The adjective

Adjectives are words expressing properties and characteristics of objects (e.g. blue, simple, progressive, etc.) and, hence, qualifying nouns. Grammatically, four features are generally considered to be characteristic of

adjectives:

1) their syntactic function of attributes;

2) their syntactic function of predicatives;

3) their taking of adverbial modifiers of degree (e.g. very);

4) their only grammatical category — the degrees of comparison.

Adjectives in English do not change for number or case.

Morphological Composition

Simple adjectives — old, kind, bad, good, etc.

Derived adjectives. Many adjectives are formed from other parts of speech by

adding different suffixes:

-able: comfortable; -ic: atomic;

-ible: visible; -ish: childish;

-ant: elegant; -ive: attractive;

-ent: dependent; -ful: careful;

-al: cultural; -less: careless;

-ly: brotherly, friendly; -ous: dangerous;

-y: dirty, sleepy

Some past participles ending in -ed (e.g. excited) and some present participles

ending in -ing (e.g. exciting) are used as adjectives. Common pairs of -ed/-ing adjectives are: amazed / amazing; annoyed / annoying; bored / boring, enchanted / enchanting.

Compound adjectives. They are used with hyphens: grass-green, deaf-mute, blue-eyed; long-legged; fair-haired.

Semantic Characteristics

Semantically adjectives can be divided into two groups.

1. Qualitative adjectives denote properties of a substance directly ― great, cold, beautiful. According to their meaning they may be further differentiated as:

a) descriptive ― denoting a quality in a broad sense ― cold, light, wonderful;

b) limiting ― denoting a category, a section of a whole, a number, i.e. specifying the substance (noun) ― the previous page, an equestrian statue, medical aid, the left hand, several pages.

2. Relative adjectives describe properties of a substance through relation to material: woollen, wooden, feathery; ― time: daily, weekly, monthly; place: Northern, European, Italian; some action: defensive, preparatory.

Relative adjectives are limiting in their meaning.

Many adjectives reveal a descriptive or limiting meaning depending on the head-word or the context.

Descriptive adjective Limiting adjective

little finger ― just a small finger little finger ― the last finger of a hand

fast actions fast train

foreign manners foreign languages

musical voice musical instrument

dramatic scene dramatic performance

Adjectives are also distinguished as gradable and non-gradable. Most adjectives are gradable. That means that they can be modified by adverbs of degree and themselves change for degrees of comparison. Non-gradable adjectives admit no comparison on account of their meaning.

All dynamic adjectives are gradable. Most stative adjectives are gradable too. Non-gradable adjectives are participle adjectives and adjectives describing origin, material, type and purpose: perfect, unique, full, empty, square, round, wooden, upper.

The Position of Adjectives

When we use more than one adjective before a noun, there is often a preferred order for these adjectives. However, this order is not fixed: opinion + size/physical quality/shape/age + colour + participle adjectives + origin + material + type + purpose + noun.

 an old plastic container (= age + material + noun)

 a hard red ball (= quality + colour + noun)

 a frightening Korean mask (= opinion + origin +noun)

 a round biscuit tin (= shape + purpose (for holding biscuits) + noun)

 a small broken plate (= size + participle adjective + noun)

 a useful digital alarm clock (= opinion + type + purpose + noun)

Note that there are a few adjectives which go before or after nouns and they change in meaning according to their position:

This elect body meets once a year (specially chosen).

The president elect takes over in May (who has been elected).

George was late for the meeting (didn’t come in time).

The late George Brown was an outstanding musician (who is dead now).

Present employees number 3.000 (who work at present).

The employees present should vote on this (who participate in the meeting).