Adjectives

S1 Grammar
ENS UAE
2023-24
Types of Adjectives

An adjective is a modifier of nouns and pronouns (adverbs modify verbs).

• Determiners

• Descriptive adjectives
Determiners

a. demonstrative adjectives :this, these, that , those.

b. distributive adjectives : each, every, either, neither.
c. quantitative adjectives: some, any, few, no.
d. interrogative adjectives : which, what, whose
e. possessive adjectives :my, your, ……etc.
Descriptive adjectives

These are adjectives indicating quality.

They describe an inherent quality or a physical state: good, fat, heavy, old, ….

• Proper Adjectives (nationality adjectives such as: Moroccan, English)

A Moroccan student.
He is Italian.
• Participial Adjectives (interesting, bored)
This film is interesting.
The children are bored.
• Compound Adjectives (heart breaking, well-to-do) belong to this category.
Exercise 1
Look at the following noun phrases, and determine which category each
word belongs to.
1. That sophisticated Parisian model.
2. His comfortable velvet couch.
3. Two middle aged Catholic bishops.
4. Their charming faces.
5. Andrew’s sleeping pills.
6. This light-hearted schoolgirl.
The formation of adjectives
Adjectives formed with suffixes
Exercise 2
Adjectives formed with prefixes
Exercise 3
Agreement

• Unlike other languages (e.g., French and Arabic) , English has only one form of
adjectives which is used with singular and plural, with masculine and feminine
nouns:
happy man , happy men,
happy woman, happy women.

• The only exceptions to this rule are the demonstrative “this’’ and ‘’that’’(having
the corresponding plural forms ‘these’ and ‘those’, respectively).
Functions of Adjectives
• The primary function of adjectives is to modify nouns and pronouns:

The small house

Everybody else

• Note that each adjective modifies everything follows it, thus in the noun phrase:

The clever young Moroccan girl

• clever modifies ‘young Moroccan girl’, ‘young’ modifies ‘Moroccan girl’, and
‘Moroccan’ modifies ‘girl’.
Words that usually function as adjectives sometimes function as other parts of
speech: descriptive adjectives can sometimes be used as nouns:

None but the brave deserve the fair.

They are usually preceded, and have the plural meaning . This explains why they are
followed by plural verbs:

The poor are generally generous.

When a single person is meant, a noun is added:
The poor man is …………

These expressions refer to a group or class of persons considered in a general

sense only.

If we wish to refer to a particular group, it is necessary to add a noun :

The young are usually intolerable. (A general statement)

The young men are fishing. (refers to particular young people)
Position of Adjectives
Adjectives precede the noun they modify:

a big city, an interesting novel

However, they may follow the noun they modify in some expressions of a French –like
origin:
Princess Royal, court martial, etc.

In formal literal style, they may also follow the noun they modify :

she turned her eyes, dark and sad upon him.

Predicative/ Predicate and attributive adjectives
Predicative adjectives
• Adjectives follow linking verbs like be , seem, appear, look , etc.:
The boy is tall.
He seems unhappy.

Here they function as subjective complements in predicate position. (Predicative adjectives)

They may also follow verbs and their objects and function as objective complements :

The storm has made me uneasy.

His teachers consider him intelligent.
They have a beautiful house. (Attributive adjective)
We saw a very exciting film last night. (Attributive adjective)

Their house is beautiful. (Predicative adjective)

That film looks interesting. (Predicative adjective)
We use some adjectives only after a linking verb:

afraid, alive, alone, asleep, content, glad, ill, ready, sorry, sure, unable,
well.

Some of the commonest -ed adjectives are normally used only after a linking verb:

annoyed; finished; bored; pleased; thrilled

We say:
Our teacher was ill.
My uncle was very glad when he heard the news.
The policeman seemed to be very annoyed.

But we do not say:

We had an ill teacher.
When he heard the news he was a very glad uncle
He seemed to be a very annoyed policeman
A few adjectives are used only in front of a noun:

north northern
countless eventful
south southern
occasional indoor
east eastern
lone outdoor
west western
We say:
He lives in the eastern district.
There were countless problems with the new machinery.
but we do not say:
The district he lives in is eastern
The problems with the new machinery were countless.
Adjectives also follow verbs in special combinations that express a state :
hold tight, stand still, lie quiet.

Adjectives also follow pronouns except ‘’one’’ :

He wanted something funny to do.

She bought a red skirt and a white one.
Adjectives are sometimes used in the following ways:
After verbs: (hold tight, break loose, make uneasy)
They can be used before adverbs:
adverbs (better off, far ahead, straight ahead)
Adjectives used before other adjectives as intensifiers*:
boiling hot, dead drunk, dead tired, freezing cold

Adjectives used in prepositional phrases:

deep in her heart, early in the year, long before noon,……….
(*Intensifiers are adverbs or adverbial phrases that strengthen the meaning of other expressions and show emphasis.)
Order of Adjectives

Sometimes we use more than one adjective in front of a noun:

He was a nice intelligent young man.

She had a small round black wooden box.
• When a sequence of adjectives occurs in a noun phrase, the adjective follows a
set of order, depending on their degree of generality and their meaning.

