Adjectives

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Introduction

One of the most important components of a sentence is the adjective. What is an adjective? An adjective describes or modifies nouns and pronouns in a sentence. It normally indicates quality, size, shape, duration, feelings, contents, and more about a noun or pronoun. Adjectives are one of the main parts of speech of the English language, although historically they were classed together with nouns.

So basically, the main function of an adjective is to modify a noun or a pronoun so that it will become more specific and interesting. Instead of just one word, a group of words with a subject and a verb, can also function as an adjective. When this happens, the group of words is called an adjective clause. Adjectives usually provide relevant information about the nouns/pronouns they modify and describe by answering the questions: What kind? How many? Which one? How much?

EXAMPLES:

• The team has a dangerous batsman. (What kind?)
• I have ten candies in my pocket. (How many?)
• I loved that red car. (Which one?)
• I earn more money than he does. (How much?)

SOME EXAMPLES OF ADJECTIVES IN ACTION:​

• It's a big table. (size)
• It's a round table. (shape)
• It's an old table. (age)
• It's a brown table. (color)
• It's an English table. (origin)
• It's a wooden table.(material)
• It's a lovely table.(opinion)
• It's a broken table. (observation)
• It's a coffee table. (purpose)

Types Of Adjectives

There are several different types of adjectives:

• Descriptive adjectives
• Quantitative adjectives
• Proper adjectives
• Demonstrative adjectives
• Possessive adjectives 
• Interrogative adjectives
• Indefinite adjectives  
• Compound adjectives

A descriptive adjective is a word which describes nouns and pronouns. Most of the adjectives belong in this type. These adjectives provide information and attribute to the nouns/pronouns they modify or describe. Participles are also included in this type of adjective when they modify a noun.

EXAMPLES:

• I have a fast car. (The word ‘fast’ is describing an attribute of the car)
• I am hungry. (The word ‘hungry’ is providing information about the subject)
• The hungry cats are crying.
• I saw a flying Eagle.

A quantitative adjective provides information about the quantity of the nouns/pronouns. This type belongs to the question category of ‘how much’ and ‘how many’.

EXAMPLES:

• I have 20 bucks in my wallet. (How much)
• They have three children. (How many)
• You should have completed the whole task. (How much)

Proper adjectives are the adjective form of proper nouns. When proper nouns modify or describe other nouns/pronouns, they become proper adjectives. A proper adjective allows us to summarize a concept in just one word. Instead of writing/saying ‘a food cooked in Chinese recipe’ you can say ‘Chinese food’.

EXAMPLES:

• American cars are very strong.
• Chinese people are hard workers.
• I love KFC burgers.
• Marxist philosophers despise capitalism.

A demonstrative adjective directly refers to something or someone. Demonstrative adjectives include the words: this, that, these, those.

EXAMPLES:

• That building is so gorgeously decorated. (‘That’ refers to a singular noun far from the speaker)
• This car is mine. (‘This’ refers to a singular noun close to the speaker)
• These cats are cute. (‘These’ refers to a plural noun close to the speaker)
• Those flowers are heavenly. (‘Those’ refers to a plural noun far from the speaker)

A possessive adjective indicates possession or ownership. It suggests the belongingness of something to someone/something. Some of the most used possessive adjectives are my, his, her, our, their, your. All these adjectives always come before a noun.

EXAMPLES:

• My car is parked outside.
• His cat is very cute.
• Our job is almost done.
• Her books are interesting.

An interrogative adjective asks a question. An interrogative adjective must be followed by a noun or a pronoun. The interrogative adjectives are: which, what, whose.

EXAMPLES:

• Which phone do you use?
• What game do you want to play?
• Whose car is this?

An indefinite adjective describes or modifies a noun unspecifically. They provide indefinite/unspecific information about the noun. The common indefinite adjectives are few, many, much, most, all, any, each, every, either, nobody, several, some, etc.

EXAMPLES:

• I gave some candy to her.
• I want a few moments alone.
• Several writers wrote about the recent incidents.
• Each student will have to submit homework tomorrow.

When compound nouns/combined words modify other nouns, they become a compound adjective. This type of adjective usually combines more than one word into a single lexical unit and modifies a noun. They are often separated by a hyphen or joined together by a quotation mark.

