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D EXTENDED ESSAY
Luleå University of TechnologyDepartment of Languages and Culture
ENGLISH D
Supervisor: Ulf Magnusson
2006:112 • ISSN: 1402 - 1552 • ISRN: LTU - DUPP--06/112 - - SE
2006:112
Linguistics in the Midnight Sun • Report no 10
Reports from the Department of Languages and Culture no. 11
Adjectives DescribingAttitudes to Possession
– Generous & Greedy
ANGELICA LUNDMARK
D EXTENDED ESSAY
Adjectives describing attitudes to possession –
Generous & Greedy
Angelica Lundmark
Department of Languages and Culture ENGLISH D
Supervisor: Ulf Magnusson
L I M S
___________________________________________________________________________ Linguistics in the Midnight Sun, Report no 10
________________________________________________________________ Reports from the Department of Languages and Culture no. 11
Table of contents
1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. 1
1.1 BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 AIM ............................................................................................................................................................... 1 1.3 METHOD AND MATERIAL............................................................................................................................... 1 1.4 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................................................... 1 1.5 LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES AND DIAGRAMS..................................................................................................... 2
2. PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS................................................................................................................. 3
2.1 DEFINITIONS OF ‘PROPERTY’, ‘POSSESSION’ AND ‘OWNERSHIP’ .................................................................... 3 2.2 FRAME SEMANTICS........................................................................................................................................ 6 2.3 VERBS DESCRIBING GENEROUS AND GREEDY ................................................................................................. 6 2.4 POLYSEMY .................................................................................................................................................... 9 2.5 SYNONYMY ................................................................................................................................................. 11 2.6 COMPARISON BETWEEN ENGLISH AND SWEDISH......................................................................................... 11
3. CORPUS DATA: GENEROUS ........................................................................................................................ 14
3.1 LITERAL SENSES .......................................................................................................................................... 14 3.1.1 Frequencies of generous ..................................................................................................................... 14 3.1.2 Various patterns of usage.................................................................................................................... 15
3.2 METAPHORICAL SENSES .............................................................................................................................. 16 3.2.1 Objects described as generous............................................................................................................ 17 3.2.2 Metaphorical expressions taken from BNC........................................................................................ 18
4. CORPUS DATA: GREEDY.............................................................................................................................. 22
4.1 LITERAL SENSES .......................................................................................................................................... 22 4.1.1 Frequencies of greedy......................................................................................................................... 22 4.1.2 Various patterns of usage.................................................................................................................... 23
4.2 METAPHORICAL SENSES .............................................................................................................................. 25 4.2.1 Metaphorical expressions taken from BNC........................................................................................ 25
5. GENEROUS AND GREEDY COMPARED...................................................................................................... 29
6. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................. 31
7. REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................................. 32
1
1. Introduction
1.1 Background
The convention of ‘possession’ and ‘ownership’ is a difficulty which people have to face at
quite an early stage in their life. Children more often than not tend to make several mistakes
before they learn what proper behaviour is when it comes to possession. Children often
quarrel about what things belong to whom and they almost always tend to disagree on this
point. Usually, a child seems to believe that the toys belong to her alone simply because the
toy is placed near her or because of the fact that she is holding it in her hand. The first mistake
a child makes concerning possession is to assume that it is a matter of geography or location;
they believe that they own the things that are near them.
The rules of possession are a phenomenon that all people have to face as soon as they
become aware of the fact that they are part of a society that requires this type of knowledge.
In order for a society to function properly, people have to agree on very basic rules such as
ownership, otherwise there will be conflicts and problems everywhere.
1.2 Aim
The purpose of this essay was to find out in what way and to what extent the adjectives
generous and greedy differ. Which of these two words are more commonly used and in what
contexts are they used. Furthermore, the usage of generous and greedy as well as their
semantic meaning were analysed.
1.3 Method and material
My research for this essay is based on the A files of the British National Corpus and to be able
to collect my data a computer search program called MP2.2 was used. In order to deepen the
lexical analysis, various English-English as well as Swedish-English dictionaries were used.
1.4 List of abbreviations
BNC = British National Corpus
NESO = Norstedts stora engelsk-svenska ordbok
NSEO = Norstedts stora svensk-engelska ordbok
CC = Collins COBUILD English Dictionary
LDCE = Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
2
WDT = Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus
SSO = Stora synonymordboken
1.5 List of figures, tables and diagrams
Figure 1 Commercial transaction frame
Figure 2 A commercial transaction frame explaining the verb sell
Figure 3 Semantic frame of participants involved with generous and greedy
Figure 4 Semantic frame with value judgments
Figure 5 Development of meaning of generous
Figure 6 Participants described as generous
Figure 7 Adjectives and the difference between their antonyms
Figure 8 Development of meaning of greedy
Table 1 Different grades of ‘giving’ and ‘taking’
Table 2 A selection of synonyms in English and Swedish
Table 3 Collocate frequencies of generous
Table 4 Collocate frequencies of 1st word to the right of generous
Table 5 Schematic analysis of metaphorical extensions of generous
Table 6 Collocate frequencies of greedy
Table 7 Schematic analysis of metaphorical extensions of greedy
Table 8 Adjectives surrounding generous and greedy
Table 9 A comparison between the metaphorical uses of generous and greedy
Diagram 1 The most frequently used objects described as generous
Diagram 2 The most frequently used objects described as greedy
3
2. Presentation and analysis
2.1 Definitions of ‘property’, ‘possession’ and ‘ownership’
Since generous and greedy are adjectives that describe how people relate to property, the most
logical thing here to do is to begin this section by defining the concepts of ‘property’,
‘possession’ and ‘ownership’.
