# English: lexical derivation processes other than suffixation



## Majkel

Apart from endings, are there any rules to use when we build an adjective from a noun, a verb from a noun etc. ?


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## Keith Bradford

In general, we don't *build *adjectives from nouns or verbs from nouns.  We adopt them wholesale:

An oak *table *= noun
Four *table *legs = adjective (does not modify)

To *table *a proposal = verb (does modify: _a proposal was table*d*_...)
But you're really supposed to give context in your questions on this website, so do you have a specific word in mind?


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## ewie

Majkel said:


> Apart from endings, are there any rules to use when we build an adjective from a noun, a verb from a noun etc. ?


Welcome to the forum, Majkel.  Your question is rather vast ... what kinds of rules are you thinking of?


Keith Bradford said:


> In general, we don't *build *adjectives from nouns or verbs from nouns.  We adopt them wholesale:
> 
> An oak *table *= noun
> Four *table *legs = adjective (does not modify)
> 
> To *table *a proposal = verb (does modify: _a proposal was table*d*_...)


(_A *table* showing population distribution > Population distribution shown in *tabular* form > The information was incorrectly *tabulated/tabularized*_)


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## Myridon

ewie said:


> (_A *table* showing population distribution > Population distribution shown in *tabular* form > The information was incorrectly *tabulated/tabularized*_)


"Table" and "tabular" eventually have the same root, but "tabular" is more directly from Latin than "table".  The root word doesn't exactly mean "table" in Latin.


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## ewie

You appear to have missed my point, Myridon, such as it was.


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## Myridon

ewie said:


> You appear to have missed my point, Myridon, such as it was.


No, I get your point. "Table/tabular" is an unfortunate example as "tabular" isn't actually formed from "table" at all.


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## ewie

No, but the unsuspecting might think it was, from the fact that the adjective form for _(mathematical) table_ is _tabular_  (In that respect it's actually a pretty good example: only someone with a weird imagination might think that _cardiac_ is somehow 'derived from' _heart_.)


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## Myridon

ewie said:


> No, but the unsuspecting might think it was, from the fact that the adjective form for _(mathematical) table_ is _tabular_  (In that respect it's actually a pretty good example: only someone with a weird imagination might think that _cardiac_ is somehow 'derived from' _heart_.)


It doesn't answer the question, nor is it germane to Keith's point (heart -> heart medicine).  You gave no explanation for your examples so I think from your post we should have "heartular" from "heart."


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## Truffula

There are several possible ways to "build" adjectives from nouns.

Sometimes a suffix is added to a noun to make it an adjective.  -ly and -ish and -y and even, yes -ular are used:

manly, friendly
girlish, amateurish
mouthy, bloody
circular, cellular

The rules, such as they are, for this have to do with the etymology of the word and the usage of the adjective version. It's not a type of generative rule usually, though some coinages do use the suffixes: you have a slang word that's a noun, and you can add -y or -ish to it probably and the adjective version would be also recognized as slang, so you might see "thottish" used in the wild by native speakers, for example.  -ish can signify a language or culture, and -y can also be a diminutive, so it's dependent on the nature of the slang noun if -y would be interpreted as diminutive or culture/language term instead of adjectival, or something else.


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## elroy

Majkel said:


> Apart from endings, are there any rules to use when we build an adjective from a noun, a verb from a noun etc. ?


 Majkel's question seems to be the following:

Does English have processes _other than suffixation_ for lexical derivation?

One big one already mentioned in this thread is _zero derivation,_ whereby a new lexical category is derived with no changes whatsoever to the surface form of a word.  English is remarkably flexible in this regard.  Consider the following:

verb to noun:
I'm going for a run.
That was the first take.
It's a go!

adjective to noun:
He always has his tools at the ready.
I want your dirty. (from "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga)
I have a tattoo on the small of my back.

noun to verb:
I need to e-mail my friend.
That's a nice place to shop.
He's going to tailor my dress.

adjective to verb:
What can we do to better the situation?
I really need to tidy up my room.
This morning I cleaned the table.

noun to adjective:
He is a math teacher.
I want to learn about the rain forest.
He wrote me a love letter.

verb to adjective:
Where is the rest room?
He's a member of a fight club.
Do you have a jump rope?


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## berndf

elroy said:


> verb to adjective:
> Where is the rest room?
> He's a member of a fight club.
> Do you have a jump rope?


These seem to be classical examples of Germanic compound nouns with stress on the first component. I can't see how _rest, fight_ and _jump_ could be analysed as adjectives.

