A Prototype Study Of English Adjectives

Adjectives play an important role in the English language application. As an important word class in English, English adjectives have always been one of the main subjects studied by linguists and grammarians. Previous studies on adjectives are mostly limited to the grammatical field. With the rise and development of cognitive linguistics since1970s, people’s understanding of English adjectives breaks the limitations of focusing on the positions and functions of adjectives in sentences. They have formed a completely new view on adjectives in the English language.However, few scholars have treated English adjectives as a prototype category in the previous studies. Taking the prototype theory of cognitive linguistics as the theoretical foundation, this thesis has tried to probe into English adjectives from the perspective of prototype category. Based on this, this thesis has given a unified description and explanation to their semantic features as well as their syntactic features.According to the prototype theory, all linguistic categories are prototype categories and the same is true of English adjectives. This thesis argues that English adjectives have both semantic and syntactic features, the former constitute the semantic category of English adjectives, the latter constitute the syntactic category of them, and both of the two categories are prototype categories. In this thesis, the semantic and syntactic categories of English adjectives are studied as prototype categories under the guidance of the prototype theory. English adjectives as a semantic category reflect the characteristics of things. Its prototypical members not only reflect the permanent attributes of things, but also reflect their temporary attributes, while its non-prototypical members can only reflect the permanent attributes or temporary attributes of things; English adjectives as a syntactic category primarily play two syntactic functions:attributive and predicative. Its prototypical members can function both attributively and predicatively (including subject complement and object complement), its non-prototypical members can only function as attributive or predicative.It is believed that the study of English adjectives as prototype categories is an application of the prototype theory. It can reasonably explain the different functions and uses of English adjectives, and it can also be of reference value to English learners in understanding and using English adjectives.