Abstract:

This paper reports a study concerned with finding examples used in ordinary everyday English of nouns derived from adjectives through the word-formation process of conversion. The study involved, in the main, a close examination for common adjective-derived noun headwords of two first-rate learner's dictionaries: Hornby's Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English (edited by Wehmeier (2000)) and Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary (edited by Sinclair (1987)). The examples collected in the course of the study are, for the most part, listed in the paper according to semantic subclasses determined by the kinds of general meanings (e.g.: "ADJECTIVE person", "Person with ADJECTIVE beliefs, views, or attitudes", etc) which the nouns are formed from the adjective bases to express. It is expected that the examples will prove of some value in the teaching of the English vocabulary in second or foreign language situations.

Key Words
nouns derived from adjectives by conversion, adjective-derived nouns, semantic subclasses of adjective-derived nouns

1. INTRODUCTION

This paper is actually the report of a study aimed at finding as many examples as possible of nouns used in ordinary everyday English which are derived from adjectives through the process of conversion. The examples were originally required for a section in a teaching text on the English vocabulary that was intended for learners in second or foreign language situations.

As is well known, conversion is the word-formation process whereby a lexical item is simply converted or adapted from one grammatical class to another without an affix. For example, we can talk of the conversion of the adjective daily (as in: "We read it in a daily newspaper") to the noun daily (as in: "We read it in a daily"). That the two instances of the word daily (the base adjective and the derived noun ) belong to two different grammatical classes is only clear from the fact that they are used in different sentence positions. In English, conversion is indeed an important word- formation process, and adjective-noun conversion is one of its main categories (see, e.g.: Francis, 1967; Strang, 1967; Marchand, 1969; Adams, 1973; and Quirk et al., 1985).

2. THE STUDY

The study involved a close examination for nouns derived from adjectives by conversion of two widely acclaimed learner's dictionaries: Hornby's Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English (edited by Wehmeier (2000)) and Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary (edited by Sinclair (1987)). These are dictionaries that generally indicate which headwords are adjectives and then, where appropriate, which are nouns derived from the adjectives by conversion.

However, it was not always clear from the dictionaries whether the adjective or the noun should be taken as the base, while the other member of the pair was to be regarded as the derived item. This problem often arose where the noun (rather than the adjective) is listed first in one or both of the dictionaries. For instance, in both dictionaries the noun agnostic is listed before the adjective agnostic; and in one of the dictionaries the noun adhesive is listed before the adjective adhesive, while it is only in the other that it is listed first as an adjective. It was eventually decided to take the adjective as the base (from which the noun is derived) in dealing with items like agnostic and adhesive if the pairs have such typically adjectival endings as -ic and -ive (cf: Adams, 1973: 18; Close, 1975: 151). But, in general, it was decided to leave out any adjective/noun pairs for which we had no way of resolving problems relating to the direction of the conversion.

To enhance the usefulness of our examples of adjective-derived nouns from the two dictionaries, we went on to try and divide them up as much as possible into semantic subclasses on the basis of the kinds of meaning particular adjectives are converted to nouns to express. For example, the adjectives adolescent and fugitive are converted to the nouns adolescent and fugitive respectively to express the meaning "ADJECTIVE [i.e. : adolescent/fugitive/…] person", and so they were put in the semantic subclass "ADJECTIVE person"; the adjectives agnostic and radical are converted to the nouns agnostic and radical respectively with the meaning "person with ADJECTIVE [i.e. : agnostic/radical…] beliefs, views or attitudes", and they went into the semantic subclass "Person with ADJECTIVE beliefs, views, or attitudes"; etc.

Lastly, it was necessary to leave out some of the adjective-derived nouns found in the dictionaries because they were considered rather uncommon or technical (e.g.: agoraphobic, paranoiac/paranoid, schizophrenic, psychic, bourgeois, prophylactic, emetic, demonstrative (from Linguistics)).