Compare the stress pattern in
_*Safe* house_ ~ compound noun
_Safe *house*_ ~ adjective + noun


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## jimquk

elroy said:


> noun to adjective:
> He is a math teacher.
> I want to learn about the rain forest.
> He wrote me a love letter.
> 
> verb to adjective:
> Where is the rest room?
> He's a member of a fight club.
> Do you have a jump rope?





berndf said:


> These seem to be classical examples of Germanic compound nouns with stress on the first component. I can't see how _rest, fight_ and _jump_ could be analysed as adjectives.
> 
> Compare the stress pattern in
> _*Safe* house_ ~ compound noun
> _Safe *house*_ ~ adjective + noun



Indeed, and you could hardly say a *mather teacher, the *mathest teacher in the school.

These all feel like nouns put together attributively.


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## elroy

These are all analyzed as adjectives within the eight-parts-of-speech paradigm that is taught in schools -- which is quite distinct from formal syntactic analysis.  Under the former analysis, words are classified according to their _function within a sentence_, and these words are all adjectives because they modify a noun and answer the question "what kind."


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## berndf

So _number_ in _number plate_ is an adjective or _horse_ in _horseradish_? It is the general schema of the Germanic compound noun: The last component is the head noun and all the preceding components attribute the head noun. A _number plate_ is a plate with/for numbers.


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## elroy

"Number" in "number plate" is an adjective; "horseradish" is a single word so it's just a noun or adjective, depending on its function within the sentence ("I like horseradish" versus "horseradish flavor").  In this type of analysis, only words are accounted for, not parts of words.  And again, it's all about the word's function within the sentence.  "Number" in "number plate" tells us what kind of plate we're talking about, just like "red" in "red plate."

This analysis even subsumes determiners under the category of adjectives.  See this, for example (note, in particular, the examples at the bottom -- "a large, purple sleeping bag," "scary, squiggly solar flares," "lovely, cobalt, Canadian running shoes" -- where all the words except for the last word in each phrase are adjectives).


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## berndf

elroy said:


> In this type of analysis, only words are accounted for, not parts of words


Basing linguistic analysis on the accidentalities of purely arbitrary orthographic conventions (_horseradish_=one word, _number plate_=two words) is not very convincing. This is another reason why I don't agree with this inflationary use of the concept of an _adjective_. But there are indeed respectable grammarians who advocate this analysis.


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## elroy

The purpose of this analysis is to assign each word a role within the sentence, depending on its function.  It makes a lot of sense to me. At the same time, I don't discount the merits of other types of analysis, which have their own purposes.


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## berndf

In prescriptive grammar; maybe. There orthography is relevant.

In descriptive grammar I see no convincing reason why _horseradish_ should be analysed as one word but _number plate_ as two words.


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## elroy

Orthography is prescriptive by definition, yes.  But taking the orthography for granted and coming up with a system to group independent words according to their functions within sentences does not mean we are being prescriptive.  I don't even think the labels _prescriptive_ and _descriptive_ apply here; it's simply a different type of analysis.

The bottom line is that regardless of how the words "math" and "red" originated, in the phrases "math book" and "red apple," they have the same function, so it's certainly not preposterous to assign them the same label.  Perhaps the use of the label "adjective" is distracting, since it's applied differently in formal syntax.  Maybe something like "noun modifier" would be less controversial. 

Also, orthography does matter in terms of syntax:

_What kinds of cake did you make?
Chocolate and vanilla. _[= chocolate cake and vanilla cake] 
_
What kinds of cake did you make?_
*/? _Chocolate and cheese. _[= chocolate cake and cheesecake]


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## berndf

elroy said:


> Also, orthography does matter in terms of syntax:
> 
> _What kinds of cake did you make?
> Chocolate and vanilla. _[= chocolate cake and vanilla cake]
> _
> What kinds of cake did you make?_
> */? _Chocolate and cheese. _[= chocolate cake and cheesecake]


Such contractions also exist in languages that spell them as one word (_Schokolade- und Käsekuchen_). The existence of such expressions does not prove that orthography matters for syntax.

_Horseradish_ and _number plate_ share the same stress pattern while _red plate_ has a different stress pattern. For a descriptive linguistic analysis I find this much more relevant than how they are spelled.


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## Truffula

What about the words "cellular" or "solar" , berndf? Is it an adjective in your analysis style? You can have "cellular phones" (often abbreviated to "cell phones") or "solar panels" that have the stress pattern of "number plate" and there is no comparative (a phone can't be the most cellular or one panel more solar than another), but they are still words that are always adjectives, never nouns.

