Adjectives

Adjectives Definition: An adjective is a word that describes a noun or noun phrase or modifies its referent. To change the information given by the noun is the semantic role of an adjective. They are also considered one of the main parts of the English language. Certain words that usually had been classified as adjectives in modern literature include the, my, this, etc. 

Adjectives are typically classes that are separated, and sometimes they are known as determiners. They also help in describing the qualities or states of the nouns. When describing the quantity of the nouns, one person can make use of adjectives or determiners.

Classification Of Adjectives

Adjectives can be classified into 7 categories: descriptive, quantitative, demonstrative, possessive, interrogative, distributive, and articles.

Descriptive

When a person hears the word “adjective”, the first thing that will cross their mind is a descriptive adjective. They are used to describe nouns and pronouns. Adjectives like silly, tall, annoying, loud, etc., add the information and qualities to the words they are modifying. 

Quantitative

The adjectives that describe the quantity of something is known as quantitative adjectives. Therefore, they answer the question of “how much?” or “how many?”. Numbers and other general words like many, a lot and half are a few types of this adjective.

Demonstrative

When the noun or pronoun a person is referring to is described by “which”, they are demonstrative adjectives. Words that they modify come before, including words like this, these, that and those. 

Possessive

These types of adjectives show possession by describing to whom things or person belongs in a sentence. Most commonly used possessive adjectives include his, her, their, our, your and my. Some of them can be used before a noun, and some can’t.

Interrogative

The meaning of interrogative adjectives is they ask questions, followed by a noun or pronoun in every sentence to form a question. The interrogative adjectives include wh-words like what, which and whose.

Distributive

While describing specific members out of a group, one person can make use of distributive adjectives. These adjectives may be perfect by singling out one or more individual items or people from a group. Common distributive adjectives used in a sentence will include every, each, neither, either and any. 

Articles

‘A’, ‘an’ and ‘the’ are the three articles used in the English language. As many languages don’t have articles, it can be difficult for non-native English speakers to correct their use. They are technically adjectives as they have their part of speech. When one person wants to show which noun they are referring to, they must use an article.

Uses Of Adjectives

Depending on the language, an adjective can precede a corresponding noun on a prepositive basis. A corresponding noun also follows the postpositive basis. In the English language, the uses of adjectives generally can be classified into three categories: 

1. Prepositive adjectives– They occur before they exist within a noun phrase. They also go by the term “attributive adjectives”. For example, Dad put his happy kids in the car. 
2. Postpositive adjectives- They can occur right after they come next to a noun within a noun phrase. For example, Dad took a short drive around with his happy kids.
3. Nominalized adjectives– They are usually functional as nouns. When one person deletes a noun from an adjective-noun noun phrase will result in the adjective working as a noun. For example, Mom read two books to them, she preferred the sad book, but he preferred the happy.

3 Different Degrees Of Adjectives

The three degrees for adjectives include positive, comparative and superlative—the degrees of comparison work for only descriptive adjectives. 

1. Positive adjectives– They are used to just describe a person or thing. The comparison does not take place as it is a normal adjective degree. 
2. Comparative adjective– When there is a comparison done between two things, it is a comparative adjective. 
3. Superlative adjective– The adjective that is used to make a comparison between three or more things is a superlative adjective. They are also used to state something that is the most.

Examples Of Adjectives

It can be easy to grasp by understanding the basic principles, but for better understanding, here are some examples:

1. She lives in a beautiful house.
2. I met a homeless on the street.
3. The glass of the window is breakable.
4. His cake should have sixteen candles.
5. Furry cats may overheat in the summertime.
6. It smells gross in the hospital.
7. The scariest movie of all time is Annabelle.
8. My new hamster is small and short-tempered. 
9. Her cat, Stacy, loves to sleep on her tattered woollen sweater.
10. They had a very adorable baby.