Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: il meno <aggettivo> possible

Come si dice
   il meno <aggettivo> possibile
in inglese?
 
-- 
Kiuhnm
 
Coltivatore di alberi binari

 in inglese?
 
“the least <adjective> possibile”
 
Credo che funzioni anche con un avverbio.
 
Ciao,
Wolfgang

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Quindi abbiamo
   the most <adjective> possible
   the least <adjective> possible
   as <adjective> as possible
e forse anche
   as little <adjective> as possible
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Ho però l'impressione che si evitino espressioni del genere, ricorrendo 
invece alla sostituzione dell'aggettivo col suo contrario (se 
disponibile, naturalmente). Così
 
      “the least expensive possible”
 
diventa correntemente
 
      “as cheap as possible”.
 
In italiano l'espressione “il meno caro possibile” è invece quasi 
indispensabile giacché non esiste un aggettivo che traduca “cheap”, ma 
solo l'espressione perifrastica “a buon mercato”, poco usata perché 
troppo prolissa.
 
Ciao,
Wolfgang
 
-- 
 
Oggi è venerdì, il giorno della settimana in cui si mangia 
tradizionalmente del pesce, che diventa oggi uno di aprile. :)

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I'm not really sure what is the aim of this question. I suspect that the 
lack of context reflects a desire for some general rule. That leaves me 
searching for clues because English typically demands more personal 
attention.
 
the most inexpensive possible
the least costly possible
as inexpensive as possible
as little as possible
 
It seems too easy.

 troppo prolissa.
 
Infatti.
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 indispensabile giacché non esiste un aggettivo che traduca “cheap”
 
Economico
 
-- 
Sanity is not statistical
 

 Economico
 
E' più corto da scrivere ma il numero di sillabe non cambia!


    "as little as possible".
 
Credo che la frase (*) sia sbagliata, ne sono anzi quasi convinto. Ma 
decida Tony il Gelatiere.
 
Ciao,
Wolfgang

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It doesn't sound good. One could say "as little costly as possible," but 
why?
 
I'm sure a copy-editor (they still exist) would change it and add a 
noun, but I can't think of a particular grammar rule that it violates. 
Most listeners would consider it a contorted way of saying "as little 
cost as possible," which is a common phrasing. Even if a noun isn't 
included it's always added in our minds, so we could say that it's implied.
 
The word "possible" is problematic. One could feel freer to play with 
variations leaving off that word because it doesn't add anything to the 
meaning of a phrase like "the least expensive." If you think that such a 
phrase implies that there are lower costs that aren't possible, then I 
suppose you should add "possible" to be really, really safe. (Or, as 
safe as possible.)
 
I tried to search for discussions of using an adjective without a noun, 
but didn't find anything that said it was an OK practice except in some 
particular cases.
 
https://www.englishgrammar.org/adjectives-nouns/
 
https://www.englishpractice.com/grammar/adjectives-nouns/
 
https://perfectyourenglish.com/grammar/adjectives-without-nouns.htm
 
 
 

 why?
 
What about "as little surprising as possible"?
There's a "rule" that says that a programmer's code shouldn't surprise 
the reader, meaning that it should do exactly what one thinks it does.
The term "surprise" is the actual word used by English programmers; I'm 
not making that up.
Is it grammatical/acceptable to say that their code should be "as little 
surprising as possible"?
Would replacing "little surprising" with "unsurprising" improve the 
sentence? I'm not sure.
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I would say "as little surprise as possible."
 
The use of "surprising" would be understood, especially in the context 
of dialog between programmers, but it an unnecessary contortion of the 
language. The phrase "as unsurprising as possible" would be an 
improvement over "surprising."

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OK, thanks!
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I was going to say that I think "unsurprising" is an improvement because 
it avoids the double adjective without a noun of "as little surprising 
as possible." However, thinking about it, I realize that "surprising" 
isn't an adjective in this case, it's a gerund. I don't know how I 
missed that earlier.
 
Although I'm fairly sure of the classification, I admit to not being an 
authoritative expert in grammatical classifications within English 
sentence structure, so there's a small possibility that I'm mistaken. As 
a professional writer, however, I know more than most English speakers, 
I've learned a lot from professional editors, and I have a good 
intuitive ear for what is "right."
 
 

 intuitive ear for what is "right."
 
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=as+little+_NOUN_+as+possible%2C+as+little+_ADJ_+as+possible&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26
 
 
See here for other advanced options such as _NOUN_ and _ADJ_:
 
https://books.google.com/ngrams/info
 


    interjection
 
What about articles and numerals?
 
Bye,
Wolfgang

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Some classical grammars don't have specific classes for those.
 
See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determiner#Description
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numeral_(linguistics)
 


 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numeral_(linguistics)
 
 
 
Si legge nel brano di Wikipedia:  "Some theories of grammar use the 
word "numeral" to refer to cardinal numbers that act as a determiner 
that specify the quantity of a noun, for example the "two" in "two 
hats". Some theories of grammar do not include determiners as a part of 
speech and consider "two" in this example to be an adjective."
 
 
Ma *se* è vero che i numeri cardinali, in inglese, non vengono usati 
predicativamente,
 
e *se* è vero che una differenza tra "determiners" e aggettivi è che i 
primi non sono usati predicativemente,
 
*allora* azzarderei che i numeri cardinali in inglese sono 
"determiners"
(o talora pronomi, ma forse no! vedi 
https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2016/08/number.html
 ).

> Re: Parrts of speech [
 
Scusate il mio grasso dito, per dirla con un calco!
 
