Judging the Degree of Adjectivization of English Nouns: An Investigation of the Discourse Behaviour of a Sample of Frequent Premodifier Nouns

Some English nouns are frequently used as premodifiers and seem to have acquired adjectival characteristics, which appear in dictionaries in labels such as adj. or modif. To investigate them, the characteristics of adjectives are contrasted with those of nouns. Semantically, attributive adjectives bring a unidimensional, incident type of modification to the head noun, and “adjectival” nouns have undergone semic reduction, which produces a similar kind of modification. Core adjectives also have a range of typical functions and constructions which provide criteria for the possible adjectival conversion of nouns. Corresponding occurrences for a core adjective, a “pure” noun, and the adjectival member of an old noun/adjective pair were searched in the British National Corpus and, if absent, on the Web. A series of six subjectively “adjectival” nouns was then similarly investigated, showing a variety of behaviours. The data are synthesized into an adjectivity score with potential use in lexicography.