Re: Adjectives, Adverbs, Ad...

Carsten wrote:

<<This question might sound a little stupid, but I wonder if there can be
more
ad- things than just adjectives and adverbs. Or: Can other parts of speech
also be described in the way adjectives describe the noun and adverbs
describe verbs? Well, ad-adjective would be quantifiers like "a little",
"much" etc., but these are treated as modal adverbs of degree and measure
(word?), aren't they? At least that's what I learned in school.>>

To try to answer your first question, since there's been many answers to your
second, yes.

In English, we have what I would call an appreposition (that's how that
assimilation works, right?), and it's "right".   So...

I threw it in the trash.
I threw it *right* in the trash.

In some dialects, this can modify other adverbs, as in, "I left right quick",
but that it can modify a preposition is fairly universal (?) in the English
speaking world.   It's pragmatic function, spatially, is to denote exactness of
the place denoted by the preposition.   In the temporaral realm, it specifies
"right-now-ness".   This is the only one we have in English (maybe "just"
too?   Maybe only with temporal readings...), but you can easily imagine more in
another language.   So, in a language of mine, Epiq, postpositions can
actually be declined like nouns.   They have three different cases, which I'll
illustrate as follows:

ultaj m@   /house-DAT. in-POS./ = "on the house"
ultaj mo /house-DAT. in-NEG./ = "not on the house"
ultaj m@T /house-DAT. in-DEM./ = "halfway on the house" or "lying off of the
house (so his feet hang down)"

Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I could have even more than that.
Hmmm...

Anyway, the point is that adverbs indicate the degree of the quality of the
adjective, or the manner or degree of intensity of the verb.   Appreposotions
(or appostpositions, or whatever) indicate the degree of exactness of location
indicated by the prep/postposition, or the degree of exactness of the time
when talking about temporal prepositions.

So, can you have adnouns?   You bet.   Why not?   Unlike adjectives, though,
adnouns would indicate the degree of legitimacy.   These kinds of things occur
as morphemes in Siglit (an Eskimo language), but they're no stranger to
English.   So, consider...

That's a dog.
That's not a *real* dog; it's just a chiuaua.
Chiuaua's are *actual* dogs!
I'd say they're just *kind of* dogs.
Say what you like, but that's a *fake* dog: It's just a statue.

"Dog" probably isn't the best example to use here, but I can't think of a
good one off the top of my head...   Anyone, these function as either adjectives
or adverbs in English, but their function is to indicate the degree of
category membership.   So, for example, a sparrow or a robin are real birds; a good
example of what a bird is.   What about a kiwi that doesn't fly?   Or a
penguin?   Or an ostrich?   Adnouns (if you want to call them that) are what would
indicate just how prototypical a noun is in a category.   Ooh!   A good example
is with abstract art.

Say you're looking at a Picasso (his later work, of course) of a woman, with
the traditional split face.

A: "What *is* that?"
B: "It's a picutre of a woman."
A: "That's not a *real* picture of a woman.   That is."   (Pointing to a
realist artist's rendition of a woman.)
B: "They're both *legitimate*."

So those would be kind of adnouns.   Are there any others...?
Adconjunctions?   I'll leave that up to a logician.   Actually, I think that's about it,
unless you want to get into syntactic categories like T, AGR, C, etc. (and I
don't).

-David

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