As made clear in the introduction, possession is a social convention that children are
faced with at a very early stage in their life, even before they are able to talk. Michael
Tomasello states that “... observers of young children have found that expressions indicating
exchange and possession are among the earliest topics of conversation for children of all
cultures, again for all of the world’s languages that have been extensively studied”
(Tomasello 1998:349). It is evident that the rules of what belongs to whom are crucial in order
to maintain a functioning society, regardless of whether you are a child or an adult. It is also
interesting to note that possession is among the earliest topics that interest children. That
reveals a very natural interest that almost seems to be inborn. One reason why children are so
interested in this may be because they are striving to resolve or to simplify the complexity of
this phenomenon. Tomasello suggests that: “In the current study, I assume that in the
beginning, possession is basically equivalent to spatial collocation for the child – an object is
located at a person – and thus a request for an object that another person is controlling is
simply a request that the object go from its current location to the self as a location”
(Tomasello 1998:352). As children get older they understand that location is not always a rule
whereby they can draw the conclusion that they own the object. The definition of possession
is sometimes difficult even for an adult.
Andrew Reeve has, in his book Property, put forward the following statement as to how
ownership is defined:
…ownership is defined by reference to a set of constituting rules. To say that ’A owns P’ means that: 1. A has a right to use P. 2. Others may use P if, and only if, A consents. 3. A may permanently transfer the rights under rules 1 and 2 to specific other persons by
consent. (Quoted from Reeve 1986:11)
4
Another way of describing ‘property’, ‘possession’ and ‘ownership’ is by using a so called
“commercial transaction frame” which is a term used by Charles Fillmore (See for example
Fillmore’s article on Frame Semantics). A frame may look like figure 1 below:
(Figure 1 Commercial transaction frame)
The participants involved in a commercial transaction frame are ‘a giver’, ‘a receiver’,
‘property’ which are given and received and finally ‘money’ which is used in cases concerned
with different sorts of trades. It is possible to describe different kinds of events, depending on
what participants are used in a certain scenario. The following definitions may be identified
from figure 1:
Giver – property – receiver:
• A person gives an object to another person permanently without accepting money in
return: donate/give
• A person gives an object to another person temporarily without accepting money in
return: lend
• A person gives an object to another person permanently, accepting money in return:
sell
• A person gives an object to another person temporarily, accepting money in return:
lease/ let/rent
• A person gives an object to another person permanently without the acceptance of the
receiver and without accepting money in return: No verb. This would mean that the
giver forces the object onto the receiver.
Property Giver Receiver
Money
5
Receiver – property – giver:
• A person gets an object from another person permanently without giving money in
return: receive
• A person gets an object from another person temporarily without giving money in
return: borrow
• A person gets an object from another person permanently, giving money in return: buy
• A person gets an object from another person temporarily, giving money in return: rent
• A person gets an object from another person permanently without the acceptance of
the giver and without giving money in return. Perhaps also without the other person’s
knowledge: steal
If the purpose is to explain the verb sell in a commercial transaction frame, then the result
could look something like figure 2 below:
(Figure 2 A commercial transaction frame explaining the verb sell)
Figure 2 shows a giver who gives property to a receiver and the receiver gives money (in
exchange for the property) to the giver. This is as far as this type of action can go, involving
all four participants. In the scenario of generous (give) and greedy (take) the arrows in the
lower part of figure 2 are deleted. The action only takes place between ‘giver’, ‘property’ and
‘receiver’. (Cf. figure 3)
Property Giver Receiver
Money
6
2.2 Frame semantics
The following is a definition of what a semantic frame is:
Semantic frames are schematic representations of situation types (eating, spying, removing, classifying, etc.) together with lists of the kinds of participants, props, and other conceptual roles that are seen as components of such situations.1
By using this type of frame it is possible to see a clear structure of this phenomenon and also
how the different participants interact with each other.
(Figure 3 Semantic frame of participants involved with generous and greedy)
This is quite a simple frame, but it gives a hint as to how the different participants are related
to each other. In the scenario of generous ‘the giver’ gives property to ‘a receiver’. The object
moves in the same direction when it comes to greedy, but instead of ‘a receiver’ there is ‘a
taker’. Obviously, a person who has been more or less forced to give away something cannot
be called ‘a giver’, so therefore it may be more suitable to name this participant ‘an
involuntary giver’.
2.3 Verbs describing generous and greedy
The verbs most closely related to generous and greedy are give and take, due to the fact that a
generous person usually gives an object to someone and a greedy person often tends to take
1 (http://framenet.icsi.berkeley.edu/ (FAQs))
Property
Giver Generous Receiver Involuntary giver Greedy Taker
Property
7
things. This section will try to outline the relation between the adjectives and verbs mentioned
above.
Give and take are the verbs that most correctly explain the fundamental processes of the
commercial transaction frame. Regardless of whether property is donated, sold, borrowed etc.
it is always either given or taken, because in all situations mentioned on page four and five an
object is transferred from the hands of one person to the hands of another.
The verbs give and take and the adjectives generous and greedy are different phenomena
that people in general have many opinions about. The concepts of ‘giving’ and ‘taking’ are a
matter of moral grading and the concepts of ‘givers’ and ‘takers’ are another matter of moral
grading resulting in adjectives such as generous, mean, greedy etc. These two concepts reveal
that there are socially grounded concepts of ‘generosity’, ‘greed’, ‘meanness’ and so on. The
whole scenario is judged and the perspectives are the following:
• Is the price in proportion to the goods?
• Is the gift in proportion to what the receiver deserves?
