adjunct
This term has been used very
differently by a number of linguists. Its most general definition is that an adjunct is the sentence unit which is
not the subject, not the predicate, not the object and not the complement:
S→(A) (Sub) Pred (Obj) (Comp)
(A)
It is an
optional element in a sentence, optional in that the sentence is still
grammatical without it. Thus, in the sentence:
Yesterday he
arrived at noon.
we have two
adjuncts: ‘yesterday’ and ‘at noon’, both of which can be deleted, leaving the
grammatically acceptable:
He arrived.
Adverbials are
the commonest adjuncts in English but some scholars have also classified
attributive adjectives and vocatives as adjuncts. It is certainly true that:
Where did you
put that big red pen, John?
can function as
an acceptable sentence with the adjectives and ‘John’ removed:
Where did you
put that pen?
See: adverb,
modifier, sentence.
adverb
Adverbs are often morphological variants of adjectives:
absolute absolutely beautiful beautifully exceptional exceptionally
but, whereas
adjectives modify nominals, adverbs modify verbs:
She sang beautifully.
adjectives:
He’s a happily married man.
other adverbs:
They both ran exceptionally quickly.
preposition phrases:
We were absolutely out of our depth.
and sentences:
Interestingly, I wouldn’t have noticed the
mistake if she hadn’t drawn my attention to it.
Like adjectives, adverbs have
comparative and superlative forms:
quickly more
quickly most quickly
and several words can
function both as adjectives and adverbs. The most frequently occurring items in
this category are: cheap, clean, dead (=completely),
easy, fast, fine, free (=without
paying), hard, high, just (=recently),
late (=not in time), loud, low, pretty, quick, real (=very), sharp (=punctually), slow, straight, sure (=certainly), well, wide and wrong.
Adverbs are among the most mobile elements in a sentence and can occur
in three positions:
1 at the
beginning:
Suddenly I understood
what it meant.
2 in the
middle:
He was suddenly aware of the difference.
3 at the
end:
She left very suddenly.
As we might expect, however,
not all adverbs can occur in all positions. The adverbs that are most likely to
occur in initial position are discourse
markers such as actually,
alternatively, briefly, finally, however, perhaps, unfortunately; adverbs
of time such as today, yesterday; adverbs
of frequency such as occasionally,
sometimes. In literary style and for emphasis we often foreground adverbs:
Ah distinctly I remember… Gently does it.
When adverbs occur in the middle
of a sentence, they precede all verbs except
auxiliaries:
I usually go
there after work.
He invariably
thinks he’s right.
I’m usually exhausted after jogging. I can usually spot the winner.
They can, however, precede
auxiliaries, especially in speech, if extra emphasis is required:
I really do try hard.
Adverbial phrases and clauses
function like adverbs with the exception that they normally occur at the
beginning or the end of a sentence:
After three days I decided to
forget what had happened.
When he arrived we were all
delighted. He visits us from time to
time.
I can’t make it on Tuesday.
The tendency to use adjectives
as adverbs as in:
He talks real nice.
has been so frequently stigmatised
that many speakers hypercorrect by using inappropriate ‘-ly’ forms such as:
more importantly thusly
See: adjective, comparison of adjectives and adverbs, foregrounding, hypercorrection, sentence.
affinity
The term affinity implies a relationship between two items and collocates
with the prepositions between and with:
There is a
marked affinity between adjectives
and adverbs.
John has a certain affinity with most people.
The use of affinity with for is limited to scientific
English when a substance is said to have an affinity for another if it
unites easily with it. The use of for in
non-scientific English is regarded as incorrect.
affirmative
Sentences are often
classified as being declarative,
imperative and interrogative with
all three being capable of occurring in the affirmative:
I love Paris.
Go away.
Are you tired?
or negative:
I don’t love Paris.
Don’t go away.
Aren’t you tired?/Are you
not tired?
Occasionally, to avoid misunderstanding, the words affirmative and negative replace
yes
and no:
Q. Are the
burglars still in the house? A. Affirmative.