• Determiners precede descriptive adjectives, and among these, the adjective with a
general application precede the specific ones.
The usual order of determiners is:

Pre-determiners- articles- ordinals- cardinals- nouns

All the first eight planes were sold

Adjectives are either (single words) as in blue, early, big, ……..etc.

They can be derived by the addition of prefixes and suffixes as invisible, cloudless
..etc.
They can even be compound as in well to do, or down to earth, …etc.
Opinion adjectives:
Some adjectives give a general opinion.
We can use these adjectives to describe almost any noun:

good, bad, lovely, strange, beautiful, nice, brilliant, excellent,

awful, important, wonderful, nasty.
Some adjectives give a specific opinion. We only use these adjectives to describe
particular kinds of noun:

Food: tasty; delicious

Furniture, buildings: comfortable; uncomfortable
People, animals: clever; intelligent; friendly
• We usually put a general opinion in front of a specific opinion:

Nice tasty soup

A nasty uncomfortable armchair
A lovely intelligent animal
Usually we put an adjective that gives an opinion in front of an adjective that
is descriptive:

a nice red dress

a silly old man
those horrible yellow curtains

We often have two adjectives in front of a noun:

a handsome young man

a big black car
that horrible big dog
Sometimes we have three adjectives, but this is unusual:

a nice handsome young man;

1 2 3
a big black American car;
that horrible big fierce dog
• Adjectives usually come in this order:

An opinion adjective explains what you think about something (other people
Opinion may not agree with you).
For example: silly, beautiful, horrible, difficult

A size adjective, of course, tells you how big or small something is. For
Size
example: large, tiny, enormous, little

An age adjective tells you how young or old something or someone is. For
Age
example: ancient, new, young, old

A shape adjective describes the shape of something. For example: square,

Shape
round, flat, rectangular

A colour adjective, of course, describes the colour of something.

Colour
For example: blue, pink, reddish, grey

An origin adjective describes where something comes from.

Origin
For example: French, lunar, American, eastern, Greek

A material adjective describes what something is made from.

Material
For example: wooden, metal, cotton, paper

A purpose adjective describes what something is used for. These adjectives

Purpose often end with “-ing”.
For example: sleeping (as in “sleeping bag”), roasting (as in “roasting tin”)
Exercise 4
Rewrite the following arranging the words in parentheses in the proper order :
1. (angry, those, young, all) men
2. (lively , black and white, a, little) kitten
3. (muddy, steep, a , river) bank
4. (self-centred, those, old) Frenchmen
5. (bone, white , exquisitely designed) china
6. (recent, stormy, wet, this) weather
7. (Italian, a, young, light-hearted) schoolgirl
8. (ivory, little, intricately-carved) figurines.
9. (sympathetic, that, young, English)teacher
10.(white, expensive, Steinway, the teacher’s) piano
Participial adjectives

A lot of adjectives are made from verbs by adding -ing or -ed:

-ing adjectives:
The commonest -ing adjectives are:

amusing shocking surprising frightening interesting

disappointing exciting tiring worrying boring terrifying annoying
If you call something interesting you mean it interests you.

If you call something frightening you mean it frightens you.

I read a very interesting article in the newspaper today.

That Dracula film was absolutely terrifying.
-ed adjectives:
The commonest –ed adjectives are:
annoyed bored frightened worried tired closed excited delighted
disappointed

If something annoys you, you can say you feel annoyed.

If something interests you, you can say you are interested.

The children had nothing to do. They were bored.

Exercise 5
Underline the correct word.
John: Wow! This is really (1) interested / interesting.
Alex: I don’t think so. I’m (2) bored / boring.
Emma: Come on you two! Let’s go and see the fish.
John: Fish?
Emma: Yes, fish. There are some really (3) surprised / surprising ones.
John: How can a fish be (4) surprised / surprising?
Emma: Trust me! You’ll find it absolutely (5) fascinated / fascinating.
[A little later]
John: That was (6) amazed / amazing.
Alex: Yes, it was. I was (7) fascinated / fascinating by all the different colors and shapes.
John: I want to go look at the dinosaurs.
Alex: Yes, that will be (8) excited / exciting.
Emma: You guys go. I’m going to have a drink in the café. I’m really (9) tired / tiring.
Alex OK. See you later.
Exercise 6
Comparison of Adjectives:

A comparative form of the adjective is formed by adding the suffix-er to the

adjective (of one or two syllables) :

tall-taller; happy-happier; ; noisy-noisier, etc.

A superlative form of adjective is formed by adding the suffix –est to the adjective
(of one or two syllables):

dark-darkest; big-biggest; lucky-luckiest, etc.

As for adjectives of more than two syllables , more …than and the most………..are
used:

Beautiful –more beautiful, the most beautiful.

Important -- more important, the most important.

Some adjectives are compared irregularly:

good, better, best
bad, worse, the worst
little, less, the least; much
more, the most ; far, further , the furthest
Old, elder, eldest
Exercise 7
Supply the comparative or superlative form of the adjective:
1. It is (good) …………………..to give……………to receive.
2. She is (helpless) ………………….person I’ve ever known.
3. They’re looking for a (big) ………………….flat ……………..the one they now
have.
4. Some people are (reliable ………………….others.
5. He’s much (familiar ………………….with modern painting