The difference between connotative and non-connotative adjectives It is based on the ability of this class of words to express or not characteristics of the noun to which they modify.
Thus, adjectives such as happy, restless or graceful belong to the group of connotatives. Meanwhile, the adjectives east, those and ours are not connotative.
Now, the main function of the adjective is to modify the noun. Both kinds of words must agree in gender and number. Adjectives are classified into qualifiers and determinatives.
The former express qualities, properties, states or characteristics, and the latter introduce the noun and define its scope..
As can be seen, the previous classification largely coincides with that of connotative and non-connotative adjectives. This considers the traditional definition of the adjective: a word that is attached to the noun to qualify or determine it. Meanwhile, the second takes into account whether adjectives have their own meaning or contextual meaning..
However, these two classifications do not keep an absolute correspondence. Connotative adjectives include all qualifying adjectives and numerals.
The latter determine the meaning of the noun by adding the idea of number or order (three, first, last).
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Connotative and non-connotative adjectives share the characteristics that are inherent in this class of words. As adjectives, they are a natural adjunct - or companion - of the noun. Their role is to specify the meaning of the name by adding various circumstances and nuances to it..
However, there is a fundamental difference between one and the other. The former denote qualities or characteristics of the noun they accompany and have meaning on their own..
On the other hand, the non-connotative ones need a context to be properly interpreted. This can be seen in the following examples:
In addition to the above, another characteristic that connotative and non-connotative adjectives have in common is their position with respect to the noun they modify..
Generally, the first ones are postponed and the second ones are prepended. However, these positions can change, especially when you want to achieve certain expressive effects..
Thus, in the posterior position, a connotative adjective serves to specify (The building modern). Placed before the noun, it draws the interlocutor's attention to the quality, rather than to the object (La beautifull creature).
Even with some adjectives in particular, their position is decisive to interpret the desired message. Note the meaning provided by the adjective in the following sentences:
With respect to the non-connotative ones, these can also change their usual position (prefixes). This change often adds some expressive nuances.
For example, the expressions the woman that Y the man that hint at some contempt or disapproval on the part of the speaker.
Both connotative and non-connotative adjectives agree in gender and number. However, also for both, in the specific case of gender there are certain exceptions.
Some connotative adjectives - such as happy, cheerful, special, normal - do not present variations for the masculine and feminine.
It should be noted that some connotatives also remain unchanged in the plural. Such is the case of free (free bus, free buses) and of the numerals.
Certain non-connotative adjectives also have the same form for masculine and feminine. So there is no difference between my apartment (masculine) and my home (feminine). This changes with other possessives: Our apartment Y our house.
Below are some fragments of the work Mary by the Colombian writer Jorge Isaac (1867). Connotative and non-connotative adjectives have been highlighted separately for a better understanding..
“After six years, the last days of a luxurious August they welcomed me back to native Valley. My heart was overflowing with love homeland. It was already the last day of the trip, and I enjoyed the most scented summer morning.
The sky had a tint pale blue: towards the east and over the ridges soaring from the mountains, middle mourning still, some golden clouds wandered, like the gauze of a ballerina's turban scattered for a breath loving. Towards the south floated the mists that during the night had covered the mountains far away.
I was crossing plains of green gramales, watered by streams whose passage obstructed me beautiful herds, which left their sleeping places to go into the lagoons or paths vaulted for flowered písamos and higuerones leafy.
My eyes had hung avidly on those half-baked places. hidden to the traveler for the glasses of aged gruduales; in those farmhouses where he had left people virtuous Y friends.
At such moments the arias on U's piano would not have touched my heart ... the perfumes I inhaled were so nice compared to the dresses luxurious her; the song of those nameless birds had harmonies so sweet to my heart!"
"I accompanied me friend to its bedroom. Everything me affection for him had revived in those last hours of its stay at home: the nobility of its character, that nobility of what many tests gave me during our student life, magnified it again before me. "
"But when, refreshed the mind, she returns to the memory hours later, our lips murmur in songs its praise, and it is that women its accent is its look, is its slight step on the carpets, which mimics that song, which the vulgar will believe ideal. "
“I doubted the love of Maria. Why, I thought, does he strive me heart in believing her subjected to this same martyrdom? Consider me unworthy to own so much beauty, so much innocence.
Throw me in my face that pride that had dazzled me to the point of believing myself for him the object of its love, being only worthy of its sister darling. On me madness I thought with less terror, almost with pleasure, in me next trip."
"... Tell the boss that I appreciate it in me soul; you already know that I'm not no ungrateful, and here he has me with everything I have to send me. Candelaria is going to be at Easter: water on hand for the garden, for the sacatín, for the sleeve…. "
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