Abstract
This paper explores ways in which semiotic concepts of Charles Sanders Peirce illuminate the meaning-potential of English comparative adjectives. Having classified all phenomena into categories of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness, Peirce describes the three degrees of adjectives in terms of these categories: “Firstness is the mode of being of that which is such as it is, positively and without reference to anything else” (Hardwick, 1977: 24). The uncompared positive degree of an adjective such as red or hard, then, is Peirce’s example of Firstness. We return to this idea later.
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© 1982 Plenum Press, New York
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O’Dowd, S. (1982). Comparative Adjectives in Terms of Peirce’s Phenomenological Categories. In: Semiotics 1980. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-9137-1_35
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-9137-1_35
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