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[21 v] He isn’t [enough of a scholar]. (CGEL, p.534-5)

In construction [v], scholar is not head of the whole NP but part of the of phrase complement, and for this reason it must follow enough.

They are, it seems, saying ‘enough’ is a noun, but I’ve not yet found the proper nominal meaning of ‘enough.’ Is ‘enough’ a noun there? What does it mean in [21 v]?

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Listenever
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  • Are you trying to learn English from CGEL?? – Ben Kovitz Dec 10 '14 at 05:19
  • OED suggest "enough" might be a noun, it's worth looking into. – Rui Dec 10 '14 at 07:48
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    @BenKovitz OP is trying to learn English grammar from CGEL, which is a different matter. – StoneyB on hiatus Dec 10 '14 at 10:15
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    I think CGEL here takes 'enough' to be a fused-head determiner modified by the PP 'of a scholar' - see the discussion of 'much of a X' in [16iii] on p. 533. – StoneyB on hiatus Dec 10 '14 at 10:36
  • @StoneyB If I could get into this website, I would have added what you’ve told on OP. I got the very idea while mumbling about the ‘enough,’ right after I uploaded this question. As the fused explanation is just in front of this page, I forgot stiff that, which I read three long days ago. I’m a really slow turtle-padding reader, ain’t I? It would be five years, I thought, to finish once; but it would take much more, for I get a new plan one and a half year later to be prepared. Thank you for your comment, sir. – Listenever Dec 10 '14 at 13:49
  • I'm not surprised. I've been working my way through CGEL for several months and it's only in the last few weeks I've realized that although it all hangs together it is only very loosely tied together. – StoneyB on hiatus Dec 10 '14 at 14:07
  • @StoneyB Learning grammar the way a linguist does, as a body of declarative facts, or learning grammar the way a speaker of the language does, as a skill that you do, and maybe can explain or describe a little bit? If the former, maybe this question belongs on ELU. If the latter, maybe the OP is too much of a scholar. – Ben Kovitz Dec 10 '14 at 17:32
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    @BenKovitz It's not just a matter of what kind of question you ask - it's also what kind of answer you're looking for. Even very sophisticated answers on ELU depend a lot on native-speaker intuitions of the sort we try to avoid raising here. Listenever is active on both sites and has been here since ELL was two weeks old. I think we can leave it to her judgment which site she posts on. – StoneyB on hiatus Dec 10 '14 at 17:52
  • @StoneyB Ah, thanks for the explanation. I've been seeing a lot of questions, and answers, that seem to suggest that people should learn sophisticated linguistic jargon in order to learn English, or even that they should read CGEL. I think it would be helpful to steer beginners toward more-effective approaches—except, of course, for the rare EFL learner who really is doing it as a scholarly project. – Ben Kovitz Dec 10 '14 at 18:13
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    @BenKovitz We speak to a very wide range of learners. Many, perhaps most of them learn a great deal more grammar than most native speakers are ever exposed to, and b)many of them are much more highly educated than their command of English suggests. – StoneyB on hiatus Dec 10 '14 at 18:33

2 Answers2

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Enough, in this sentence, is part of a noun phrase, which is two or more words that grouped together act like a noun. That's what the abbreviation "NP" in the sentence you quoted means. The Wikipedia article goes into more detail.

As for the meaning of the noun phrase, here it indicates that the subject of the sentence isn't sufficiently educated, and doesn't possess the qualities of being a scholar. The subject lacks some skill or quality that a man of learning would have.

Maurice Reeves
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    not enough implies some, but not a sufficient quantity of... So it isn't that he doesn't possess the qualities of being a scholar, it's that he doesn't possess a sufficient amount of scholarliness. – Jim Dec 10 '14 at 06:16
  • So is enough a noun here? – Araucaria - Not here any more. Dec 10 '14 at 11:19
  • Enough isn't a noun. It's technically an adverb because it modifies the verb isn't, but it's also part of the noun phrase. – Maurice Reeves Dec 10 '14 at 13:47
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    @Araucaria I think that in H&P's view it is actually the head of the NP: a determiner which has fused with its (unspecified) head. What that head might be is left to our imagination: perhaps "quality" or "attainment". – StoneyB on hiatus Dec 10 '14 at 14:10
  • How would a modern grammarian parse "The vicar was something of a scholar" ? – TimR Dec 10 '14 at 22:30
  • That can go two ways: the vicar has surprised the speaker with heretofore unexhibited scholarly talents. Maybe they needed to read an ancient Vulgar Latin text and he aced it. The other possibility is they need to see the vicar because he's our best hope in this one church town for an answer, but don't get your hopes up, he's only kind of a scholar. However, that second meaning has been lately eclipsed by "somewhat." In your sentence context is key. – Maurice Reeves Dec 12 '14 at 00:10
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We can say

He isn't scholarly enough

or

He isn't enough of a scholar (variant: He isn't much of a scholar)

In "old-school" grammatical terms: enough in #1 would be considered adverbial because it describes the degree to which he is scholarly ( he is not sufficiently a scholar); enough in #2 would be considered a pronoun, because it refers to the portion or amount of a scholar that he is (he is not a sufficient portion of a scholar).

Since the OP tagged the question with "meaning-in-context": the second statement, in objectifying the scholar, is the more derisive remark.

TimR
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