3. THE FINDINGS

In A - M below, our examples from the data are listed according to the various semantic subclasses of adjective-derived nouns in English that we could establish. The number of examples listed for each subclass is roughly proportionate to the total number of the examples of adjective-derived nouns in the subclass which we could take from the data. Thus the number of examples listed for a particular subclass may be taken as a rough measure of the importance of the subclass (i.e. of the extent to which the related adjective-noun conversion pattern may be said to be productive) in non-technical, everyday English - with the more important subclasses having more examples and the less important fewer examples. In cases where an example is a noun with more than one quite distinct meaning, it will be found listed for more than one subclass (e.g.: the noun Chinese is listed for "The ADJECTIVE language" and "Person of ADJECTIVE nationality or origin").

However, there are some other examples that we did not really succeed in sorting into any of the semantic subclasses. This miscellany of adjective-derived nouns we list together at the end, in N below. It will be noticed that some of the items in this case appear more than once in the list (e.g.: international, single) as they express more than one distinct meaning.

A. ADJECTIVE person

adolescent .......................delinquent..................... intellectual
alien................................. fugitive......................... itinerant
ascetic.............................. homosexual.................. junior
bilingual............................ hopeful .........................notable
black ................................illiterate.........................prodigal
celibate............................. imbecile .......................senior
clairvoyant........................ inferior .........................superior
contemporary.................... innocent....................... white

B. Person with ADJECTIVE beliefs, views, or attitudes

agnostic....................... liberal .............................revolutionary
authoritarian ................militant ............................romantic
conservative ................moderate........................ subversive
deviant........................ neutral .............................utopian
egalitarian ....................progressive
independent................. radical

C. Person having the disease or condition of being ADJECTIVE

alcoholic ........................epileptic ...........................paralytic
asthmatic........................ lunatic ............................rheumatic
consumptive.................... melancholic
diabetic ...........................neurotic

D. ADJECTIVE person or thing

female ..............................opposite........................ possible
male................................. indispensable

E. ADJECTIVE thing or substance

eatable (usually plural)......... liquid ................................solid
edible (usually plural)........... necessary (usually plural)... synthetic
equivalent ...........................perishable (usually plural)....valuable(usually plural)
hybrid .................................plastic

F. Medicine or some other substance with ADJECTIVE properties

abrasive ................cosmetic ................purgative
absorbent ..............contraceptive.......... restorative
adhesive ................laxative.................. sedative
antibiotic ...............narcotic ..................solvent
antiseptic ..............palliative

G. ADJECTIVE colour

black .....................grey....................... yellow
blue .......................pink .......................white
brown.................... purple
green..................... red

H. ADJECTIVE publication

annual ...................comic ....................periodical
bi-monthly .............daily ......................quarterly
bi-weekly ..............monthly ..................weekly
We may also mention here the related minor subclass of "ADJECTIVE plant" with annual, biennial and perennial as the usual members.

I. ADJECTIVE stage in a competition

preliminary ............quarterfinal ................semi-final ...................final
These nouns are often used in the plural.

J. Member of the ADJECTIVE religion or sect

Anglican........................ Episcopalian ........................Wesleyan
Catholic......................... Methodist ...........................Muslim
Christian........................ Protestant

K. Person of ADJECTIVE nationality or origin

African .............................Egyptian ............................Japanese
Algerian............................ European.......................... Nigerian
American ..........................Finnish ..............................Norwegian
Australian .........................German .............................Pakistani
Arab ................................Ghanaian............................ Russian
Brazilian........................... Greek................................ Singaporean
Canadian.......................... Indian................................ Swiss
Chinese............................ Italian ...............................Yugoslavian/Yugoslav
Czech.............................. Iraqi

The nouns in this subclass are usually used to refer to natives or citizens of the nations (or continents) from whose names the base adjectives have been formed (often by affixation). The base adjectives, however, do not normally indicate qualities, but things belonging or relating to, or originating from, such nations (or continents) (as in: Egyptian books, Indian politics, Japanese cars, etc). It is also to be noted that Frenchman/Frenchwoman and Englishman/Englishwoman are used to refer to a man/woman who is a native or citizen of France and England respectively; and the French and the English are used, respectively, to refer to the French people and the English people collectively.