EXAMPLES:

• I have a broken-down sofa.
• I saw a six-foot-long snake.
• He gave me an “I’m gonna kill you now” look.

The Degree Of Adjectives

We use an adjective to describe any object. Objects can be various, that is why there are some categories of adjectives which are called degrees of comparison. There are three degrees of adjectives: Positive, comparative, superlative. These degrees are applicable only for the descriptive adjectives. Adjective change in form when they show comparison.

Positive Degree: An adjective is said to be in the positive degree when there is no comparison.

EXAMPLES:

• David is a good, good, warm-hearted man who loves me.
• You are a kind and beautiful woman.
• You are strong, that's why I admire you.

Comparative Degree: An adjective is said to be in the comparative degree when it is used to compare two nouns/pronouns.

EXAMPLES:

• Josh is taller than his sister.
• I’m more interested in music than sport.
• Big cars that use a lot of petrol are less popular now than twenty years ago.

Superlative Degree: An adjective is in superlative degree when it is used to compare more than two nouns/pronouns. We use the article 'the' before the superlative degrees.

EXAMPLES:

• The ‘Silver Arrow’ will be the fastest train in the world when it is built.
• The most frightening film I’ve ever seen was Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’.
• What is the least expensive way of travelling in Japan?

Articles also modify the nouns. So, articles are also adjectives. Articles determine the specification of nouns. ‘A’ and ‘an’ are used to refer to an unspecific noun, and ‘the’ is used to refer to a specific noun.  

EXAMPLES:

• A cat is always afraid of water. (Here, the noun ‘cat’ refers to any cat, not specific.)
• The cat is afraid of me. (This cat is a specific cat.)
• An electronic product should always be handled with care.

Substantivation Of Adjectives

Derivation without a derivative morpheme has been variously treated by grammarians. It has been customary to speak of the conversion of nouns, adjectives, and verbs. The term conversion has been used for various things. Modern English adjectives may be either wholly or partly substantivised.

By wholly substantivised adjectives we mean adjectives wholly converted into nouns. Such adjectives may be preceded by the article, take the plural inflection and may be used in the possessive case.

EXAMPLES:

• A native
• The native
• Two natives
• A native's character

Adjectives only partly converted into nouns take the definite article (as regular nouns do but are neither inflected for the plural nor can be used in the possessive case. The definite article has also a different function from that it would have when used with a noun: the happy means "happy people" in general. Such substantivised adjectives keep much of their adjectival nature, which we see in the possibility of qualifying them by means of adverbs: e. g. the really happy.

Substantivation of abstract adjectives intensifies the word meaning and often serves stylistic purposes as a colorful means of emphasis in literary style. Converted nouns of this kind are generally used in singular constructions.

EXAMPLES:

• Another shift of the box, and some other had become the beautiful, the perfect.
• He drove slowly, enjoying the quiet of the evening.
• The fine, the large, the florid — all off!

Adjective Formation

We can use suffixes to change nouns and verbs into adjectives, or to change the meaning of an adjective. Some suffixes have a general meaning whilst others simply transform words into adjectives.

The suffix -less usually means without something whilst the suffix -ful usually means to have something.

EXAMPLES:

• (with hope) hopeful ← hope → hopeless (without hope)

Not all words can be made into adjectives pairs like this. It’s best to check your dictionary.

EXAMPLES:

• homeless (but not: homefull)
• beautiful (but not: beautyless)

The suffix -ish changes nouns and adjectives into adjectives that mean like something.

EXAMPLES:

• Don’t be childish. (like a child)
• The jacket is a bluish colour. (like blue)

For materials we can add -en to nouns to create adjectives that mean made of.

EXAMPLES:

• A wooden chair.
• A woolen jumper.

When added to a verb, -able creates adjectives that express ability.

EXAMPLES:

• Is the water drinkable?

Adjectives formed from Nouns:

• My cousin is envious of my swimming skills.
• It was senseless of us to go trekking without equipment.
• The weather is getting stormy in Atlantic ocean.
• My niece is very creative with the mischiefs she does.
• The cherry blossom flower growth all around Japan is natural.
• The spillage on my laptop was accidental.
• My sister’s wedding dress is golden in color.
• My little sister is the most troublesome of the lot.

