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CHAPTER II THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
This chapter covers some theories related to the study. The discussions focus on Degrees of Comparison of Adjectives, and CTL.
A. The General Concept of Degrees of Comparison of Adjectives
1. The Adjectives
Before discussing the kinds and form of degree of comparison, firstly it better to know about adjective. There are some definitions about
adjective. An adjective is a word which expresses the attribute of substance good, young, easy, loud hard, wooden, flaxen.
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According to the
Valeika and Buitkiene
adjective expresses the property of an entity.
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Based on the statement above it can be concluded that adjective performs the function of an attribute an adjunct and a predicative. Based on
DeCapua, “adjectives are content words that provides imagery and
character to discourse by describing the nouns in a sentence ”
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. It means a word that gives an explanation of noun is called an adjective. He also
stated that to identify the adjectives, it can possibly use some clues: a.
Semantic clues, the meaning of the adjective itself provides a clue to its use. For example, long, small, hot, and great are words that describe
something. b.
Morphological clues provide clues which words are adjectives, such as the derivational endings. For example: gorgeous and helpful.
c. Inflections clues, adjectives use the inflections of –er and –est to
demonstrate the comparative and superlative forms. For example: happier, happiest.
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N.M Rayevska, Modern English Grammar: for senior course of the language faculties in Universities and training colleges, Vysca skola publisher kiev:1976, p. 85
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Laimutis valeika and Janina Buitkiene, an Introductory course in theoretical English grammar, Vilnius pedagogical university. 2003
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Andrea DeCapua, Grammar for Teachers: A Guide to American English for Native or Non-Native Speakers, New York: Springer Science+Bussiness Media, 2008, p. 83.
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d. Structural clues provide clues from the position of adjectives. There
are three positions: before a noun, after certain verbs, after certain nouns
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. Greenbaum and Quirk give four features which are considered as
the characteristic of adjectives: a.
They appear in attributive function, which means they can modify a noun, appear between the determiner and the head of noun phrase. For
example, an ugly painting. b.
They appear in predicative function by giving a meaning as subject complement or as object complement. For example, the painting is
ugly or he thought the painting ugly. c.
The intensifier very, eg. can adapt the adjectives. For example, the children are very happy.
d. They can change into comparative and superlative forms. For example,
the children are happier now, they are the happiest people I know
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.
2. The Degrees of Comparison of Adjectives
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