Example In the following examples, the adjective is highlighted in bold. Attributive use: It is a cold day. He is a kind man. I like blue sky. Predicative use: The sky is blue. The joke she told was so funny, I could not stop laughing all day. He went mad. An adjective is a part of speech which modifies a noun, usually describing it or making its meaning more specific. However, adjectives are not a universally recognized word class; in other words, some languages do not have any adjectives. The Chinese languages, for example, have no adjectives; all the words that are translated into English as adjectives are, in fact, stative verbs. The most widely recognized adjectives are those words, such as big, old, and tired that actually describe people, places, or things. These words are able to be modified themselves, with adverbs, as in the phrase very big. Some grammarians also classify possessive pronouns, such as his or her, possessive nouns, such as Mary's, and demonstrative pronouns, such as this or that, as adjectives. The articles a, an, and the are also commonly called adjectives. However, such classification may be specific to one particular language. Other grammarians call such noun modifiers determiners. In some languages, participles are used as adjectives. Examples of participles used as adjectives are lingering in the phrase lingering headache and broken in the phrase broken toys. Nouns which modify other nouns are sometimes called modifying nouns, nouns used ajectivally, or just part of a compound noun (like the word ice in ice cream). Contents 1 Adjectival phrases 2 Attributive and predicative 3 Nominal use of adjectives and adjectival use of nouns 4 Adjective order 5 Comparison with adjectives 5.1 English 6 See also 7 Bibliography 8 External links Adjectival phrases An adjectival phrase is a phrase with an adjective as its head (e.g. full of toys). In English, an adjectival phrase may occur as a postmodifier to a noun (a bin full of toys), or as a predicate to a verb (the bin is full of toys). Attributive and predicative In a sentence, an adjective is used in either an attributive or a predicative manner. Words which are classed as adjectives are typically able to fulfill both functions. An attributive adjective is one which is part of a noun phrase with the noun which it modifies. In some languages, attributive adjectives precede the noun. This is the case in the Germanic languages, to which the English language belongs. In other languages, e.g. in French, the adjective follows the noun. A predicative adjective is one which functions as the predicate; i.e. it is linked with the noun by a verb, often the copula (to be). In English there are a few adjectives which cannot occur in both predicative and attributive position. Some only occur in attributive position, i.e. they can't function as a predicate. Examples include "main" and "former": This is the main reason. This reason is main. (ungrammatical) This is the former president. This president is former. (ungrammatical) Other adjectives can only be predicative, i.e. they can't occur in attributive position. An example of this is "alone": This man is alone. This is an alone man. (ungrammatical) Nominal use of adjectives and adjectival use of nouns Adjectives are sometimes used in place of nouns, as in many of the Beatitudes (e.g. "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy"); these are called substantive adjectives. Such usage is very common in the Romance languages. In languages with grammatical genders, such as Latin, the gender of the adjective may indicate the gender of the implied noun; thus malus means the bad man; mala, the bad woman; malum, the bad thing. English is unusual in that it allows nouns to be used attributively, as in a Georgia peach (in other languages, some sort of grammatical functor between the two nouns may be required). These are not classed as adjectives, as they cannot be used predicatively. While ripe has both roles (a ripe peach is similar in meaning to the peach is ripe), a Georgia peach cannot be rephrased as *the peach is Georgia. Adjective order In many languages, adjectives usually occur in an unmarked order. However, some languages do not have this tendency. English is a language with a preferred order of adjectives. Native speakers pick this up as a matter of course; those who are learning it as an adult have to memorize it. Telugu and Hungarian have adjective order preferences similar to English. Other languages may have other sequences. The adjectives which appear nearest the noun may be called phrase-making adjectives, e.g. tree frog. Before this can come color adjectives, e.g. red tree frog, and before that, participial adjectives, e.g. whining red tree frog. The first adjectives are sometimes called absolute adjectives, e.g. nasty whining red