We have taken the criterial functions of adjectives to be the attributive and the predicative functions. There is, however, another function that adjectives can fulfil, though it is of less importance and subject to very severe limitations. The adjectives in question are printed in italics: The rich can buy large quantities of freedom; the poor must do without it The weak may not be admired or heroworshipped; but they are by no means disliked or shunned They charge me the same as they charge the deserving Among the completely leisured…acute boredom is suffered Among the right-thinking, the doctrine of the inherent wickedness of concupiscence is still held with an extraordinary intensity These sentences contain noun phrases as follows: the rich, the poor, the weak, the deserving, the completely leisured, the right-thinking. The headword in these noun phrases is not a noun but an adjective, sometimes an ing-form or an nform. They all have the definite article, which is absolutely necessary, and they all have a generic sense (something like the meaning of the tiger when it refers to the species rather than to an individual specimen, or the novel referring to the genre). Moreover, they all refer to a class of human beings; the weak does not mean weak objects but weak people. This puts a severe restriction on the adjectives that can be used: the oblique, the hazy and the delicious would be difficult expressions to interpret in this way. Furthermore, they are all plural noun phrases, not singular ones, despite the fact that there is no plural inflection present; we say the poor are always with us, not *the poor is always with us. Among the adjectives that can be used as heads of noun phrases in this special way are certain nationality adjectives: the English, the Irish, the Japanese: e.g. The English are great travellers. But not all nationality adjectives can be treated like this; for instance, American. This word is, when the need arises, fully converted to the class of noun; it can be pluralized or used with the indefinite article. The following lists show the very different properties of these two kinds of nationality word: an American two Americans *the American are gregarious the Americans are gregarious *an Irish *two Irishes the Irish are gregarious *the Irishes are gregarious In fact American belongs to a class of words that, although originating from adjectives, have come to be incorporated in the class of noun as well. We can say both He is eccentric (treating eccentric as an adjective) and He is an eccentric (treating eccentric as a noun). Other words like eccentric and American are: innocent, drunk, itinerant, resident, savage, etc. Note that they can all have
determiners and can all be pluralized.