Q. Can you see
the runway? A. Negative.
affix
Affix derives
from Latin affixare, meaning ‘attach
to’, and it comprehends prefixes, that
is morphemes which are attached to
the beginning of a word:
un+fair→unfair
suffixes, that is morphemes which are
attached to the end of a word:
fright+ful→frightful
and infixes,
that is morphemes which can be fitted into a word. In English, prefixes and
suffixes occur frequently but infixes are limited to a number of disyllabic
words, such as bloody, blooming (and
their more taboo equivalents) which can be slotted into polysyllabic words
directly in front of the main stress:
abso'lutely+bloody→absobloodylutely inter'national+blooming→interbloomingnational
Prefixes are morphemes like anti-, de-, dis-, ex-, in- (il-/im-/ir-),
re-, un- which can precede words, modifying their meaning. The majority are
of Latin origin and they can affect the meaning of the root word in terms of
direction:
contra+flow→contraflow
retro+rockets→retrorockets
negation:
in+edible→inedible in+legal→illegal
quality/degree:
quasi+official→quasi-official semi+circle→semicircle
and quantity:
multi+national→multinational poly+syllabic→polysyllabic
Suffixes are morphemes like -en, -er, -ing, -ise/ize, -ly, -less, -ling, -ness which can follow
words and modify their meaning:
dark+en→darken
duck+ling→duckling
The majority of suffixes in
English are Anglo-Saxon in origin and whereas prefixes tend not to change the
word class:
pro+create (verb)→procreate (verb)
un+happy (adj)→unhappy (adj)
suffixes are often associated
with word-class changes:
legal (adj)+ise→legalise (verb)
ugly (adj)+ness→ugliness
(noun) Words can have two or more prefixes:
unprepossessing
and
two or more suffixes:
hatefulness
and occasionally two or more
prefixes and suffixes as in:
antidisestablishmentarianism
See: derivation, morpheme, prefix, suffix,
word formation.
African English
It is estimated
that there are approximately five thousand languages in the world, at least
half of which are found in Africa. Africa is thus the most multilingual
continent and no brief summary could possibly do full justice to the variety of
languages found there nor to the numerous influences to which English has been
exposed.
It is possible, however, to divide the continent into six main areas,
each of which has a continuum of Englishes:
1 Central
Africa
2
East Africa
3
North Africa
4
South Africa
5
Southern Africa
6 West
Africa
See: Central African English, East African English, North African
English, South African English, Southern African English, West African English.
age
Generally, a
person’s age is expressed according
to the conventions that apply to numbers.
There are some differences, however. When the age is given predicatively, words
are used:
She is
twenty-one.
She is twenty-one years old.
the first being
preferred in the UK and the second in the USA. When the age is given
attributively, the elements are hyphenated and, to avoid excessive hyphenation,
numbers are often preferred:
The twenty-one-year-old girl was appointed.
The 21-year-old girl was appointed.
See: numbers.
agent
This term relates to the
instigator of the action or the state indicated by the predicate in a
sentence:
John broke the window.
The dog ate the model plane.
The wind tore up the trees.
Normally the agent is animate, as in the first two
examples, but occasionally, especially when natural phenomena like drought,
hurricanes and floods are concerned, inanimate agents occur. In active
sentences, the agent is often the subject.
We can see whether or not the subject is the agent by passivising the sentence.
If we look at two sentences which appear similar:
John opened the
door.
The key opened the door.
we notice that the passive
versions differ:
The door was
opened by John.
The door was opened with the key.
revealing that
‘John’ was the agent whereas ‘the key’ was the instrument with which the door
was opened.
See: active voice,
case grammar, ergative, passive voice.
aggravate
Etymologically
aggravate means ‘increase the gravity
of, make worse’ as in:
The dismal
weather aggravated his low spirits.
and
linguistic purists have argued that
its colloquial meaning of ‘annoy, irritate’ as in:
The loud music
really aggravated me.
should be
avoided.
It is difficult to assess why people who criticise the shift of aggravate from ‘make worse’ to ‘annoy’
do not condemn the change of meaning of prevent
from ‘come before’ to ‘inhibit’ or the change of regiment from ‘government’ to ‘troop’. Purists tend to overlook the
fact that meaning changes are inevitable in a language and that no amount of
dogmatic assertion will prevent them. Since few people argue that silly should still mean ‘holy’, for
example, we have to look for another reason why purists insist on the fossilisation
of a number of favoured words (e.g. jejune,
mutual, nice, presume). Perhaps the insistence on
etymology is related less to a desire for ‘good English’ than to the exclusion
of some users from the elite circle of what the Times of London called ‘proper users of English’.
There is a distinction to be made between natural meaning change and
inaccurate or imprecise use of language.
