A Class of Complex Modifiers in English
Carlota S. Smith · Language · 1961
The linguist is concerned with meaningful generalizations about language. In writing a generative grammar, an ordered set of rules that predicts the sentences of a given language, he looks for generalizations that can be translated into economical rules. Optimally a generative grammar uses a relatively small number of general rules to predict many different structures. This paper will focus on a particular group of sentences—those containing adjectives—and construct rules to generate them. The first section will be devoted to the formulation of rules that bring adjectives into containing sentences, and the second will discuss adjectival comparisons (some of which are covered by the earlier rules) in detail.