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What semantic property or properties are shared any words in 1 and 2?

  1. alive, asleep, dead, married, pregnant

  2. tall, smart, interesting, bad, tired

I don't see any shared between those words.

p.s.w.g
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An Nguyễn Lê Thái
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    Have you tried [ell.se]? – TrevorD Jul 15 '13 at 15:44
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    1: you either are or are not these. 2: you can be a little or a lot of these. – Mitch Jul 15 '13 at 15:49
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    Mitch has it. List 1 contains binary characteristics, with only two states: yes and no; these parallel count nouns. List 2 contains multi-state gradable characteristics, which can be measured and compared on a cline in at least one semantic dimension; these parallel mass nouns. – John Lawler Jul 15 '13 at 15:54
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    As @Mitch says, the words in the first list are "absolute modifiers", but not those in the second list. – FumbleFingers Jul 15 '13 at 15:56
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    Does someone here think they understand the Q and happen to know the answer? Would they be so kind as to help the OP? – Kris Jul 17 '13 at 07:10
  • Those who are into database design/ web-design will see this as an excellent question. – Kris Jul 17 '13 at 07:11
  • "A semantic class contains words that share a semantic property. Semantic classes may intersect. The intersection of female and young can be girl." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_class -- Both your examples can exhibit semantic relations. What exactly is the relation depends on the context. That, incidentally, is outside the purview of language and ELU. – Kris Jul 17 '13 at 07:24

2 Answers2

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The common thread in set 1 is "state". As in the state of being alive, asleep etc. The common property in set 2 is "quality". They are all adjectives and adjectives qualify nouns. Therefore, "quality" can be determined as the underlying semantic property.

moonstar
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Set 1 is not gradable: not to be modified by "very" and without comparative or superlative degree. Set 2 is gradable.

Kit Z. Fox
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user78645
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