What are Adjectives?

What are Adjectives?

Adjectives are the words which describe and clarify the verb.

Adjectives are the words which gives information about size, shape age, color and origin of the material.

For Example:

It is a big table.

Karachi is the largest city of Pakistan.

What Do Adjectives Look Like?

English can be very tricky, so you have to be careful, but a lot of English adjectives end with these suffixes:

·         -able/-ible – adorable, invisible, responsible, uncomfortable

·         -al – educational, gradual, illegal, nocturnal, viral

·         -an – American, Mexican, urban

·         -ar – cellular, popular, spectacular, vulgar

·         -ent – intelligent, potent, silent, violent

·         -ful – harmful, powerful, tasteful, thoughtful

·         -ic/-ical – athletic, energetic, magical, scientific

·         -ine – bovine, canine, equine, feminine, masculine

·         -ile – agile, docile, fertile, virile

·         -ive – informative, native, talkative

·         -less – careless, endless, homeless, timeless

·         -ous – cautious, dangerous, enormous, malodorous

·         -some – awesome, handsome, lonesome, wholesome

Many adjectives also end with -y, -ary and -ate, but lots of nouns and adverbs also end with -y, lots of nouns also end with -ary, and lots of nouns and verbs also end with -ate, so be careful with those.

Where Do Adjectives Go in a Sentence?

If you come across a word that ends in -y, -ary or -ate (or any other suffix for that matter), and you want to know whether it’s an adjective or not, just look at where it is and what it’s doing in the sentence. If it comes immediately before a noun, and especially if it comes between an article (a, an, the), a possessive adjective (my, his, her, its, your, our, their), a demonstrative (this, that, these, those) or an amount (some, most, all, a few) and a noun, then it’s probably an adjective.

·         The grassy field was wet with dew. – “Grassy” comes between an article (the) and a noun (field), so you know it’s an adjective.

·         These are my old trophies. – “Old” comes between a possessive adjective (my) and a noun (trophies), making it an adjective.

·         We had a few ordinary days. – “Ordinary” comes between an amount (a few) and a noun (days), so it’s definitely an adjective.

·         Did you see that immaculate kitchen? – “Immaculate” comes between a demonstrative (that) and a noun (kitchen), so it must be an adjective.

Adjectives also act as complements. Complements are words that complete the predicate of a sentence when the verb is “be.”

·         He is tall.

·         We’ve been teachers for five years.

·         You were my best friend.

·         He was smart, handsome and rich.

As you can see, not all complements are adjectives. In these examples, “tall” and “smart, handsome and rich” are adjectives, but “teachers for five years” and “my best friend” are both noun phrases. If the complement is only one word, there’s a good chance it’s an adjective. Also if the complement is a list of words, those are probably also adjectives. If an article (a, an, the) or a possessive (my, his, her, its, your, our, their, mine, his, hers, its, yours, ours, theirs) is involved, it’s a noun phrase.

What’s the Correct Order for Multiple Adjectives?

When you list several adjectives in a row, there’s a specific order they need to be written or spoken. Native speakers of English tend to put them in the correct order naturally, but if you’re learning English, you’ll have to memorize the order. It goes like this:

·         Determiner – This means an article (a, an, the), a number or amount, a possessive adjective (my, his, her, its, your, our, their), or a demonstrative (this, that, these, those).

·         Observation/Opinion – Beautiful, expensive, gorgeous, broken, delicious, ugly

·         Size – Huge, tiny, 4-foot-tall

·         Shape – Square, circular, oblong

·         Age – 10-year-old, new, antique

·         Color – Black, red, blue-green

·         Origin – Roman, English, Mongolian

·         Material – Silk, silver, plastic, wooden

·         Qualifier – A noun or verb acting as adjective

This is the correct order for adjectives that come directly before a noun, and they are separated by commas.

·         My beautiful, big, circular, antique, brown, English, wooden coffee table was broken in the move.

If the adjectives come after the verb “be” as the complement, then the qualifier will stick with the noun at the beginning of the sentence. The adjectives in the complement are separated by commas with the final two being separated by “and.” For example, my coffee table is beautiful, big, circular, antique, brown, English and wooden.

1.    Adjectives of Quality - These adjectives are used to describe the nature of a noun. They give an idea about the characteristics of the noun by answering the question ‘what kind’.

- Honest, Kind, Large, Bulky, Beautiful, Ugly etc.

- New Delhi is a large city with many historical monuments.

- Sheila is a beautiful woman.

2.    Adjectives of Quantity - These adjectives help to show the amount or the approximate amount of the noun or pronoun. These adjectives do not provide exact numbers; rather they tell us the amount of the noun in relative or whole terms.

All, Half, Many, Few, Little, No, Enough, Great etc.
- They have finished most of the rice.
- Many people came to visit the fair.

3.    Adjectives of Number - These adjectives are used to show the number of nouns and their place in an order. There are three different sections within adjectives of number; they are -

Definite Numeral Adjective - Those which clearly denote an exact number of nouns or the order of the noun.

One, Two, Twenty, Thirty-Three etc. also known as Cardinals.
First, Second, Third, Seventh etc. also known as Ordinals.

Indefinite Numeral Adjective - Those adjectives that do not give an exact numerical amount but just give a general idea of the amount.

 Some, Many, Few, Any, Several, All etc.
E.g.: There were many people present at the meeting.

Distributive Numeral Adjective -Those adjectives that are used to refer to individual nouns within the whole amount.

Either, Neither, Each, Another, Other etc.
E.g: Taxes have to be paid by every employed citizen.

4.    Demonstrative Adjectives - These adjectives are used to point out or indicate a particular noun or pronoun using the adjectives - This, That, These andThose.

- That bag belongs to Neil.
- Try using this paintbrush in art class.
- I really like those shoes.
- These flowers are lovely.

5.    Interrogative Adjectives - These adjectives are used to ask questions about nouns or in relation to nouns, they are -Where, What, Which and Whose.

Where did he say he was going?
- What assignment did I miss out on?
- Which is your favorite author?
- Whose pen is this?

In some instances, we find that we need to use more than one adjective to describe a noun in a satisfactory manner. In these cases, commas are used to separate the adjectives but some series of adjectives do not require a comma. Therefore, we need to know the difference between Coordinate and Non-coordinate Adjectives -

Coordinate Adjectives - Are those words which can be re-arranged in the series easily and are still grammatically sound. This kind of series makes use of commas. This series can also insert ‘and’ between them and still be correct.

- She was a kind, generous, loving human being.
- She was a generous, loving, kind human being.
- She was a loving, kind and generous human being.

Here we can see that all three sentences are grammatically correct. In this case, the adjectives only need to be separated by commas.

Non-coordinate Adjectives - These are those adjectives which cannot be rearranged in the series. These do not use commas to separate the adjectives. Also, this kind of series do not make sense if we insert ‘and’ between them.

She has two energetic playful dogs.
She has playful two energetic dogs.
She has energetic and playful and two dogs.