Bruce,
This is getting a little clearer, but it now leaves me a bit confused
about "bright" as a modifier of "red." David's point, early on, which
you seemed to agree with, is that it's an adjective modifying "red",
which would account for it not being "brightly". > I thought you were
somehow calling it a noun in this instance. ("The names for the
various colors in English are structured as nouns, but they often
appear as attributes.")
Would it be easier to think of this as one other instance in which the
"ly" adverb marker is diminishing in use? ("He moved so slow through
the room"?) I don't think calling "bright" an adjective in this
instance helps, since, as you say, it's in an adjective phrase headed
by "red".
Are there words like this that routinely show up as qualifiers for
colors? Bright red? Pale red? Deep red? Dark red? Would
"qualifier" be a better term than "modifier"? Has anyone worked out
a taxonomy?
Craig
Craig,
>
> I think the traditional classification of "red" is that it is an
> adjective, but one from which a noun "red" can be formed. I tend to
> analyze morphology in syntactic terms, so here goes.
>
> It is interesting that we can have the verbs "redden," "blacken," and
> "whiten" form from this adjective, but not *"bluen," *"orangen," nor even
> *"pinken." Sometimes the formation of new words is stuck in some past
> historical system that is no longer active. Yet there seems to be an
> active system that allows color terms to serve one time as adjectives and
> another as nouns.
>
> The phrase in question has the noun phrase with "bright," i.e., "bright
> red," modifiying the noun "dress" and not just the noun. With your
> example of "party dress" perhaps the closest parallel morphologically
> would be "birthday party dress." Here the whole phrase "birthday party"
> combines to modify "dress." Whereas we said, "the dress is (of) bright
> red" here we must say, "the dress is for birthday parties." The color
> terms allow the omission of the adjective formative which means "of" so
> that we can see them as adjectives in their own right, whereas the noun
> "party" does not allow the omission of an adjective formative meaning
> "for."
>
> I think we have to chalk it up to the ideosyncracies of the English
> language. Worse than color terms, are, for example, the number terms.
> These words are sometimes nouns (two and two is four), sometimes
> adjectives (I want two cards), and sometimes adverbs (I want two more
> cards). [Fortunately the adverb "too," the preposition "to" and the
> infinitive marker "to" are usually spelled differently, or we would be
> tempted to multiply examples.]
>
> Bruce
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Craig Hancock
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Monday, November 07, 2005 7:49 AM
> Subject: Re: bright and brightly
>
>
> Bill, Bruce, David,
> I'm still a little confused as to the special properties of "red" in
> a phrase like "bright red dress." Are we saying that it's an
> adjective, but one that acts somewhat like a noun? A noun that acts
> like an adjective? Why can I say "very red dress" or "slightly red
> dress", but not "brightly red dress"?
> The dictionaries seem to say it's both noun and adjective, but now
> I'm confused as to when and where it tips over from one to the
> other. "Noun that acts like an attribute" is a new category for me,
> and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with it. Normally, noun modifiers
> can't be qualified with "very". (We wouldn't say "very party
> dress".) Is the problem more with bright than with red?
> I may, of course, be missing a fairly simple point. (It won't be
> the first time.) I'm doing what I encourage my students to
> do--asking what may be a dumb question.
>
> Craig
>
>
> Spruiell, William C wrote:
>
> <!--[if mso 9]--> <!--[endif]-->
> Bruce,
>
> I've heard constructions like "the bright colored dress" (I don't know
> if it's a dialect issue, but I'm from Alabama and the person posting
> was from Texas). There's an important way in which stress figures into
> the interpretation, though: it's usually pronounced like "a
> bright-colored dress," not "a bright, colored dress." In fact, I'm not
> sure anyone would ever describe a dress simply as "colored"; after
> all, even white is a color, and transparent dresses would probably
> violate local statutes.
>
> One possible explanation is that speakers vary in the extent to which
> they regard "colored" as basically verbal. "A bright-hued dress" is
> not very odd, possibly because we don't use commonly use "hue" as a
> verb.
>
> Bill Spruiell
>
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bruce Despain
> Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2005 10:19 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: bright and brightly
>
>
>
> Steve,
>
>
>
> I agree with David. But the process viewpoint of deep structure may
> be helpful. It is of some interest that "colored" is an adjective
> built from a verb and called a participle. The -ly on "brightly" is
> normally a formative for making a manner adverb so that there seems to
> be a covert relation to the verb phrase "color in a bright manner,"
> but this is deceptive.
>
>
>
> The names for the various colors in English are structured as nouns.
> But they often appear as attributes: "the dress is red" instead of
> "the dress is of red." When we say "bright red" we are describing a
> noun with an adjective, but the phrase again appears as an attribute:
> "the dress is bright red" instead of "the dress is of bright red."
> (This is a predicate adjective rather than a predicate noun, which
> would imply equivalence.)
>
>
>
> I belive that the locution "the bright colored dress" is saying that
> the dress is bright and that it is colored, and that it is not
> necessarily the brightness of the colors that make it so. In fact we
> could be asking for two conflicting attributes here; that the dress be
> colored, but also bright. (A dress that is bright red might fill both
> requirements.)
>
>
>
> The dress could be "colored red." This construction is often called
> an objective complement: "someone colored the dress red." It is
> possible to extend this construction to: "someone colored the dress
> bright red." There might be a blending with another objective
> complement: "someone colored the dress bright." But the manner
> interpretation does not really seem possible: ??"someone colored the
> dress brightly." I believe the -ly does not form a manner adverb
> here, but comes from the adverbalization of "bright" (was objective
> complement) in conjunction with the adjectivalization of the verb
> "color" to its participle form.
>
>
>
> Bruce
>
> >>> [log in to unmask] 11/3/2005 7:24:34 AM >>>
>
> On Thu, 3 Nov 2005 12:12:31 +0900
> Steve Cornwell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > This may be a very simple question for this list, but a
> >student asked me why we can
> > use "brightly" before "color" as in "the brightly
> >colored dress," but we use "bright" before "red" as in
> >"the bright red dress." We cannot/do not normally say
> >the "brightly red dress."
> >
> > Any insights will be appreciated.
> >
> > thanks,
> >
> > steve c.
>
> In my opinion, Steve, "brightly" is an adverb modifying
> "colored," and "bright" is an adjective modifying "red.
>
> Peace,
>
> David Brown
> ESL/EFL Teacher
> Long Beach, CA
> USA
>
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