On the basis of these judgments the action may be labelled positively or negatively by
choosing various verbs. However, if the intension is to label the giver or the receiver/taker an
adjective is chosen after having studied how they act. Therefore, one may claim that it is the
positive or negative impressions of an action or a participant of an action that triggers value-
loaded terms. If a giver is considered to be too generous then he or she may be thought of as
lavishing, whereas the same action may be considered to be simply generous elsewhere.
It is also possible to identify different grades of these concepts, which has been done in
table 1.
8
Table 1 Different grades of ‘giving’ and ‘taking’
Give out/spend
too little/little
Give out/spend
Much/too much
Take
Take
Economise Squander Deprive Accept
Save and scrape Waste Steal Catch
Put by Lavish Shoplift Capture
Reserve Donate Receive Seize
It is interesting to note that it is not possible to grade the verb take in the same way as one can
do with give. The definition of ‘taking’ is more clear-cut than ‘giving’ because either an
object is taken or it is not. One possible exception might be steal and shoplift, where shoplift
signifies a minor theft of an object. However, it may be argued that regardless of the legal
definition of ‘stealing’, it can still be considered to be a matter of ‘taking’.
In order to make the relations between action and adjectives totally clear, a semantic
frame with judgment values has been inserted below. The relations between actions and
adjectives are illustrated in the semantic frame with judgment values in figure 4.
(Figure 4 Semantic frame with value judgments)2
2 Pos: source: BNC
COMPENSATION Value judgment:
Pos: a generous endowment
Neg: –
PROPERTY Value judgment:
Pos: a generous gift Neg: be chary of praise
RECEIVER Value judgment:
Pos: – Neg: greedy
GIVER Value judgment:
Pos: a generous donor Neg: stingy, mean
9
Figure 4 reveals how different value judgments may be attached to the participants involved
in certain events and it gives a hint as to what adjective belongs where in the semantic frame.
When figure 4 is studied it is important to keep in mind that this picture describes an event
containing a maximum number of participants which results in verbs such as sell, buy, lend,
lease, let, rent etc. The arrows establish in what direction an action or an object is moved and
the block arrows in the middle of the picture show that the action takes place between the
giver and the receiver.
2.4 Polysemy
A word is usually referred to as being polysemous when it has “multiple meanings that are
related conceptually or historically” (Fromkin et al 2003:180). The dictionary CC (1995) has
the following definitions of how the word generous should be interpreted:
Generous: 1. A generous person gives more of something, especially money, than is usual or expected. German banks are more generous in their lending… The gift is generous by any standards. ♦generously We would like to thank all the judges who gave so generously of their time. 2. A generous person is friendly, helpful, and willing to see the good qualities in someone or something. He was always generous in sharing his enormous knowledge… It would have been agreeable if Mr Ross could have been generous enough to congratulate his successor on his decision. ♦generously The students generously gave them instruction in social responsibility. 3. A generous amount of something is much larger than is usual or necessary. …a generous six weeks of annual holiday… He should be able to keep his room tidy with the generous amount of storage space. ♦generously Season the steaks generously with salt and pepper.
It is possible to identify three different definitions of how the word generous may be inter-
preted according to CC. The two definitions mentioned first concern people that either give
much to other people or are simply helpful and friendly. It appears as though a person can be
defined as being generous without actually giving away concrete things. The concept of
generosity may be more a matter of friendliness and how a particular person approaches other
people. This reveals something about society’s attitudes towards generosity, namely that
being helpful and friendly is considered to be a very important aspect of generosity.
The third definition is quite interesting, because after reading it one almost instantly
wonders if it is possible for things to be generous. “A generous six weeks” and “generous
Neg: source: NSEO/NESO
10
amount of storage space” imply that it is the nouns that are being generous, but that is not the
case. If you give more than is necessary, such as storage space, you are generous and
therefore the result is also generous. Usually, a generous gift is a result of generous giving and
generous giving is done by a generous person. When these statements are taken into
consideration sentences such as “a generous amount of storage space” becomes a bit more
logical and it becomes evident that generous has a slightly different meaning in this context
which has to do more with unexpected quantity than with the more prototypical definition of
generosity.
The interpretation of a word is a matter of context, because more often than not a word
that has similar or identical spelling can mean two entirely different things and therefore
context is the key to understanding a sentence completely. Different sentences containing
greedy and generous have been listed below to give examples of how these two words can
mean different things in different contexts. The following sentences are taken from BNC:
Generous:
(1) …Bo-Bo was generous with advice…
(2) A regular brisk walk will improve muscle tone, but in winter protect your cheeks
with a generous application of moisturiser and a soft woollen scarf pulled up round
your face.
(3) Chancellor Kohl has promised generous aid to support reforms in East Germany.
Greedy:
(4) You haven’t got one asset; and above all, you’re spiteful and greedy.
(5) He took in her appearance in a moment’s frank and greedy scrutiny and then gave a
little…
(6) Sometimes I’m really embarrassed about eating in front of people, in case they think
I’m greedy or fat.
The first thing that comes to mind when comparing greedy and generous is that while
generous has several meanings, greedy has not. According to LDCE (2003) greedy has the
following definition: “always wanting more food, money, power, possessions etc than you
need…” It cannot mean anything else, so therefore greedy is not part of the problem of
polysemy.
11
Generous, however, has a differentiation in meaning when comparing sentence (1), (2)
and (3) with each other. (1) means that Bo-Bo is giving a lot or perhaps too much advice to
other people. In (2) “…a generous application of moisturiser…” simply states that one should
use plenty of moisturiser in the winter. In (3) it is possible to say that it is a mix of both
explaining the action of ‘giving’ as well as the amount of aid that will be given. By using the
word generous in this sentence Chancellor Kohl may be perceived more positively than if
generous was substituted by another word. In this case generous gives a hint about the giver’s
generosity as well as the great amount of aid that will be given.
