Adjectives

In English or Greek, an adjective's meaning cannot extend beyond its noun's semantic range.

Thoughts?

 

I'm not talking about the semantic range of the noun that it modifies, but the noun from which it originates.

For example, "That blue car is bluer than the other blue car" would not indicate that the car is red. "The quick brown fox..." would not be referring to a slow silver fox.

But, "the blue car is faster than the red car" would tell you which car is faster, but using an adjective to describe it, and if the cars were green and yellow, it would make no sense.

 

In such cases, the noun is implied, but not present. "Innocent people"; "guilty people".

As far as "blue" goes, I was being intentionally vague, as I'm trying to get thoughts without too much input on my part. There may also be a rule of which I'm unaware that permits and adjective to exceed the bounds of the semantic range of the noun.

 

c.1300, "of or belonging to home or household, domestic," from M.E. hom "home." Sense of "plain, unadorned, simple" is c.1380, and extension to "having a plain appearance" took place before 1400, but now survives chiefly in U.S., esp. in New England, where it is the usual term for "physically unattractive;" ugly being typically "ill-tempered."

 

So, the adjective "homely" does not exceed the semantic bounds of the noun from which it is derived, but people in a localized area (that is probably spreading) have changed the meaning of the adjective.

Others?

 

Properly, no. Idiomatically, yes. However, the dictionary points out that it is a localized idiomatic usage to mean "ugly".

lovely
O.E. luflic "affectionate, loveable," the modern sense of "lovable on account of beauty, attractive" is from c.1300, "applied indiscriminately to all pleasing material objects, from a piece of plum-cake to a Gothic cathedral" [Marsh].

 

So, would it be safe to say that when used properly (as originally used), adjectives don't exceed the semantic bounds of the noun, but when misused (and when that misuse spreads), then the adjectives have changed meaning completely?

If so, how do we determine the meaning of the adjective?

(This brings to mind other discussions about words that were not vulgar, but have developed into something vulgar, often within the past 30 or 40 years, even when the word has been around for hundreds of years.)

For example, when used as an adjective, "blue" could not describe a red car. "Lovely", could not be a negative, except for tonal inflection or contextual usage that would make it mean the opposite of what is being said. For example, "That mess is lovely." Would mean the opposite, but that is a "lovely" dress would be positive. ("Love" has more than one meaning in English, btw, and saying that something is "lovely" does not have a meaning in "love" the emotion.)

"Gritty", which has two meanings, both of which derive from the word "grit", which also has multiple meanings, does not exceed the bounds of the noun "grit". "Grit" means "pluck or spirit", in the one sense. In the other, "gritty" is idiomatically used to mean "unpleasant" as in the sensation of eating gritty bread. So, in either case, does the adjective exceed the semantic bounds of the noun, although we have to determine which one from the context?

"Steamy" is interesting in that it derived from "steam" as in "scent or odor".

"Crafty" is from "craft", which meant "power or strength", shifted to mean "skill or art", which degenerated "crafty" into "sly" because of the "skill" aspect of it.

 

Well, I've been reading etymological dictionaries here lately, and I missed that one. That really is interesting.

One thing that I find interesting is when different adjectives come from a word with two meanings, then the meanings become intertwined.

Also, some words get changed through the use of sarcasm.

Some words are simply introduced. An example of this that I came across recently is the word "green". It's an adjective that is used to mean "good", and it was introduced artificially into English from a movie.

So, how do we determine the meaning of adjectives, when they exceed (or completely ignore) the semantic range of the nouns from which they are derived?