tree frog. Value/Opinion Size Age/Temperature Shape Color Origin Material Comparison with adjectives In many languages that have adjectives, the adjectives may have comparative and superlative forms, as does English. Adjectives which can be compared in this way are called gradable adjectives. Not all languages have comparative and superlative forms. For instance the Chadic language Bole uses verbs meaning "to surpass" and "to be equal to": "I am taller than you" would in Bole be something like "I surpass you concerning height", no comparative needed. As for showing equality, the verbs used mean "to reach", "to suffice" and even "to do": "I am as tall as you" would be "I do you concerning height". In some Romance languages, there are no superlative and comparative forms of adjectives per se, but they are instead constructed with adverbs meaning "more," "most," "less," and "least." So, in literal translation, a French speaker says not "I am taller than you," but "I am more tall than you." English Most English adjectives have comparative and superlative forms. These are constructed in one of two ways: either by suffixes (big, bigger, biggest) or by the use of the grammatical particles more and most. Some adjectives have suppletive forms in their comparison, such as good, better, best. Comparative and superlative forms apply only to the base form of the adjective (e.g. lessest is forbidden). Some adjectives – such as male, female, extant and extinct – express "absolute" qualities and do not admit comparisons (one animal cannot be more extinct than another). Similarly in a planktonic organism the adjective planktonic simply means plankton-type; there are no degrees or grades of planktonic. Other cases are more debatable. Grammatical prescriptivists frequently object to phrases such as more perfect on the grounds that something either is perfect or it is not. However, many speakers of English accept the phrase as meaning more nearly perfect. An adjective that causes particular controversy in this respect is unique. The formulations more unique and most unique are guaranteed to raise the hackles of purists. Which English adjectives are compared by -er/-est and which by more/most is a complex matter of English idiom. Generally, shorter adjectives (including most monosyllabic adjectives), Anglo-Saxon words, and shorter, fully domesticated French words (e.g. noble) use the suffixes -er/-est. Adjectives with two syllables tend to vary. Some take either form, and the situation determines the usage. For example, one will see commoner and more common, depending on which sounds better in the context. Two-syllable adjectives that end in the sound [i], most often spelled with y, generally take -er/-est, e.g., pretty : prettier : prettiest. Longer adjectives, especially those derived from Greek and Latin, and including most adjectives with three or more syllables, require more and most, though the use of -er/-est extends to more longer words in American English than in British English. A fair number of words, especially longer adjectives that end in Anglo-Saxon derivative suffixes like -ly, can take either form. Adjectives which end in ous do not take -er/-est. (Curiouser is a curiosity. It is found in both Websters Third and the Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition, on the strength of a coinage by Lewis Carroll who deliberately used it incorrectly in curiouser and curiouser to produce a particular effect.) A good general rule is to use whatever form sounds natural and gives the desired effect. It should be remembered in particular that the suffix -er has other meanings. For example it is an extremely common way of converting action nouns to the individual who performs the action (e.g. talk, talker). Putting -er on an unfamiliar adjective can easily lead to confusion. See also Grammar List of non-standard English adjectives Bibliography Dixon, R. M. W. (1977). Where have all the adjectives gone? Studies in Language, 1, 19-80. Dixon, R. M. W. (1994). Adjectives. In R. E. Asher (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of language and linguistics (pp. 29-35). Oxford: Pergamon Press. ISBN 0-0803-5943-4. (Republished as Dixon 1999). Dixon, R. M. W. (1999). Adjectives. In K. Brown & T. Miller (Eds.), Concise encyclopedia of grammatical categories (pp. 1-8). Amsterdam: Elsevier. ISBN 0-0804-3164-X. Warren, Beatrice. (1984). Classifying adjectives. Gothenburg studies in English (No. 56). Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. ISBN 9-1734-6133-4. Wierzbicka, Anna. (1986). What's in a noun? (or: How do nouns differ in meaning from adjectives?). Studies in Language, 10, 353-389. External links Adjective order in English Adjectives and Adverbs Downloadable Papers on Bolebg:Прилагателно име Search Term: "Adjective" Categories: Parts of speech