2.5 Synonymy
There are different words or synonyms for greedy and generous, which, when studied, may
give a wider view of these words’ different meanings and interpretations. Therefore, a number
of synonyms have been listed below to show how many words are considered to have the
same, or nearly the same, meaning as generous and greedy respectively. The following list of
synonyms is quoted from WDT (1999):
Generous: altruistic, beneficent, charitable, giving, lavish, liberal, magnanimous, munificent, noble, open-handed, philanthropic, unselfish; abundant, ample, bountiful, copious, flowing, overflowing, plentiful. Greedy: avaricious, covetous, grasping, mercenary, miserly, niggardly, parsimonious, rapacious, selfish, stingy, tight; devouring, gluttonous, insatiable, intemperate, ravenous, voracious.
Synonyms may give an insight as to how greedy and generous are valued. By studying words
with closely related meanings, it may be easier to gain a wider perspective of what, in this
case, generous and greedy really mean. Synonyms can never fully replace another word.
However, synonyms may be regarded as building bricks, each of them containing a piece of
information about a certain meaning of a word, which together can form a cohesive picture of
a word.
Another way of broadening one’s knowledge is to make a comparison between
languages.
2.6 Comparison between English and Swedish
A comparison between English and Swedish is useful because it increases our understanding
of how the different synonyms and antonyms are used in these two languages. It may also be
12
interesting to see if there are any differences concerning the interpretation of the two concepts
in the two languages. The words in table 2 are a selection from SSO (1990) and WDT (1999).
NSEO (2000) and NESO (2000) have been used for the translations.
Table 2 A selection of synonyms in English and Swedish
Generous Generös Greedy Girig charitable
/välgörande
frikostig
/liberal
avaricious
/girig, sniken
sniken
/avaricious
giving
givmild
/open-handed
voracious
/glupsk, omättlig
snål
/stingy, mean
lavish
/slösaktig
spendersam
/liberal, generous
insatiable
/omättlig
gnidig
/niggardly, miserly
magnanimous
/storsint, ädel
slösande
/lavish, abundant
grasping
/vinningslysten
fiken
/greedy, covetous
open-handed
/frikostig, givmild
gentil
/generous
mercenary
/egennyttig
vinningslysten
/grasping
abundant
/överflödande
oförbehållsam
/open
miserly
/gnidig, snål
njugg
/parsimonious
bountiful
/givmild, frikostig
vidhjärtad
selfish
/självisk
lysten
/covetous, desirous
beneficent
/välgörande
storsinnad
/magnanimous
stingy
/snål, njugg
närig
/stingy, grasping
Table 2 reveals a very clear pattern when it comes to evaluating what characteristics stand for
generous versus greedy. Generous is a very positively loaded word and a person who is
generous is distinguished by being charitable and giving. This adjective symbolises a desire to
give away concrete or abstract objects to people in need. However, generous has a more
negative feature as well, which is to be lavishing and abundant, which may imply
exaggerating things a bit.
Once again, greedy has proved to be much less complex than its antonym. Greedy has
nothing but negative features such as stingy, mean or avaricious. Grasping is quite an
interesting word, because here it is possible to actually see the basic meaning of this adjective,
13
namely to grasp things and take them into possession. Voracious and insatiable are two other
words that reveal a connection between greedy and the act of eating. To be greedy is never to
be satisfied with food and beverage you are offered to drink and eat.
In chapters three and four generous and greedy will be more thoroughly studied. Each
adjective will have its own chapter where it will be examined from a literal as well as a
metaphorical point of view.
14
3. Corpus Data: Generous
3.1 Literal senses
WDT (1999) has the following definition as to what characteristics the adjective generous
has: “Giving or bestowing heartily and munificently… Having noble qualities… Bountiful…
Having stimulating qualities…”
3.1.1 Frequencies of generous
The search in BNC resulted in 398 matches of generous. The most frequent collocations are
shown in table 3.
Table 3 Collocate frequencies of generous
2nd left 1st left Generous 1st right 2nd right
17 the 73 a 20 and 47 of
16 a 39 and 14 with 29 to
15 and 26 the 9 in/support 18 and
14 was 23 more 8 to 16 the
11 were/for/of 17 very 7 than/the 14 for
And has a frequency of 15 and 39 to the left of generous and the frequency on the right side is
20 and 18. And in first position to the left and right of generous, reveals that the adjective is
often combined with other words. BNC gives examples of this such as:
(7) … he had been remarkably enlightened and often liberal and generous ruler.
(8) … kind and generous people…
(9) … generous and charitable…
(10) … very generous and very warm…
Examples (7) to (10) shows that and often combines generous with other positively loaded
words. One reason for this may be the desire to elaborate the concept of generosity.
15
Of was mentioned 47 times in the second position to the right and one possibility why
this is so is that of exists in constructions such as “…a generous slice of the United
Kingdom’s art” (BNC). That is to say, of explains the noun that comes after generous.
The frequency of 23 times that more preceded generous is also worth mentioning
because that word reveals something about how people may value generosity. A few
examples from BNC may display this phenomenon.
(11) … Americans tend to be more generous when pouring drinks…
(12) An account of his career from the French point of view would be much more
generous.
(13) I’m sure that many men are more generous than that.
Sometimes when a sentence contains the word combination “… more generous…” it is often
a way of comparing a thing or event with another. In (11) one could make the assumption that
it is a comparison between the generosity of the Americans, and perhaps most likely, another
nationality.
