Tham khảo tài liệu 'the grammar book teacher course part 57', ngoại ngữ, ngữ pháp tiếng anh phục vụ nhu cầu học tập, nghiên cứu và làm việc hiệu quả | Chapter 20 Adjectives 391 Polarity Earlier in Chapter 10 we spoke of adjectives of negative and positive polarity. Polarity merely refers to positive and negative contrasts in a language. Thus adjectives can be paired by contrasting poles Positive Polarity unmarked big old old long good hard East tall wide high loud rough Negative Polarity marked small little young new short bad soft slow short narrow low quiet smooth The adjectives with positive polarity are unmarked because they are used more frequently in a given language learned earlier by children and used in neutral contexts such as How old are you The adjectives of negative polarity on the other hand are marked meaning that they are less frequently used being reserved for unusual contexts. You say that your daughter is too young to pay full fare. Just how young is she Notice the asymmetry is also displayed in answers to questions with adjectives of different polarity. How old are you J erX - unmarked I Very young. How young are you I ery - marked I Very young. We say more about the polarity of adjectives in the discussion of comparisons. Gradability Earlier in this chapter we suggested that the intensifier test could be used to test to see if a participle was acting as a verb or adjective. In fact many adjectives can be placed on a continuum of intensity with the intensity increasing or decreasing depending on the intensifier chosen. less intense more intense somewhat rare rare quite rare very rare extremely rare While this works well for many adjectives not all adjectives can be so modified. Some adjectives in fact are not gradable such as the following 592 The Grammar Book 1. Reference adjectives The very former senator from the state of Washington The very symphonic concert 2. Adjectives with an absolute meaning A very alternative way of looking at the matter 3. Adjectives of nationality She is very Scottish. We can say of course She is very Scottish if we are referring to some aspect of her behavior such