They function very similarly to how "vanilla" functions as an adjective, and how "math" functions in "math teacher," and are not stand-alone nouns. English does have a few multi-word nouns (like "ice cream") where it is clear that the first part is not an adjective, but part of the noun. I think it's arguable that "rest room" is one of these (especially since it's often written as one word, "restroom"), but "math teacher" definitely is not.


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## elroy

berndf said:


> Such contractions also exist in languages that spell them as one word (_Schokolade- und Käsekuchen_). The existence of such expressions does not prove that orthography matters for syntax.


 My point was that in English, you can abbreviate "chocolate cake" to just "chocolate" (context-depending) but you can't (generally) abbreviate "cheesecake" to "cheese."  Maybe the following example is clearer:

_What's your favorite type of cake?
Chocolate. _[= chocolate cake]

_What's your favorite type of cake?_
_*Cheese. _[= cheesecake]


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## berndf

I see.


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## elroy

Here's a "noun to adjective" example I think we can all agree on:

_That was a fun party.
_
We can say "very fun," "more fun," "most fun," etc.


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## bearded

berndf said:


> Basing linguistic analysis on the accidentalities of purely arbitrary orthographic conventions (_horseradish_=one word, _number plate_=two words) is not very convincing. This is another reason why I don't agree with this inflationary use of the concept of an _adjective_.


You have a point there, berndf. I am particularly interested in two-word expressions/compounds oscillating between one-word and two-word writing. It is inconceivable to me that the 'rest' part is an adjective in_ rest room,_ but must be considered a noun in the_ restroom_ compound (or, for that matter,_ ice_ in_ ice tea_ and_ icecream_ respectively).
I'm inclined to sharing your opinion that the function of a word cannot change in dependence on purely orthographic conventions.

( If I compare_ love letter_ and_ Liebesbrief,_ I can't help regarding also_ love_ as a noun..)


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## berndf

elroy said:


> Here's a "noun to adjective" example I think we can all agree on:
> 
> _That was a fun party.
> _
> We can say "very fun," "more fun," "most fun," etc.


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## elroy

bearded said:


> It is inconceivable to me that the 'rest' part is an adjective in_ rest room,_ but must be considered a noun in the_ restroom_ compound


 It's not a noun in "restroom"; the whole word "restroom" is simply a single noun.  Within the eight-parts-of-speech framework, the "rest" in "restroom" is not considered its own part of speech.


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## berndf

bearded said:


> You have a point there, berndf. I am particularly interested in two-word expressions/compounds oscillating between one-word and two-word writing. It is inconceivable to me that the 'rest' part is an adjective in_ rest room,_ but must be considered a noun in the_ restroom_ compound (or, for that matter,_ ice_ in_ ice tea_ and_ icecream_ respectively).
> I'm inclined to sharing your opinion that the function of a word cannot change in dependence on purely orthographic conventions.


A good example. A _rest room_ ist a _room for resting_ and not a _room, which rests_. In @elroy's example just above (where _fun_ is undoubtedly an adjective) _fun party_ means _party, which is fun_. Interpreted as a compound noun, it would mean something like _party for fun_.


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## Hulalessar

elroy said:


> It's not a noun in "restroom"; the whole word "restroom" is simply a single noun.  Within the eight-parts-of-speech framework, the "rest" in "restroom" is not considered its own part of speech.



The eight-parts-of-speech framework may work quite nicely with Latin and Greek, but it presents problems with any serious analysis of English, not to mention a whole load of other languages. English is a highly analytic language with a dearth of inflectional morphemes. That means that you cannot always tell a word's function from its form. Whilst English cannot really be classed as an isolating language, it does have significant isolating tendencies in that the "dictionary" form of a word may be capable of being more than one part of speech. We have no difficulty deciding when a word is a finite verb, but whether it is an adjective or noun is a bit more problematic.

With a word like _restroom _you have to ignore the orthography. Many words of that type start off being written as two words, then get a hyphen followed by the hyphen disappearing. With restroom what we are talking about is a room and rest tells us what sort of a room it is. There are three possible ways of analysing it:

1. It is a compound noun
2. Rest is a noun used adjectively and room is a noun
3. Rest is an adjective


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## berndf

Hulalessar said:


> 1. It is a compound noun
> 2. Rest is a noun used adjectively and room is a noun


If you replace _adjectively_ by _attributively_, which I would do, these amount pretty much to the same thing.


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