L. The ADJECTIVE language
Arabic.............................. Greek.......................... Polish
Chinese............................ Hindi........................... Portuguese
Czech ..............................Hungarian .....................Romanian
English............................. Japanese..................... Spanish
Finnish .............................Iraqi .............................Swahili
French.............................. Italian ..........................Swedish
German............................ Norwegian

It will be noticed that some of the nouns here (Chinese, Czech, Finnish, German, etc) have the same form as those in subclass K above. Thus, for example, Chinese means either "person of Chinese nationality or origin" or "the Chinese language". In other words, the adjectives Chinese, Czech, etc are converted to nouns to express more than one distinct meaning (3 above).

M. ADJECTIVE principle or aspect of something

basic ............................essential........................... inessential
constant .......................external .............................fundamental

The items here are usually used in the plural.

N. Some other adjective-derived nouns

automatic (gear) .....................................multinational (company)
automatic (gun) ......................................negative (photograph)
musical (play/film) ..................................neutral (gear)
classic (writer/book) ...............................offensive (attack)
comic (actor) .........................................oral (examination)
commercial (radio/TV advertisement) ......primary (election)
documentary (film/programme) ................principal (teacher)
editorial (opinion) ...................................regular (customer)
empty (bottle) ........................................single (bedroom)
exclusive (story) .....................................single (record)
friendly (match) ......................................single (ticket)
inaugural (speech/lecture) .......................social (gathering)
initial (letter) ...........................................spiritual (song)
international (match) ...............................subsidiary (company)
international (player)................................terminal (point)
memorial (object) ....................................variable (factor)
mercenary (soldier)

These are the adjective-derived nouns that we claim do not quite share in the kind of group meaning that defines each of our adjective-noun semantic subclasses (A - M) presented above. Thus, for instance, an adolescent (like a bilingual, contemporary, etc) fits into the semantic subclass A, headed "ADJECTIVE person". However, an international (listed twice in the subclass here) is not just an "international person" or an "international thing" but an "international player" or an "international match" - meanings so circumscribed that they cannot be accommodated under the heading "ADJECTIVE person" or "ADJECTIVE thing", or under some such other group heading. Hence, for the non-native learner of English, the adjective-derived noun in this case usually assumes something of an idiom, as its exact meaning has to be specially learnt: it cannot be fully guessed from the meaning of the adjective base.

4. CONCLUDING REMARKS

As already explained, this paper is the report of a study with the primary purpose of finding as many examples as possible of nouns formed from adjectives through the word-formation process of conversion in English which the non-native learner would generally want to be familiar with. To enhance their value, the examples collected in the course of the study have in large part been listed in the paper (3A - L above) according to semantic subclasses based on the kinds of general meanings the nouns are formed from the adjective bases to express : "ADJECTIVE person", "Person with ADJECTIVE beliefs, views, or attitudes", "Person having the disease or condition of being ADJECTIVE", etc. It is expected that the examples will be found of some use in the teaching of the English vocabulary in second or foreign language situations.

REFERENCES
Adams, V. (1976). An Introduction to Modern English Word-Formation, London: Longman.

Francis, W.N. (1967). The English Language, London: The English Universities Press

Marchand, H. (1969). The Categories and Types of Present-Day English Word-Formation, Munich, Germany: Beck

Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartvik, J. (1991). A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. New York: Longman

Sinclair, J. (ed.). (1987). Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary. London: Collins.

Strang, B.M.H. (1969). Modern English Structure, London: Edward Arnold

Wehmeier, S. (ed.) (2000). Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.