Talk:English adjectives

Self citation
I have cited A student's introduction to English grammar, of which I am the third author. In doing so, I believe I have followed Wikipedia policy on self citation.--Brett (talk) 16:19, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Determinwhatnots
I look forward to giving this article its long-awaited review. Before doing so, however, I'd like to ask about one point -- and perhaps suggest the kind of change that probably isn't part of a GA reviewer's job. I hope that it's not improper for me to bring it up here.

As I read through the article its major components seemed very much in accordance with The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (2002). Fine with me: CamGEL is, I think, generally regarded as the most authoritative reference grammar of Late Modern Standard English. (This doesn't mean that I think other viewpoints should be excluded.) But something jarred: determinative was used for the function, and determiner for the category -- the exact reverse of CamGEL's terminology. I believe that this is what A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (1985) does, though I don't have immediate access to a copy right now and can't check. If it does indeed put them this way around, well, ComGEL was a major achievement in its day, but it has been eclipsed. And its terminology for the pair strikes me as perverse -- particularly as it was published at around the same time as Huddleston's English Grammar: An Outline (Cambridge UP, 1988), which clearly differentiates between the two terms: determinative for the category (p.32) and determiner for the function (p.86).

Is there some reason for the use in this article of determinative for the function and determiner for the category? -- Hoary (talk) 13:02, 21 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I think what you say is true, and my personal preference is to follow CamGEL. Nevertheless, that is very much the minority position. Most of linguistics uses determiner as the label for a lexical category and determinative not at all. This is also the practice in most dictionaries, including the OED, the LDOCE, and the English and Simple English Wiktionaries. There is also an article about English determiners, which is about the lexical category. Brett (talk) 16:10, 22 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Ahhh. Confession: When I wrote the above, I hadn't even glanced at the article English determiners. And it had been a very long time since I'd last looked at any article on English grammar. They all seemed to be junk, cobbled together by well-meaning editors from what they regarded as mainstream grammatical conceptualizing, as it has been faithfully and uncritically passed on from generation to generation of "grammarian". Back then, I thought for a few moments about trying to bring matters up to date but realized that I'd be up against a consensus of editors armed with Reliable Sources, and I decided that life was too short. Unrelated to that, for a few weeks I'd been thinking of doing a GA review (for the first time, to the best of my memory), and noticed that English Adjectives was among the short list of candidates that had been waiting for months. Fearing the worst, I took a look, and was delighted to see that it was utterly different from what I'd expected. I read it quickly, wrote the above, and only then realized that you had already transformed the articles on the other word categories into solid surveys. Excellent! ¶ Well, in the short term, "determiner" will be the category and "determinative" the function -- even though this still seems perverse to me. Perhaps we can discuss the matter a little later. -- Hoary (talk) 00:47, 23 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Revising the English lexical categories has been bit of a project of mine over the last few years, but I must say that has been instrumental in getting them to this point, and reviewers have been unfailingly helpful too. And once we've brought them to a certain point, they've been surprisingly stable. I haven't yet worked up the motivation to tackle verbs though. ¶ As for "determiner", it's just a terminological choice. Best to let it go, I think. Thank you, by the way, for taking on this review.Brett (talk) 13:12, 23 September 2022 (UTC)


 * , I'm loath to let it go, but I'll do so, for a time. Now, if you could respond to my comments, that would be most welcome. Of course you are (and  is) free to reject any of them, and indeed I'd be surprised if there were no duds among them. Rejections would not need elaborate justifications. (Sooner would be better; but as you've had to wait months for a review, you've surely earned a freedom from obligation to respond quickly.) Once I have your response, I'll move on to the next stage, which I imagine will be simple and fast. -- Hoary (talk) 04:48, 24 September 2022 (UTC) PS I misimagined. I'm now mid-stage. However, I expect that the next stage will be the final one, and that it will be easy. -- Hoary (talk) 12:26, 26 September 2022 (UTC)