LESSON II

Adjectives
Adjectives are words that describe nouns (or pronouns).
Examples:
"Old," "green," and "cheerful" are examples of adjectives. (It might be
useful to think as adjectives as "describing words.")

Examples of Adjectives

Adjective Before the Noun

An adjective usually comes directly before the noun it describes (or
"modifies," as grammarians say).
 old man
 green coat
 cheerful one
("One" is a pronoun. Don't forget that adjectives modify pronouns
too.)

When adjectives are used like this, they're called attributive adjectives.
Adjective After the Noun
An adjective can come after the noun.
 Jack was old.
 It looks green.
 He seems cheerful.
In the three examples above, the adjectives follow linking verbs ("was,"
"looks," and "seems") to describe the noun or pronoun. (When
adjectives are used like this, they're called predicative adjectives.)

Adjective Immediately After the Noun

Sometimes, an adjective comes immediately after a noun.
 the Princess Royal
 time immemorial
 body beautiful
 the best seats available
 the worst manners imaginable
When adjectives are used like this, they're called postpositive
adjectives. Postpositive adjectives are more common with pronouns.
 someone interesting
 those present
 something evil

The 3 Different Degrees of Adjectives

Imagine changing the temperature on your air conditioner. The air

conditioner has different degrees of temperature you can select.
Adjectives have different degrees, as well.

The three degrees of an adjective

are positive, comparative and superlative. When you use them
depends on how many things you’re talking about:
 A positive adjective is a normal adjective that’s used to describe, not
compare. For example: “This is good soup” and “I am funny.”
 A comparative adjective is an adjective that’s used to compare two
things (and is often followed by the word than). For example: “This soup
is better than that salad” or “I am funnier than her.”
 A superlative adjective is an adjective that’s used to compare three
or more things, or to state that something is the most. For example: “This
is the best soup in the whole world” or “I am the funniest out of all the
other bloggers.”

If a descriptive adjective has one or two syllables, you can turn it into
its comparative and superlative forms by adding -er and -est. For
example, you can say that a song is loud, louder (than another song)
or the loudest (out of all the other songs).

Descriptive adjectives with three or more syllables don’t use

the -er and -est endings. The word beautiful, for example, can’t be
turned into beautifuler or beautifulest—those aren’t words! Instead, you
add the words more and the most before it to turn it into a
comparative or superlative adjective: Beautiful, more beautiful, the
most beautiful.

7 Types of English Adjectives

1. Descriptive
A descriptive adjective is probably what you think of when you hear
the word “adjective.” Descriptive adjectives are used to describe
nouns and pronouns.

Words like beautiful, cute, silly, tall, annoying, loud and nice are all
descriptive adjectives. These adjectives add information and qualities
to the words they’re modifying.
Examples:

“The flowers have a smell” is just stating a fact, and it has no adjectives
to describe what the flowers or their smell are like.

“The beautiful flowers have a nice smell” gives us a lot more

information, with two descriptive adjectives.

You can say “The cat is hungry,” or “The hungry cat.” In both cases, the
word hungry is an adjective describing the cat.

2. Quantitative

Quantitative adjectives describe the quantity of something.

In other words, they answer the question “how much?” or “how

many?” Numbers like one and thirty are this type of adjective. So are
more general words like many, half and a lot.

Examples:

“How many children do you have?” “I only have one daughter.”

“Do you plan on having more kids?” “Oh yes, I want many children!”

“I can’t believe I ate that whole cake!”

3. Demonstrative

A demonstrative adjective describes “which” noun or pronoun you’re

referring to. These adjectives include the words:

 This — Used to refer to a singular noun close to you.

 That — Used to refer to a singular noun far from you.
 These — Used to refer to a plural noun close to you.
 Those — Used to refer to a plural noun far from you.
Demonstrative adjectives always come before the word they’re
modifying.

Sometimes, like when you’re responding to a question, you can leave

off the noun being described and only use the adjective. For example,
if someone asks you how many cakes you want to buy you can
respond: “I want to buy two cakes,” or you can just say: “I want to
buy two.”

Examples:

“Which bicycle is yours?” “This bicycle is mine, and that one used to be
mine until I sold it.”

4. Possessive

Possessive adjectives show possession. They describe to whom a

thing belongs. Some of the most common possessive adjectives
include:

 My — Belonging to me
 His — Belonging to him
 Her — Belonging to her
 Their — Belonging to them
 Your — Belonging to you
 Our — Belonging to us

All these adjectives, except the word his, can only be used before a
noun. You can’t just say “That’s my,” you have to say “That’s my pen.”
When you want to leave off the noun or pronoun being modified, use
these possessive adjectives instead:

 Mine
 His
 Hers
 Theirs
 Yours
 Ours

For example, even though saying “That’s my” is incorrect, saying

“That’s mine” is perfectly fine.

Examples:

“Whose dog is that?” “He’s mine. That’s my dog.”

5. Interrogative

Interrogative adjectives interrogate, meaning that they ask a question.

These adjectives are always followed by a noun or a pronoun, and are
used to form questions. The interrogative adjectives are:

 Which — Asks to make a choice between options.

 What — Asks to make a choice (in general).
 Whose — Asks who something belongs to.