To is mentioned 29 times in the second position to the right which shows an interest in
naming to whom or what the generosity is directed. It is also a way of showing in what
direction generosity goes, which is from the hands of the giver (the generous person) to the
receiver who benefits from the action.
3.1.2 Various patterns of usage
271 examples were found of generous in an attributive position and only 93 of generous in a
predicative position, which means that it is more common to say “a generous man” rather than
“the man was generous”. The reason for this may be because of the large quantity of
sentences of the more metaphorical kind. Consider this example from BNC: “…it is a big-
hearted, generous book”. It is impossible to say: *”The book is very big-hearted and
generous”. Metaphorical expressions almost always use the attributive position of the
adjective rather that the predicative position.
Only one negation was to be found in the result from BNC, which is a clear sign that the
collocation “not generous” is very seldom used and that another word, such as stingy or
greedy, is chosen instead.
16
3.2 Metaphorical senses
Metaphorical uses of words and meanings are often based on the literal meaning, but when
the desire is to express something figuratively the literal meaning is used on another level. It
is crucial to have a knowledge of the literal meaning before being able to understand the
metaphorical one. Consider (14) and (15) from BNC.
(14) I shall miss the kind and generous people of Normandy…
(15) … a beautiful horseshoe-shaped model village built around a generous green.
As perhaps is evident, (14) is the more literal example of generous and (15) is more of a
metaphorical kind. The most basic meaning of generous and the one that first comes to mind
when hearing that adjective is “a person being kind and giving to someone else”. This
meaning may later on have been applied to other words and circumstances, such as example
(15). When reading (15) it is easy to picture a village being situated around an enormous
green lawn. But where does generous fit in semantically if the meaning of (14) is taken into
account? Consider figure 5 below.
GENEROUS
↓
“GIVING MUCH AWAY”
↓
MUCH
↓
A LARGE QUANTITY OF AN ENTITY
(Figure 5 Development of meaning of generous)
Figure 5 shows a possible explanation of how generous may have developed into signifying
quantity. As is already made clear, generous means “to give away much” and after a while
this adjective may have come to be used when the purpose was to focus more on the word
much rather than the actual act of giving. As a result of this, generous began to be used when
referring to a large quantity of an entity.
This may be what has happened in (15). Hypothetically, people may have thought of
(15) as the result of God’s generous giving which resulted in a large area of a grass-covered
17
piece of land. It is impossible to say exactly where the literal meaning of a particular word
turns into being accepted figuratively as well as what may have caused this event.
3.2.1 Objects described as generous
Since this is an adjectival study, it is interesting to pay extra attention to what words follow
generous. Therefore, I have added the rest of the words that occur more often than three times
in table 4. Thus, table 4 is an extension of table 3.
Table 4 Collocate frequencies of 1st word to the right of generous
Generous 1st right
5 as/benefactor
4 terms/sponsorship/enough/but
3 financial/character/help/of/it/gesture
/one/people/gift/though
The word in first position to the right of generous may reveal a lot about the adjective that is
interesting in this study. For example “…generous support…”, “…generous benefactor…”,
“…generous sponsorship…”, “…generous character…”, “…generous gesture…” and
“…generous gift…” all help to add further information as to what generosity signifies.
Benefactor is perhaps the most evident example of this. A generous person is someone who
does good things to other people for example giving things away, being friendly, charitable
and so on. Since it is usually a person who is a benefactor the collocation “…generous
benefactor…” is more of a literal expression.
Support and sponsorship reveal other aspects of the meaning of being generous. One
can be supportive either by simply being there for someone else and sharing their feelings and
beliefs or it could be a matter of supporting for example a person or an institution financially.
All the examples listed above clearly show that generosity almost always favours the
recipient, because the giver ends up with less than what he or she had to begin with.
The objects most frequently mentioned as being generous in the result from BNC were
the following: help or aid, gesture and term. These were the results after having studied all of
the examples from BNC and not just the collocation frequency.
Being generous is about giving things of different kinds to other people and the first
three words are evidence of this. Particularly help and aid reveal how generous may be
18
apprehended by other people, because the purpose of being generous is often to benefit the
recipient and to help the recipient. The word term, however, is a bit trickier. An example of a
sentence containing term is sentence (16).
(16) We will offer the Loan Guarantee Scheme for small firms on more generous terms
in inner city areas.
The true meaning of generous is more hidden in a sentence like example (16). The
gesture is not quite as clear as it is in the collocation “…generous aid…” symbolising
kindness and friendliness. In (16) it is possible to say that the characteristics of “we”, that is
the giver in this example, has been extended into signifying the terms’ features as well.
3.2.2 Metaphorical expressions taken from BNC
It is often very difficult to establish whether an expression is metaphorical or not, and it is
also a matter of personal opinion which makes the whole thing even more complex.
Therefore, this paper includes a list of criteria which is based on my own idea of how an
expression can be labelled as being figurative or literal.
Criteria of characteristics of generous in literal expressions:
1. A human being functions as the agent in a sentence.
2. A human being expresses generosity.
3. Generosity is expressed towards a human being.
4. The object given is concrete.
These four criteria were taken into consideration when studying the result from BNC and the
list below is just a few examples from BNC that were particularly interesting. The total
number of metaphorical expressions was 308.
(17) …my standard glass, poured with a generous hand, would contain four or five
single measures.
(18) What is needed is generous help to ensure their children survive and aid systems
which really are of benefit to the people.
(19) …generous apologies and expressions of concern are far more effective…
(20) …a generous layer of peat…
19
(21) Like Modigliani, Jeanne was a romantic, a mysterious young woman with soulful
blue eyes and a generous mouth.
(22) …his more generous poetic or letter-writing hand.
(23) …in 1930, generous provision of land had been made and that was prudently
added to over the years.