Sarà "parts" con pronuncia scozzese? :D

    
https://books.google.com/ngrams/info
 
 
Whoa! I said I'm not an authoritative expert, but I didn't intend to say 
that I'm a beginner! What I meant was that I couldn't immediately 
explain, without checking a reference, the difference in terms such as:
 
- Gradable adjectives.
- Non-gradable adjectives.
- Proper adjectives.
- Ordinal adjectives.
- Cardinal adjectives.
- Compound adjectives.
- De-verbal adjectives.
- De-nominal adjectives.
- Attributive Adjectives.
- Predicative adjectives

 predicativamente,
 
Esempio?
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The graph I linked was meant to corroborate what you said about "as 
little <adj> as possible" being ungrammatical.
 
My real objection is to your claiming that "surprising" is not an 
adjective because it's a gerund. They're concepts on different levels: 
"adjective" refers to the function of a word, while "gerund" to its 
grammatical form.


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In fact, I was trying to figure out the function of "surprising" in the 
phrase because I suspected its function may not be that of an adjective, 
given that the function of an adjective is to modify a noun, and there 
is no noun to modify. A gerund is a word that is created with a verb but 
functions as a noun. To me, that's a more satisfying description of "the 
least surprising possible" than is the assertion that "surprising" 
functions as an adjective in that phrase.
 
However, I'm open to any arguments supporting an alternative view, given 
that I do not claim to be a grammar expert. (I think that I'm in good 
company. Even some professional editors I know don't claim to be grammar 
experts and will point to others who they identify as "more expert in 
grammar" when asked a particularly problematic question. These days it 
has become a rare obsession to be one who always looks for grammar rules 
to explain natural language phenomena.)
 
I may have entirely wandered off of the point of the original question 
by now, but my adjective preoccupation was only triggered in trying to 
accommodate the "aggettivo" element of the "il meno <aggettivo> 
possibile" specification you supplied.
 
In searching for opinions regarding adjectives with no nouns, I happened 
upon the article cited below that I only cite because I think it might 
be of some interest to you.
https://guinlist.wordpress.com/tag/adjective-without-noun/
 
 
The site author claims to be a specialist in English for academic and 
professional purposes, and he says "The blog particularly seeks to 
clarify advanced topics in English grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation 
that give the greatest problems to speakers of other languages when they 
are involved in academic and professional communication."

 
https://guinlist.wordpress.com/tag/adjective-without-noun/
 
 
Quegli aggettivi sono aggettivi sostantivati. Quindi non sono più 
aggettivi, bensì sostantivi. Ritengo fuorviante la denominazione 
“adjective without noun”.
 
Ciao,
Wolfgang

 functions as an adjective in that phrase.
 
I think I now understand what you mean. You're thinking:
- we should have little + noun
- but we have little + surprising
- surprising is not a noun
- could it be an adjective without a noun, that is, an adjective that 
acts as a noun?
 
Maybe something like:
   "as little <of what's surprising> as possible"
 
That's interesting, but I think we're bending the rules a little too much!
I've already given up on "little surprising" and moved on :)


Kiuhnm was thinking very hard :

Mmh, in effetti trovo anche
"The Ten Commandments are ten, the months of childbirth are nine, the 
days of circumcision are eight, the days of the week are seven, the 
Mishnah sections are six, the books of the Torah are five, the 
Matriarchs are four...".


Meno male che ci sia una persona che conosce tutte delle classificazioni.
 
In Inglese, allora, "predicative adjective" e "substantivised 
adjective." Quest'ultimo termine aggettivo sostantivato, se non più un 
aggettivo, secondo me è mal chiamato perché la parola aggettivo è il 
sostantivo nel termine, e il sostantivato è un modificatore. Nello 
spirito di pace sul mondo, la ritiro come obiezione pubblica e la 
conservo come obiezione personale.

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Grammarians call words such as "impossible" /adjective/ in advance, and 
then teach us that the parts of speech, including "adjective", are about 
the use of a word and not its form, basically contradicting themselves. 
They should say "impossible" is just a word and becomes a part of 
speech, an adjective or a noun, when it's part of a sentence.
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So I agree with you on this: "substantivised adjective" is utter 
nonsense, but we'll have to live with it.
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"adjective without a noun", though, is even worse.
 
(Last consecutive post, I promise)
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 nonsense, but we'll have to live with it.
 
Let's make it more bearable using American spelling of “substantivized”.
 
Ciao,
Wolfgang

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Tony forgot to americanize it :)
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I thought he was American.
 
Anyway tonight, unable to fall asleep, I had an idea of another 
illogical expression, analogous to our “substantivized adjective”: the 
“liquified gas” is not a gas, but a, though unstable, liquid.
 
Ciao,
Wolfgang

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This morning I ate some of the American breakfast cereal Grape Nuts, a 
product which contains no grapes and no nuts.
 

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It's similar, but different: a "liquified gas" is a gas that was 
liquified. The important thing is that it was a gas at some point.
"substantivized adjective" doesn't make sense because the word it refers 
to was never an adjective to begin with: before being put into the 
sentence it was nothing and then became a noun.
 
One way to look at it is that the term "adjective" is overloaded 
(computer science jargon): it can refer to (i) a word which is usually 
used as an adjective or to (ii) a word that's being used as an adjective.
So a "substantivized adjective" is "a word that's usually an adjective 
being used as a noun".
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Grape-Nuts is a brand, which is completely arbitrary. The makers of this 
product are free to give it any name, even one that contains wrong 
information on the ingredients.
 
Contrary to that, “substantivized adjective” and “liquified gas” are no 
brands, but denominations in normal language. And here the objection 
that the former one is no adjective and the latter no gas may make sense.
 
Ciao,
Wolfgang

 that the former one is no adjective and the latter no gas may make sense.
 
I knew that. Did you think I didn't know that? Why would you think I 
didn't know that? I knew that. (Paraphrased from Martin Short as Nathan 
Thurm, SNL circa 1984-1985)