Other question words, like “who” or “how,” aren’t adjectives since they
don’t modify nouns. For example, you can say “whose coat is this?” but
you can’t say “who coat?”

Which, what and whose are only considered adjectives if they’re

immediately followed by a noun. The word which is an adjective in this
sentence: “Which color is your favorite?” But not in this one: “Which is
your favorite color?”
Examples:

“Which song will you play on your wedding day?”

“What pet do you want to get?”

“Whose child is this?”

6. Distributive

Distributive adjectives describe specific members out of a group. These

adjectives are used to single out one or more individual items or people.
Some of the most common distributive adjectives include:

 Each — Every single one of a group (used to speak about group

members individually).
 Every — Every single one of a group (used to make generalizations).
 Either — One between a choice of two.
 Neither — Not one or the other between a choice of two.
 Any — One or some things out of any number of choices. This is also
used when the choice is irrelevant, like: “it doesn’t matter, I’ll
take any of them.”

These adjectives are always followed by the noun or pronoun they’re

modifying.

Examples:

“Every rose has its thorn.”

“Which of these two songs do you like?” “I don’t like either song.”

7. Articles

There are only three articles in the English language: a, an and the.
Articles can be difficult for English learners to use correctly because
many languages don’t have them (or don’t use them in the same
way).

Although articles are their own part of speech, they’re technically also
adjectives! Articles are used to describe which noun you’re referring to.
Maybe thinking of them as adjectives will help you learn which one to
use:

 A — A singular, general item.

 An — A singular, general item. Use this before words that start with a
vowel.
 The — A singular or plural, specific item.

Simply put, when you’re talking about something

general, use a and an. When you’re speaking about something
specific, use the. “A cat” can be used to refer to any cat in the world.
“The cat” is used to refer to the cat that just walked by.

For example, if it makes sense to say “I don’t understand this question,”

you can also say “I don’t understand the question.” On the other hand,
it sounds strange to say “I need this tissue” because you don’t need
that specific tissue. You just need “a tissue.”

Examples:

“The elephants left huge footprints in the sand.”

“An elephant can weigh over 6,000 pounds!”

 The Order of Adjectives
When two or more adjectives are strung together, they should be
ordered according to the following list:

Placement Type of Adjective Examples

· Article,
· a, an, the
· Demonstrative Determiner,
1 · this, that, those, these
or
· my, your, his, our
· Possessive Determiner

2 Quantity one, three, ninety-nine

beautiful, clever, witty,

3 Opinion or Observation
well-mannered

4 Size big, medium-sized, small

5 Physical Quality thin, lumpy, cluttered

6 Shape square, round, long

7 Age young, middle-aged, old

8 Colour/Color red, blue, purple

9 Origin or Religion French, Buddhist

10 Material metal, leather, wooden

11 Type L-shaped, two-sided, all-purpose

· Purpose, or · mixing, drinking, cooking

12
· Attributive Noun · service, football, head
Here is an example of a 14-adjective string (shaded) that is
ordered correctly:
 my two lovely XL thin tubular new white Spanish metallic
hinged correcting knee braces.
Regardless of how many adjectives are used (more than 3 is
rare), the established order is still followed.
 That's a lovely mixing bowl
(1: Determiner 2: Opinion 3: Purpose)
A. UNDERLINE all the adjectives used in every sentences.

1. Sometimes, we imagine little monsters that are vicious and mean.

2. Goblins might be mischievous or want to play.
3. In fairy tales, there are hungry giants that eat people.
4. An ugly, wrinkled witch is considered a monster by some.
5. Werewolves are changeable and dangerous.
6. Soccer is fast and exciting.
7. Football has defensive teams and offensive teams.
8. Sometimes the weather is cold and snowy when people
snowboard.
9. Skiing is exhilarating and dangerous.
10. You need a strong, muscular body to be good at sports.

B. ENCIRCLE the correct Types of Adjectives based on the underlined

words.

1. Give me that blue water 4. Your child is not doing well in

bottle. the school.

(Demonstrative, Possessive) (Demonstrative, Possessive)

2. This time I won't fail you. 5. We are concerned about his

(Demonstrative, Possessive) performance.

(Demonstrative, Possessive)

3. I want those gorgeous

marbles. 6. I am a self-reliant man.

(Demonstrative, Possessive) (Possessive, Decsriptive)

7. He has a beautiful niece. 11. He is a cricketer.
(Possessive, Decsriptive) (Possessive, Decsriptive)

8. The students of class seven 12. I bought a genuine product.

submitted their assignment. (Possessive, Decsriptive)

(Demonstrative, Possessive)
13. I wanted to propose you that
day.
9. Your cycle has been stolen
(Demonstrative, Possessive)
yesterday.

(Demonstrative, Possessive)
14. My computer is not working
as fast as it worked in the
beginning.
10. Alex is a nice person.
(Demonstrative, Possessive)
(Possessive, Decsriptive)

15. Our father told us not to

quarrel with anyone.

(Demonstrative, Possessive)

C. Use the following DISTRIBUTIVE ADJECTIVES in a sentence.

1. Each —

2. Every —

3. Either —

4. Neither —

5. Any —