The Use of Evaluative Adjectives and the Problem of Collocation

Abstract

On defining the basic terms and overviewing a few select publications, the problem question of how the meaning of the words in a nominal word group determines the unit‘s foundation and stability is answered while overviewing nominal word groups, most of them collocations, and searching the answer in experiential collocations as these turn into wholly attitudinal (evaluative) collocations. As experiential collocations turn into attitudinal, so their typical deep semantic bonds happen to weaken or disappear altogether. Only weak semantic links or, mostly, semantic features relevant to an object motivate attitudinal word groups and collocations. But attitudinal nominal groups are not entirely free combinations of words because numbers of such categories as animate, inanimate, concrete, abstract, thing, phenomenon, phenomenon, mental process and others determine how the words combine in a unit and how close the interior link in them is. Keywords: nominal groups, collocation(s), semantically, experientially motivated units, deep semantic bond, semantic link, experiential link, semic agreement, experiential relations, relevance of a feature to an object