(17) – (23) are more or less metaphorical expressions compared to the most fundamental
features of generous, which is ‘a person expressing generosity to another person by giving
him or her something’. As soon as one of the four criteria mentioned earlier is not fulfilled,
the sentences express more of a metaphorical meaning. This may be more easily understood
when studying table 5. (X stands for a fulfilled criterion of one particular example).
Table 5 Schematic analysis of metaphorical extensions of generous
Criteria:
Examples:
1 2 3 4
(17) X
(18) X
(19)
(20)
(21) X X
(22) X X
(23)
As is evident from table 5, there are few examples where the criteria for the literal uses of
generous may be applied. (19), (20) and (21) do not fulfil any of the criteria. None of the
sentences have a person who expresses generosity, which is one of the most fundamental
features of generous. The reason for this is because examples (17) – (23) contain an object,
either concrete or abstract, which is described as being generous. In (17), the generous hand
pours liquid into a glass and here the hand could be seen as an entity that instigates the action.
Therefore, it is possible to extend the literal meaning to a more figurative one. (18), (19) and
(20) all have abstract objects and since it is impossible for these kinds of objects to be
20
generous, they are bound to be more metaphorical. However, (21) contains a concrete object
that is generous, but in this example generous is used to express quantity or size.
(23) is quite an interesting example of a metaphorical expression where the generosity
has been transferred from the giver to the given object and it is even possible to describe the
action itself as generous. Consider (24a-d).
(24 a) The generous council provided plenty of land.
(b) The council generously provided plenty of land.
(c) A generous provision of land was made by the council.
(d) The council provided a generous area of land.
(24) takes the concept of generosity a step further and shows that generosity can be applied to
other participants besides the giver. This may be more easily understood when figure 6 is
studied.
(Figure 6 Participants described as generous)
In (24 a) the giver is seen as generous and nothing is strange about that since such a feeling is
something which only humans can feel. In (24 b) the giver’s generosity has rubbed off on the
action, so the generous giver also performs an action that is generous. In example (24 c, d) the
generosity has been extended into signifying an object that may carry this feeling as well, that
is the provision is seen as being generous. What has happened here is that the giver’s feelings
have been transferred to the objects. (24 c, d) indirectly means that it is the giver who is
generous and that one can tell so because of the object given.
Giver (24 a)
The object given (24 c, d)
Recipient The action (24 b)
21
It appears as though most of the metaphorical expressions contain an object being
generous and diagram 1 reveals what inanimate objects are most frequently used with
generous.
Diagram 1 The most frequently used objects described as generous
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
subsid
yoffe
r
sponso
rship
supp
ort
help/ai
dter
ms
amount o
f
Being generous is about helping and giving support to other human beings, which may
explain why support, help/aid, subsidy, offer and sponsorship are so frequently used
according to BNC.
Generous has also come to be used to express quantity, because the result from BNC
showed that expressions such as the following were quite common: “…a generous
number/amount/slice/range/portion of…”
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4. Corpus Data: Greedy
4.1 Literal senses
For greedy, LDCE (2003) gives the following definition: “always wanting more food, money,
power, possessions etc than you need…” Being greedy is about wanting as much as is
possible to get and it seems as though a greedy person particularly wants food or money.
CC (1995) has offered a slightly different explanation: “If you describe someone as
greedy, you mean that they want to have more of something such as food or money than is
necessary or fair.” CC points out that being greedy is not fair to other people since they are
deprived of what may be rightfully theirs. Being greedy may affect other people negatively.
4.1.1 Frequencies of greedy
Greedy had a frequency of only 79, which is a significant difference compared to generous.
The most common collocates of greedy are listed in table 6.
Table 6 Collocate frequencies of greedy
2nd left 1st left Greedy 1st right 2nd right
4 to 10 the 8 and 3 of
9 and 3 horse 3 and
5 a/too 3 you
4 or
3 are/is/be
And had a total frequency of 20. However, the first position to the left and the first position to
the right are the most interesting ones to focus on. This word may help to conjoin other words
related to greedy which may give an insight as to how people view greedy and the people who
possess this characteristic. The following examples were found in the result from BNC:
(25) “…greedy and tyrannous… “,
(26) “…greedy and self-interested…”
(27) “…greedy and materialistic…”
(28) “…rich and greedy…”
23
(29) “…ferocious and greedy…”
The examples pretty much speak for themselves, but (28) is especially interesting. That
example reveals a behaviour which unfortunately is quite a common phenomenon. To be rich
does not hinder people from wanting to have even more and it seems as though people are
never satisfied, which is what greedy is all about. A greedy person wants to have everything
and the fact that he or she may be rich and others are poor and needy is not important. The
only thing that matters is to have as much as possible which brings me to example (27). It
seems as though being greedy usually signifies wanting concrete things such as food, money
and other objects that may be used. People are seldom greedy for love. Is it possible to draw
the conclusion that being greedy is about caring more about dead things than the living ones?
Too is another interesting collocate with a frequency of 5. Obviously, there exists such a
thing as being ‘too greedy’. Study examples (30) and (31).
(30) … Hitler’s getting altogether too greedy.
(31) Liza burned her tongue, testing whether it would set or not, and being too greedy to
taste or anxious to please.
To be a bit greedy may be considered to be quite a good quality in a leader or a politician.
However, it is possible to be too greedy and (30) is a clear-cut example of this phenomenon.
Hitler’s evil greediness got out of control and millions of people lost their lives. Even though
(30) is a somewhat extreme example, it helps to shed a light over what greed once has caused.
