Value — Size — Age — Shape — Colour —

Origin — Material — Opinion — Temperature

• a pretty little wooden house (value + size + material)

• a beautiful old red London bus (value + age + colour + origin)

• This word order is not compulsory. Sometimes a short adjective comes before a long one:

• a soft, comfortable chair; a happy, peaceful home;

• a tall, handsome man; a bright, cheerful smile.

• The adjective big generally comes before value adjectives:

• a big bad wolf, a big tall building,

• a big handsome man, a big fat woman.

• Adjectives are used in the sentence in the functions of an attribute or of a predicative:

• He always drinks cold milk. He is cold and miserable.

• Adjectives have degrees of comparison: the comparative and the superlative degree. The adjective expressing some quality without com­parison is said to be in the positive degree. An equal degree is expressed with the help of the conjunctions: as ... as, not as (so) ... as in negative sentences.

• She is as old as I am.

• He isn’t as clever as she is.

• The comparative and the superlative degrees of comparison are formed in the synthetic, analytic and suppletive ways.

• The synthetic degrees of comparison are formed by adding the in- -er, -est (fine — finer — finest) to the adjectives having one or syllables.

NB!!!! The more recent trend is: happy— more happy— most

• The analytic degrees are formed by means of more and most (diffi- - more difficult — most difficult).

• Several adjectives form their degrees of comparison irregularly, in suppletive way when some other words are used to build up the

rod — better — best, bad — worse — worst little - less — least, many/much — more — most

The following adjectives have double degrees of comparison:

FAR	farther — farthest (with reference to distance) further — furthest (with reference to distance, as well as in figurative use the next to come)
OLD	older — oldest (with reference to age) elder — eldest (family relations)
NEAR-NEARER	nearest (with reference to distance) next (time), the next (order) e.g. next year, the next step
LATE	later — latest (with reference to time) the latter (the former) — last (time), the last (order)

NOTES:

• When you compare one thing or person to other members of the group, you should use the words other or else with the comparative degree. Thus you can’t say, ‘You are smarter than any person in this Y: u must say, ‘You are smarter than any other person (or any- w in this room.’ Remember that when you use the comparative you compare two things; when you use the superlative degree, you compare three or more things.

• Both examples are good, but I think that the first one is better, (two

examples are compared)

• All the examples are good, but I think that the first one is the best,

(you compare several examples)

• Some adjectives called absolute adjectives, describe qualities which mean 100 percent of the quality involved. Thus we can’t use them in the comparative and the superlative degree:

Middle, dead, immaculate, pregnant, supreme, left, empty, perfect, round, wooden, medical, full, perpendicular, square, unique.

• a glass of water cannot be fuller or fullest or most full.