Stylistic use of degrees of comparison of adjectives

5) "One of the strongest statements that can be made about Martian biology is that if there is life on the planet there must be at least one photosynthetic species."

The adjectives serious and strong are used in the superlative form and this undoubtedly increases even more the emotive colouring of the sentence.

      To cause the reader’s interest for the given subject and to show author’s own attitude to the thing described, the author puts emotively-expressive vocabulary in the text:

6) “Having said that? There is no denying that an electric guitar is a sexy instrument? And some people will no be denied.

In this case the adjective sexy shows the positive evaluation. The author is trying to compare the guitar with some kind of sexual chemistry, which as a matter of fact is a very pleasant feeling. He is trying to show that playing guitar is just like making love with someone very attractive.

7) The people I would like to thank the mostest are the people who have annoyed me and ticked me off.

In this sentence the speaker is emphasizing his utterance by using the adjective mostest. In this case, the adjective has a humorous and ironical effect. It is itself very ironical to thank people who were trying to mar your life. The speaker is thanking the people who annoyed him and ticked him off. But only because of them, and all of the difficulties they brought to him, he succeeded and reached his aim.

      We can see the rise of expressiveness in colloquial speech. For example, the adjective ‘idiotic’ characterizing the mental abilities of a person should be used with a noun of person. However, it is often collocates with object names, rendering the irritation of the speaker. For example:

8) I saw Harry he was wearing a blue sweater and an idiotic expression.

      Qualitative adjectives are always estimative, that is why they are used as epithets.

9) Who wouldn't want to see the picturesque view of Canada's snow covered mountains and beautiful forests, while enjoying hot coffee?

      In poetry epithets play an extremely important role. A characteristic of Homer's style is the use of epithets. For example:

10) Looking darkly upon Hector, swift footed Achilles answered, “I cannot forgive you. As there are no trustworthy oaths between men and lions, there can be no love between you and me”.

In this utterance Homer wanted to point out how strong and fast was Achilles.

11) Lion-hearted friendship doesn’t end.

In this sentence the epithet lion-hearted expressively colours the utterance. The epithet tells the reader that the friendship of two brave and sympathetic persons can never be spoiled by problems and hardships.

      When we use an adjective to emphasize a strong feeling or opinion, it always comes in front of a noun:

12) Some of it was absolute rubbish.

      The analytical forms of comparison, as different from the syntactical forms, are used to express emphasis, thus complementing the syntactical forms in the sphere of this important stylistic connotation.

13) The audience became more and more noisy, and soon the speaker's words were drowned in the general hum of voices.

      Syntactical formation of degrees of comparison in English language is not characteristic of polysyllabic adjectives and possible only for qualitative adjectives. But the adjective heavenlier breaks both these rules and that leads us to the heightened expressivity.

14) But now... now! I find myself wanting something more, something heavenlier, and something less human (A. Huxley).

  A very interesting thing about adjectives should be pointed out in the linguistic investigation. If the speaker doesn’t want to tell something right to somebody’s face or to be harsh or categorically call things by their proper names, he can add the suffix –ish to the adjective and by this he will form so-called modal tactful words: baldish, biggish, dullish. Adding this suffix to the nominal basis makes adjectives with negative and sometimes even contemptuous evaluation: bookish, childish, doggish, goatish, sheepish, womanish.

15) But there was no time to lose in womanish terrors; my difficulty and danger were too great. (The Doctors Dilemma)

16) His thick lips dipped downward in a solemn arc, and in his goatish eyes woe replaced mischief. (La insistencia de Jürgen Fauth)

It is also very interesting to confront combinations of suffixes with bases of proper names. The suffix –ish when joining proper names creates negative colouring. The suffix –ian can excite some kind of elation and create adjectives typical for bookish style.

17) The Shakespearian Sonnet has had a long and confusing history.

18) He was this Mark Twainish sort of character with a hat. You would think he was an artist gone to seed.

Adjectives formed from proper names with suffix –esque have positive connotation and associate with refinement of the style.

19) Alfieri was Dantesque because his soul was as proud as Dante's.

There is also a very interesting thing about the slang of teenagers. They use the disparaging suffix –o.

20) «I used to call her Hippo, because she was a hypocrite and so fat. Enormous!»

Diminutive suffixes create endearing, humorous or contemptuous words: -kin (lambkin), -let (chicklet, starlet), -ling (weakling), -y (daddy), -ie (lassie, oldie).

The use of comparative or superlative forms with other parts of speech may also convey a humorous colouring:

21) America's most smartest model.

22) He was the most married mad I have ever known.

The expressivity of negation is not very well examined yet. But now it is known that the common, typical of all Romanist writers, and particularly of Byron, tendency to accumulation of words of strong expressivity, shows in frequent use of adjectives with negative prefixes and suffixes.

Such adjectives express loss or a complete lack of anything and heighten the emotionality of verse:

23) The Nioble of Nations! There she stands childless and crownless in her voiceless woe. (G. Byron. Childe Harold)

24) “…without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined and unknown.”

25) The willingest fighter I have ever seen. He has to have the Top five fastest hands in the league if not the fastest.

In this sentence the speaker is amazed by the abilities and the strength of the fighter and he expresses his emotions with emotionally and expressively coloured adjectives willingest and fastest which create the image of delight which in its turn makes the utterance emotionally coloured and expressively rich. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

General conclusion

      The subject of our investigation was the stylistic function of adjectives and their degrees of comparison. What we have learnt about adjectives is that most English adjectives have comparative and superlative forms. These are generally constructed in one of two ways: either by suffixes (big, bigger, biggest) or by the use of the grammatical particles more and most. Speaking about stylistic functions of adjectives and their degrees of comparison we have learnt that the main functions of adjectives is to give more expressive description to the entities found in a text; so, the use of more adjectives will result in the descriptive richness of the text, whereas a lack of them may result in descriptive sparseness or thinness. A lot of adjectives may, however, make the style of the text ornate (or flowery), and slow down the action in the text. We have also learnt that adjectives may have a humorous effect on the reader. Now we can understand why so many authors and writers use such a great amount of adjectives in their works. They do it because their aim is to instill a certain attitude to the article or book into a reader. We have also learnt such nicety which will help us to make our speech much more expressive, as that, If the speaker doesn’t want to tell something right to somebody’s face or to be harsh or categorically call things by their proper names, he can add the suffix –ish to the adjective and by this he will form so-called modal tactful words.

      To conclude, we can say that the problem investigated in the given course paper is rather topical for it is always important both for native English speakers and learners to know the general characteristics of English adjectives, their stylistic and syntactic functions, grammatical categories, development and change in the course of time.

      All in all, it was very interesting to investigate adjectives and this course paper is far from being the end of the investigation. 
 
 

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