Adjectives

• Adjectives that give more information about a noun or pronoun and can

go in different positions in a sentence. Most adjectives express quality of
noun and pronoun.
• These words can add a more descriptive flavor to a sentence. For example
you might say “It is a tree.” If you were to add an adjective into the
sentence, you would give a clearer picture of what you were trying to
describe, by saying something such as “It is a large tree.” or “It is a large,
leafy tree.” The words in bold are the adjectives and allow the listener to
get a better understanding of the tree.
• Adjectives are a great way to appeal to the senses by describing visual
aspects, taste, smell, sound and emotional or non physical attributes.
• Types of adjectives:
• Qualitative:  beautiful, cute, silly, tall, annoying, loud and nice etc.
• Quantitative: Many, Half, Two, some etc.
• Demonstrative: This, that, those etc.
• Distributive: Each, every, either etc.
• Interrogative: What, Which, Whose etc.
• Possessive: My, your, our, his, her etc.
• Determiner (Articles): Although articles are their own part of speech, they’re
technically also adjectives! Articles are used to describe which noun you’re referring
to.
Degrees of Adjectives
• There are three forms of adjectives used to show varying degrees of
comparison: the positive, the comparative, and the superlative.
• The positive form is used when there is no direct comparison being
made to anything specific, but is used to offer a broad or general
comparison.
• The comparative form is used when two things are being compared
with each other.
• The superlative form is used when more than two things are being
compared with one another.
• This mango is sweet (mango has quality of sweetness but quantity of
sweetness is not clear)
• This mango is sweeter than your mango ( sweetness is more that that
of yours)
• This mango is the sweetest of all ( quality of sweetness is the greatest
among all)
• Examples: Comparative Adjective:
• Josh is taller than his sister.
• I’m more interested in music than sport.
• Big cars that use a lot of petrol are less popular now than twenty years
ago.
• Example: Superlative Adjective:
• The ‘Silver Arrow’ will be the fastest train in the world when it is built.
• The most frightening film I’ve ever seen was Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’.
• What is the least expensive way of travelling in Japan?
Rules of Adjectives

• When a superlative adjective is followed by a noun, we normally use “the”

• The castle is the oldest building in the city.
• A comparative adjective is followed by “than”, not “that” or “as”:
• The next hotel we tried was more expensive than the first one.
• Not: … more expensive that the first one … or …more expensive as the first one …
• Adjectives in their comparative and superlative forms can be accompanied
by pre modifiers, single words and phrases, that intensify the degree.
• We were a lot more careful this time.
• He works a lot less carefully than the other jeweler in town.
• We like his work so much better.
• You'll get your watch back all the faster.
• The same process can be used to downplay the degree:
• The weather this week has been somewhat better.
• He approaches his schoolwork a little less industriously than his brother does.
• Coordinate adjectives should be separated by a comma or the word ”and”.
Adjectives are said to be coordinate if they modify the same noun in a sentence.
• This is going to be a long, cold winter.
• Isobel’s dedicated and tireless efforts made all the difference.
• But just the fact that two adjectives appear next to each other doesn’t
automatically mean they are coordinate. Sometimes, an adjective and a noun
form a single semantic unit, which is then modified by another adjective. In this
case, the adjectives are not coordinate and should not be separated by a
comma.
• My cat, Goober, loves sleeping on this tattered woolen sweater.
• No one could open the old silver locket.
• Adjectives for Linking Verbs:
• Adjectives generally modify noun or pronoun but sometimes they complements “Linking
Verb” (verbs that describe the subject by linking it with complement and do not describe any
direct action taken or controlled by the subject. Examples (To be, Look, taste, feel, smell,
sound etc.).
• This leads to a common type of error: incorrectly substituting an adverb in place of a
predicate adjective. An example you’ve probably heard before is:
• I feel badly about what happened. (Incorrect as “I feel badly” means that you are bad at feeling things.)
• I feel bad about what happened (Correct)
• It smells badly (Incorrect)
• It smells bad (Correct)
• The little girl looked cautiously to the right and left. (Incorrect)
• The little girl looked cautious to the right and left. (Correct)
Position and Order of Adjectives:
• Adjectives nearly always appear immediately before the noun or noun phrase that they modify.
Sometimes they appear in a string of adjectives, and when they do, they appear in a set order
according to category
• Determiner (Article)
• Quantity or number
• Quality
• Size
• Age
• Shape
• Color
• Proper adjective (often nationality, other place of origin, or material)
• A big square blue box
• A beautiful old Italian car.
• The three beautiful little gold plates.
• An amazing heart-shaped red and white sofa.
• The noun comes in the last
• Video: Describing your product: How to use Adjectives in a more effective way.