Sentence (31) is less extreme, but still Liza burns her tongue because she is too greedy in
tasting the jelly. The message is obvious: being too greedy may be harmful to oneself or other
people. Possibly it is good to be a little greedy sometimes, but it is seldom good to be too
greedy and this is shown in the outcome of the events in (30) as well as (31).
4.1.2 Various patterns of usage
It appears as though it is mostly humans who are greedy because the result from BNC showed
that over half of all the examples listed there involved a person expressing greed. However,
the same sentences almost always lacked the source of greed and therefore it may be suitable
to draw the conclusion that people find it less important to state what someone is greedy for
and that it is enough to simply highlight the greedy person.
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Greedy was found to be placed in an attributive position in 46 instances and only 30 in a
predicative position. The reason why this is so may be because the attributive use of greedy
involves a simpler syntax and contains fewer words compared to the predicative use of the
adjective.
Only one negation was found in BNC, which reveals that it is not very common to say
“not greedy”, because that collocation is more difficult to use. It is also rather vague because
the antonyms for that collocation are many. Anything from giving, generous, kind etc to
lavishing, liberal and magnanimous. These words are more expressive and they all show
different angles of being “not greedy” but they do not have the same meaning. Words such as
lavishing or generous may present a better picture of a particular situation.
Figure 7 shows a selection of some typical human characteristics and their antonyms
within parenthesis.
A selection of a person’s characteristics:
(Figure 7 Adjectives and the difference between their antonyms)
One reason why negations may not be used so frequently is because it only can tell something
which that particular person is not, rather than something he or she is. To say “she was not
greedy” simply points out that maybe at first she was considered to be greedy, but it later on
turned out that she was not. If she is not greedy, then that particular characteristic is removed
from her. Naturally, greedy should be replaced by one of its antonyms and in figure 7
generous and liberal are given as possible replacements. However, it is important to
HANDSOME
(UGLY, REPELLING) SUCCESSFUL MEAN (FAILED, FRUITLESS) (KIND, FRIENDLY)
(GENEROUS, LIBERAL)
GREEDY
25
remember that “not greedy” does not always mean that the person is generous, which may be
one reason why a negation could be preferred instead of an antonym.
4.2 Metaphorical senses
It turns out that metaphorical extensions of greedy were not very common. Out of 79
examples only 14 were of a metaphorical kind. However, it seems as though the metaphors
containing greedy were extended in a manner similar to the metaphors with generous. Figure
8 shows a possible pattern for how greedy has been extended.
GREEDY
↓
“TO WANT OR TAKE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE”
↓
MUCH
↓
TAKE (TOO) MUCH FIGURATIVELY
(Figure 8 Development of meaning of greedy)
Figure 8 shows one possible reason for how greedy may have developed into being used in
metaphorical expressions. Greedy means something like “to want or take as much as
possible” and therefore it is not so far-fetched to extend this into taking too much figuratively
as well.
4.2.1 Metaphorical expressions taken from BNC
Criteria of characteristics of greedy in literal expressions:
1. A human being functions as the agent in a sentence.
2. A human being expresses greed.
3. The source of greed is either concrete or abstract objects.
Based on the criteria above, metaphorical extensions were identified and sentence (32) – (38)
are only a selection of the metaphors of greedy which were found in BNC. The total number
of metaphors was 14.
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(32) With Raskolnikov the issue has been naturalized into a restless and greedy
discontent.
(33) He took in her appearance in a moment’s frank and greedy scrutiny…
(34) But they are greedy plants where space is concerned…
(35) … sexuality today is merely greedy, blind, self-seeking…
(36) The vision of Elena Silves, despite its rather cautious prose style, is in the end a
quite moving story of individuals swallowed up by dogma’s greedy maw.
(37) Sir George put the letters into his wife’s lap. And she turned them over and over,
under the greedy eyes of the two scholars.
(38) …a greedy horse may be upset by empty hands that smell of food…
(32) – (38) may be considered to be more of a metaphorical kind when comparing the features
of the literal meaning of greedy. A sentence with greedy that fulfils all of the three criteria
listed above may look like this: “The man was greedy for food”. When comparing this
sentence to (32) – (38) it may be easier to outline exactly why they are metaphors. Consider
table 7. (X stands for a fulfilled criterion of one particular example).
Table 7 Schematic analysis of metaphorical extensions of greedy
Criteria:
Sentences:
1 2 3
(32)
(33) X
(34)
(35)
(36)
(37) X
(38)
Only (33) and (37) could fulfil any of the criteria, which was the one where a human being
functions as the agent in the sentence. Based on this fact, it is possible to say that (32) – (38)
are more or less metaphorical expressions. None of the sentences could fulfil criteria number
two which may be one of the most important features of a literal expression. Greed is a human
27
feeling which does not exist anywhere else, particularly not in inanimate objects as is the case
in (34). In literal contexts, there is no such thing as “a greedy plant”, since obviously, plants
are without emotions. This is a human description of a plant that is growing, perhaps too fast,
and takes up too much space for it to be convenient.
(37) is another interesting example of a metaphor, where the greediness experienced by
a person has been extended to describe the eyes of that person. The purpose of the sentence is
to highlight the fact that the greed the person in question is feeling is revealed through his or
her eyes. “Greedy eyes” makes an attempt at describing the person’s feelings as well as what
the eyes looked like and how they behaved.
An example closely related to this is (33), where it is ‘a scrutiny’ that is greedy. This is
only possible in metaphors since it is an abstract object expressing greed. The picture that is
supposed to pop up in one’s head when reading sentence (33) is a person scrutinising
someone and taking in every single detail and evaluating what is being seen.
