What Are Adjectives?
Adjectives are words that describe the qualities or states of being of nouns: enormous, doglike, silly, yellow, fun, fast. They can also describe the quantity of nouns: many, few, millions, eleven.
Adjectives Modify Nouns
Most students learn that adjectives are words that modify (describe) nouns. Adjectives do not modify verbs or adverbs or other adjectives.
- Margot wore a beautiful hat to the pie-eating contest.
- Furry dogs may overheat in the summertime.
- My cake should have sixteen candles.
- The scariest villain of all time is Darth Vader.
In the sentences above, the adjectives are easy to spot because they come immediately before the nouns they modify.
Degrees of Comparison
Adjectives come in three forms: absolute( Often known as Positive ), comparative, and superlative.
1) Absolute adjectives describe something in its own right.
- A cool guy
- A messy desk
- A mischievous cat
- Garrulous squirrels
2) Comparative adjectives, unsurprisingly, make a comparison between two or more things.
For most one-syllable adjectives, the comparative is formed by adding the suffix -er (or just -r if the adjective already ends with an e).
For two-syllable adjectives ending in -y, replace -y with -ier. For multi-syllable adjectives, add the word more.
- A cooler guy
- A messier desk
- A more mischievous cat
- More garrulous squirrels
- The coolest guy
- The messiest desk
- The most mischievous cat
- The most garrulous squirrels
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 Cactus has a 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.