
"paint red(ly)", ie. paint so that the result is red.
[/quote]
It>s an adjective phrase as verb complement, felt as an adjective of
result (object sometimes omitted).

Bring the child up healthy.
Return the letter unopened.
Serve the food hot.
Sell the car cheap.
Boil the egg soft.
Crop the hair short.
Paint the room red.
Roll the dough flat.
Sweep the floor clean.

(Quirk Greenbaum Leech and Svartvik 16.45)
--
rhhardin@mindspring.com

On the internet, nobody knows you>re a jerk.

mb · Guest

On Jul 29, 12:52 am, "aslan" <aslanski2...@yahoo.com> wrote:

[quote]Neither does my language (Turkish). There is no strict distinction between
adjectives and adverbs in Turkish.
[/quote]
As you realize, that statement is very relative and does not applies
to all cases (as also in German). Both languages have separate
categories for words qualifying nouns and others qualifying verbs,
with a largish pool of at least morphologically identical words doing
double function.

[quote]Examples:

iyi = good or well

HIZLI = fast
[/quote]
çabuk = fast

[quote]HIZLI araba = fast car
[/quote]
*çabuk araba = impossible construction, çabuk only usable with a verb

[quote]HIZLI sürmek = to drive fast
[/quote]
çabuk sürmek = to drive fast

aslan · Guest

"Helmut Richter" <hhr-m@web.de>, iletisinde sunu yazdi,
news:Pine.LNX.4.64.0807281747110.1384@lxhri01.lrz.lrz-muenchen.de...
[quote]My own language does not make a strict distinction between adjectives
and adverbs; so I have a question of whether the result of an action
appears as adjective or adverb. Examples:

"shave smooth(ly)", ie. shave so that the result is smooth,
"tighten fast(ly)", ie. tighten so that the result is fast,
"paint red(ly)", ie. paint so that the result is red.

My feeling is that in English, the adjective form without -ly is used but
I am not sure. Is this right? Would the adjective form also be used in
other languages, eg. in French without -ment? Or in other languages,
provided that they have adjectives and adverbs and a distinction between
them?

And, given there is a reasonable general definition of what constitutes an
adjective or an adverb (is there?), what would be a reason to call such
usage adjective or adverb?

--
Helmut Richter
[/quote]
Neither does my language (Turkish). There is no strict distinction between
adjectives and adverbs in Turkish.

Examples:

iyi = good or well
*iyi* adam = *good* man
*iyi* bilmek = to know *well*

and see the following, it may mean different things depending on whether it
is used as an adjective or adverb;

HIZLI = fast
HIZLI araba = fast car
HIZLI sürmek = to drive fast
HIZLI (araba sürmek) = (to drive a car) fast (an adverb modifying "araba
sürmek" = to drive a car)
or
(HIZLI araba) sürmek = to drive (a fast car) (an adjective modifying
"araba"=car; "HIZLI araba" = a fast car)

--

Aslan

Trond Engen · Guest

Hei.

Ron Hardin skreiv:

[quote]Helmut Richter wrote:

My own language does not make a strict distinction between
adjectives and adverbs; so I have a question of whether the result
of an action appears as adjective or adverb. Examples:

"shave smooth(ly)", ie. shave so that the result is smooth,
"tighten fast(ly)", ie. tighten so that the result is fast,
"paint red(ly)", ie. paint so that the result is red.

It>s an adjective phrase as verb complement, felt as an adjective of
result (object sometimes omitted).

Bring the child up healthy.
[/quote]
OK.

[quote]Return the letter unopened.
Serve the food hot.
[/quote]
These are not resultatives. There>s a "while", not an "until".

[quote]Sell the car cheap.
[/quote]
Probably the same as above, but it really feels adverbal to me.

[quote]Boil the egg soft.
Crop the hair short.
Paint the room red.
Roll the dough flat.
Sweep the floor clean.
[/quote]
OK.

[quote](Quirk Greenbaum Leech and Svartvik 16.45)
[/quote]
--
Trond Engen
- being a leech on the quirks of English grammar.
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

Trond Engen · Guest

Hei.

Bart Mathias skreiv:

[quote]ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com wrote:
On Jul 28, 10:57 am, Helmut Richter <hh...@web.de> wrote:
My own language does not make a strict distinction between adjectives
and adverbs;

Mine does, but does English?
Malayalam "I happily be" (literal translation) has to be reworded as
"I am happy" in a translation to English.

Is "I am happy" short for "I am a happy person"? If not, why is an
adjective (rather than an adverb) used with the verb "am"? In
contrast, when the verb is "run", one doesn>t say "I run happy"; one
says "I run happily".

Might depend on who "one" is. I can imagine myself running happy.

As for the "am" case, since I have usually restricted my public
appearances as a "linguist" to Japanese (which might match Malayalam
in this case), I>ve been able to handle that privately by classifying
"happy" in "I am happy" as the verbal, and "am" as an auxiliary. (Cf.
near-English "Me happy.")
[/quote]
My thought was that the malayalam, and now the Japanese, verb is felt to
be less void of semantic content (or that it has been until recently).
Thus something like "I exist happily". I don>t have Routledge>s "The
Celtic languages" with me, so I can>t check the details, but I remember
reading just a few days ago that in cases where the existencial form of
"to be", rather than the semantically void copula, is used with a
predicate, which is a trend in the current language, there>s a tendency
to add a prefix to the adjective identical to the adverbial prefix.

--
Trond Engen
- comparative non-linguist on languages he doesn>t know
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

aslan · Guest

[quote]Examples:

iyi = good or well

HIZLI = fast
[/quote]
çabuk = fast

[quote]HIZLI araba = fast car
[/quote]
*çabuk araba = impossible construction, çabuk only usable with a verb

[quote]HIZLI sürmek = to drive fast
[/quote]
çabuk sürmek = to drive fast

***

I don>t understand your point. You mean HIZLI doesn>t mean fast or are you
trying to show that my example is not good or correct?

mb · Guest

On Jul 29, 2:39 am, "aslan" <aslanski2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
[quote]Examples:

iyi = good or well
HIZLI = fast

çabuk = fast

HIZLI araba = fast car

*çabuk araba = impossible construction, çabuk only usable with a verb

HIZLI sürmek = to drive fast

çabuk sürmek = to drive fast

***

I don>t understand your point. You mean HIZLI doesn>t mean fast or are you
trying to show that my example is not good or correct?
[/quote]
The point is related, as said, to your response to Richter>s
statement. This example illustrates the fact that there is no full
confluence of adjective and adverb in Turkish.


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