Diagram 2 The most frequently used objects described as greedy
0
1
2
3
elite
eyes
plant
scru
tiny
public se
ctor
Objects were seldom considered to be greedy according to BNC, wherefore diagram 2 looks a
bit meagre. Elite and public sector were mentioned as being greedy two times respectively,
but whether or not these are real objects is ambiguous, because they may be constituted by
people. Perhaps elite is more rightly labelled as metonymy since it is treated as a collective
noun that contains a particular group of people.
28
Public sector might also be regarded similarly to elite, but this word is more of a
metaphorical expression. The society is viewed as having the shape of a circle which is
divided up into several sectors, where public sector is one of them.
The rest of the objects mentioned in diagram 2, eyes, plant and scrutiny, are without a
doubt abstract objects and when abstract objects are described as having human feelings they
are metaphors.
As opposed to generous, none of these words in diagram 2 add any further meaning to
greedy.
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5. Generous and greedy compared
Generous had a total frequency of 398 whereas greedy had a result of only 79. This must
mean that people tend to prefer to use generous rather than greedy, but why is this so? One
explanation may be the desire to bring forth people’s good sides rather than their bad ones.
However, one reason for this unevenness is because the result of generous contained 308
metaphorical expressions compared to the 14 metaphorical examples with greedy. The huge
difference between generous and greedy is partly due to the fact that generous is very often
extended to signify quantity. This is illustrated in (39) where it is possible to exchange
generous for large.
(39) Steven paid his neighbour a generous sum of money for a CD.
People are often interested in size which may be one explanation as to why greedy has not
been developed into meaning ‘small’ or ‘little’.
It is not so much the adjectives themselves that may say something about what they
signify. Rather, it is the surrounding words that should be studied more thoroughly. Table 8
shows what adjectives surrounded generous and greedy in the result from BNC.
Table 8 Adjectives surrounding generous and greedy
Adjectives with generous Adjectives with greedy
liberal and generous ruler greedy and tyrannous
kind and generous people greedy and self-interested
very generous and very warm greedy and materialistic
generous and charitable rich and greedy
Table 8 pretty much speaks for itself, but to sum it all up it is possible to say that generous has
only positive qualities whereas greedy has nothing but negative features.
Apart from the surrounding adjectives, one may also consider the objects that are
described as being generous or greedy in the metaphorical extensions. Table 9 clearly shows
what differences there are between these expressions.
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Table 9 A comparison between the metaphorical uses of generous and greedy
Metaphorical expressions with generous Metaphorical expressions with greedy
a generous hand greedy discontent
generous help a moment’s frank and greedy scrutiny
generous apologies greedy plants
a generous layer of peat sexuality today is merely greedy
a generous mouth dogma’s greedy maw
his more generous poetic or letter-writing
hand
greedy eyes
generous provision of land greedy horse
Simply taking a look at the different objects in table 9 clearly reveals what characteristics
generous and greedy have. Besides expressing quantity, generous has “kind” words such as
help and apologies, whereas greedy has more negatively loaded words, for example
discontent and scrutiny.
Hand and eyes may be viewed as being metonymies for the individual owning the eyes
and hands. The individual is generous and gives away much using his or her hand and
therefore the generosity reflects on the object hand. The same thing goes for eyes. The greedy
person may look a lot at the object desired and therefore this has been extended to the eyes
being greedy.
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6. Summary and conclusion
This paper has dealt with an analysis of the adjectives generous and greedy and the purpose of
making this analysis was to find out in what way and to what extent the adjectives generous
and greedy differ regarding usage frequency and in what contexts they are used. My research
for this paper is based on a computer search program called MP2.2 which was applied to the
A files of the British National Corpus.
A search of generous and greedy in MP2.2 had the following result:
– Generous had a result of 398
– Greedy had a result of 79
Generous had such a high frequency partly because of the many metaphorical expressions that
contained this adjective. However, the trend seems to point in another direction as well.
People tend to prefer using generous because it simply is nicer to express people’s good sides
rather than their bad ones.
The objects mostly described as generous in the metaphorical expressions found in BNC
were help, support and offer. The objects described as greedy were eyes, scrutiny and public
sector. When studying these objects it becomes quite evident that the first three objects help
to describe the characteristics of generous, whereas the other three objects do not reveal
anything about greedy. Maybe this result is also due to the fact that generous is more
frequently used which means that people extend the area of usage of generous constantly.
This essay has focused on analysing how generous and greedy are used and also to some
extent how these adjectives may be perceived by others. Making judgments like this is deeply
rooted into society, and therefore it may be interesting to make an in-depth analysis based on
the thoughts and feelings of a group of native speakers. An insight into people’s notions about
language and words would surely take these kinds of researches a step further and it would
also contribute to make adjectives such as generous and greedy more vivid.
32
7. References
Primary sources: British National Corpus Secondary sources: Fromkin, V. Rodman, R. Hyams, N. (2003) An introduction to language. Boston: Heinle. Reeve, A. (1986) Property. London: Macmillan Education Ltd. Sinclair, J. (Editor in Chief) (1995) Collins COBUILD English Dictionary. London: HarperCollins
Publishers. Strömberg, A. (1990) Stora synonymordboken. Stockholm: Strömbergs. Tomasello, M. (1998) ‘One child’s early talk about possession’. In Newman, J. (ed), The linguistics of
giving. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Author unknown (2005) ‘What is a frame and how do you know that you’ve got one?’
http://framenet.icsi.berkeley.edu (FAQs) (March 26, 2006). Norstedts stora engelsk-svenska ordbok. Gjøvik 2000: AiT. Norstedts stora svensk-engelska ordbok. Gjøvik 2000: AiT. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Harlow, Essex 2003: Pearson Education Limited. Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus. Chicago 1999: Trident Press International.