Which part of speeches "enough" can function as? I looked it up in Longman dictionary and it states that it can function as “pronoun”, “determiner”, and “adverb”. Then I looked it up in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate dictionary and there it’s stated that it can function as “adjective”, “adverb”, and “pronoun”. So, my question is, why is there that difference? And what part of speeches can it function as?
Answer
The reason there is a difference between dictionaries is that there are different systems that represent English grammar. This link to a grammar book points out that difference:
Student’s Intro to English Grammar "determinatives"
"Traditional grammars generally don’t use the term ‘determinative’ . The words in
that class are treated as a subclass of the adjectives. But in fact words such as the and a are very different in grammar and meaning from adjectives like those illustrated
in §S.3 above, so we put them in a distinct primary category."
So, this book says that determinatives (words that can function as determiners) are different enough that they should not be called adjectives. Unlike many adjectives, you can’t use "more" or "most" with "enough". However, you can use it as a predicate, for example "That is enough."
What adjectives and determiners have in common is that they modify nouns. If you focus on the ways that "enough" is used, you may not need to worry about the category.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : shapoor , Answer Author : Jack O’Flaherty
