Adjectives vary according to the gender and the number of the noun they specify.
Test:
Given N a noun: if X takes the gender of N, then X can be an adjective (or a determiner). A range of adjectives are homographic with respect to the opposite gender (``un pantalon rouge'', ``une robe rouge''), or the singular and plural have the same graphical form (``un homme soucieux'', ``des hommes soucieux'').
Examples:
Note that this morphological criterion concerning the number/gender variation of a morphological unit is also applicable to the recategorisation of present participles as adjectives. The features number and gender are applicable to present participles used as adjectives, whereas they are not applicable to present participles per se.
Examples:
A morphological unit has the pos value adjective if it occupies a particular phrasal position corresponding to an attributive or predicative function. This criterion is necessary but not sufficient because a range of nouns can also occupy the phrasal position of adjectives. For certain adjectives, i.e. indefinite adjectives, cardinal adjectives, there exist restrictions concerning the selection of the determiner within a noun phrase.
Test:
Given N a noun, Det a determiner, NP a noun phrase: if NP (Det + X + N), or NP (Det + N + X), or NP + copula +X succeeds, then X can be an adjective.
Note that X can also be a noun.
Examples:
but:
Examples:
An adjective is a morphological unit that predicates a property and that does not have a proper format. In other words, the adjective does not exist independently of an external support. WIth regard to the adjective/noun distinction, this means that those nouns which lose their own format when they are used as adjectives are categorised also as adjectives in the dictionary.
Test:
Given N a noun: If there exists a context where X qualifies N and where X cannot exist without N, then X can be an adjective.
If, for example, ``Something/someone that is N and X'' fails or if it is semantically not appropriate, then X can be an adjective.
Examples:
but:
Examples:
Test:
Given N a noun: if X qualifies N but if X does not agree with the number and gender of N, then X is not an adjective, but a noun.
Examples:
For an adjective, a conceptual interpretation is possible with regard to a given object, and this is so independently of other parameters such as a given spatial and temporal situation, an agent, an object, etc. With respect to the adjective/participle distinction, we categorise as adjectives those participles that predicate a property that exists independently of parameters related to the interpretation of a verbal process.
Test:
If X is an expansion of N, then X can be an adjective.
Given N, M nouns: if ``N + X/X + N is a sort of N'' or ``N +X/X + N is a sort of M'' succeeds, then X can be an adjective.
Examples:
but:
Examples:
Test:
Given NP a noun phrase, Det a determiner:
if, for NP + copula + X, Det + X + N or Det + N + X, a test such as ``très X'', ``plus ou moins X'', etc., succeeds,
and
if it can be interpreted as a degree of intensity, and not of a variation of quantity, then
X can be categorised as adjective.
Examples:
but:
Examples:
Test:
Given X with the ending of a participle, P a prefix or a compound element, if X can take a prefix or if it is the base form of a compound, and if the complex unit P + X cannot be an inflected form of a verb, then X and P + X are adjectives.
Examples:
Test:
Given N a noun, if N + X belongs to a paradigm of
N where X can commute with Y, Z, etc.
and
if N + X exists independently of parameters which are due
to a verbal process or to the context of communication, then X is an adjective.
Examples:
Note that a range of past participles can never be used as adjectives:
Examples: