Structural and semantic features of adjectives across languages and registers

Abstract

Abstract This study focuses on the seemingly simple grammatical category of adjectives. However, the framework adopted for analysing adjectives from both a cross-linguistic and a cross-register perspective highlights features of grammatical complexity within phrases as well as contrastive complexity within and across languages and registers. Using English-Norwegian comparable data from the fictional sub-registers of narrative and dialogue, the analysis uncovers both similarities and differences in the structural and semantic features of adjectives. Most notable is perhaps the impact of register at all levels of analysis, including adjectival function (attributive vs. predicative), the degree of phrase complexity and semantic class. The contrastive analysis proper, i.e. comparing adjective use across languages, reveals that English and Norwegian have more in common within each sub-register than across them. For example, the lexico-grammatical behaviour of adjectives in English narrative has more in common with Norwegian narrative than it has with English dialogue. To the extent that there are clear general differences between English and Norwegian, these are mainly found in the proportions and preferences of a few specific features.