Collateral adjective
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
A collateral adjective is an adjective with a similar meaning to a given noun, but derived from a different root. For example, lunar serves as an adjective to describe attributes of the Moon; moon comes from the Old English mōna and lunar from the Latin luna. Collateral adjectives contrast with derived (denominal) adjectives; for "father", for example, there is derived fatherly vs. collateral paternal; similarly for "rain" there is rainy vs pluvial, and for "child", childish and childlike vs. infantile and puerile. Similarly diurnal, nocturnal and crepuscular mean of the day, of the night and of the twilight.
In English, collateral adjectives often relate to root-words that were never fully adopted into the everyday language, but were still widely-enough known that the context would be understood. For example, dog is an English word, and canine is the Latin-based collateral adjective that refers to dogs.
The term was coined by the Funk and Wagnalls dictionaries, but as they are currently out of print, the term has become rare. A synonym sometimes seen in linguistics is suppletive (denominal) adjective, though this is a liberal use of the word 'suppletive'.