Adjectives formed from Verbs:

• My grandmother is so forgetful, she forgot her own birthday.
• Our teacher is very helpful in our studies.
• Ladakh is a very scenic place.
• Our cat, Mila is a very annoying sleeper.
• I spent tiring nights at the PlayStation trying to get my scores at the top.
• Going to my grandparent’s house is always an enjoyable experience.
• Me and my brother are very different from each other.
• The falling of the market was quite anticipatory.

Adjectives formed from other Adjectives:

• The sky was reddish closer to the horizon today at dawn.
• My sister is funnier than I am.
• The pashmina shawls are the finest quality of shawls.
• Eating green leafy vegetables is easier than dealing with falling ill.
• We visit the chapel weakly once.

Country Adjectives. Adjectives that describe nationality are always written with capital letters.

We usually form country adjectives by adding -n to the end of the word.

• America → American

But we can also use -ese, -i, -ian and -ish to build country adjectives.

• Japan → Japanese

Some countries have irregular forms.

• Germany → German
• France → French
• Greece → Greek
• Switzerland → Swiss
• Ireland → Irish

Opposite Adjectives. Most adjectives in English have an opposite adjective: big/small, hot/cold, tall/short, good/bad etc. However, we can also use prefixes to form the opposites of many adjectives. The most common prefixes for forming opposite adjectives are un-, dis-, and in-.

EXAMPLES:

• Jerry is a very unlucky person.
• This chair is uncomfortable.
• It’s dishonest to lie about something.
• Janice was disrespectful to the teacher.
• The answer is incorrect.
• Torture is inhumane.

The prefixes il-, im- and ir- are only used before particular letters. il- comes before words that start with an -l, im- comes before words that start with an -m or a -p and ir- comes before words that start with an -r.

• It’s illegal to bring fruit into this country.
• His thought process was illogical.
• Matthew is an impatient man.
• My little sister is so immature.
• The verbs be, do and have are irregular.
• It’s irresponsible to drive if you have been drinking.

Order Of Adjectives

When more than one adjective comes before a noun, the adjectives are normally in a particular order. Adjectives which describe opinions or attitudes (e.g. amazing) usually come first, before more neutral, factual ones.

• She was wearing an amazing red coat.

If we don’t want to emphasise any one of the adjectives, the most usual sequence of adjectives is:

order	relating to	examples
1	opinion	unusual, lovely, beautiful
2	size	big, small, tall
3	physical quality	thin, rough, untidy
4	shape	round, square, rectangular
5	age	young, old, youthful
6	colour	blue, red, pink
7	origin	Dutch, Japanese, Turkish
8	material	metal, wood, plastic
9	type	general-purpose, four-sided, U-shaped
10	purpose	cleaning, hammering, cooking

• It was made of a strange (1.opinion), green (6.colour), metallic (8. material) material.
• It’s a long (2. size), narrow (4. shape), plastic (8. material) brush.
• Panettone is a round (4.shape), Italian (7.origin), bread-like (9. type) Christmas cake.

Conclusion

To sum up, adjectives are the all-important words that describe nouns or pronouns. adjectives describe, limit or qualify a noun by giving it a quality or a quantity. They answer questions like what kind, how many, and which one? Just like there are countless adjectives, there are many ways to describe adjectives themselves.

Adjectives give us more information about people, places, animals, and things. Some adjectives can be formed from nouns, verbs, and even other adjectives by adding a prefix or a suffix. Because adjectives are used to identify or quantify individual people and unique things, they are usually positioned before the noun or pronoun that they modify.

Bibliography

1. LEARN ENGLISH​ – Adjective: Definition & Types ​– [электронный ресурс] – Режим доступа: https://www.learngrammar.net/english-grammar/adjective
   – (29.11.2020).
2. YOUR DICTIONARY – What Is an Adjective?  – [электронный ресурс] – Режим доступа: https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/parts-of-speech/adjectives/what-is-an-adjective.html – (29.11.2020).
3. Grammarly blog – What Is an Adjective?  – [электронный ресурс] – Режим доступа: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/adjective/– (29.11.2020).