What do they do?

Adjectives are often called

‘describing words’ because the
provide information about the
qualities of something described
in a noun, a noun phrase or a
noun clause.
Noun: an old film
Noun phrase: an interesting
experience for everyone
Noun clause: It’s unbelievable that
we haven’t seen each other for so
long
Sad baby Dirty street

Happy baby Angry girl

Clean roads
• Adjectives provide much of the
colour in any description, as the
following passage illustrates.
Now, I will read a passage. The
adjectives are in italics.
• John’s provocative, violent and
compelling thriller takes
American poet James Dickey’s
novel to giddy heights of
suspenseful stress and proves
that Burt Reynolds can act.
Central to the success of John’s
culture clash nightmare, and what
makes it resonate with such a
rare intensity, is the powerful
theme or red-blooded masculinity
under hostile threat.
 What do they look like?

• Adjectives related to nouns or verbs

A lot of adjectives are closely related to
nouns or verbs.

1. Beautiful: beauty (noun)

2. Drinkable: drink (verb)
3. Dangerous: danger (noun)
4. Talkative: talk (verb)

These adjectives often have endings or

‘suffixes’
1. -able: impeccable
2. -al: paternal
3. -ate: immaculate
4. -an: Anglican
5. -ant: fragrant
6. -ent: intelligent
7. -ful: truthful
8. -ist: novelist
9. -ive: impressive
10.-less: useless
11. -ory: obligatory
12. -ous: courageous
13. -some: winsome
14. -wise: streetwise
15. -y: misty
We can attach the prefixes non-,
pro- and anti- to the beginning of
some nouns, and the suffixes, -
like and –friendly to the end to
create adjective forms (e.g. a pro-
democracy movement, anti-
democracy movement, a
business-like manner, user-
friendly computer manual).
 Participle forms

• In the following examples boring

and bored are parts of the verb
(to) bore.
1. Am I boring you?
2. I haven’t bored you, have I?

Boring is the present participle and

bored is the past participle.
Many adjectives have the same
form as participles (e.g. boring,
bored, broken, closed, exciting,
excited).
 Multiword adjectives

• Multiword or compound
adjectives are made up of two
parts (usually connected by a
hyphen).
• The second part of multiword
adjectives is often a past
participle form.
-Adverb and past participle:
well-liked, well-intentioned.
-Noun and past participle:
Feather-brained, self-centred,
people-oriented
 Some more multiword
adjectives
• Other multiword adjectives don’t
involve participle forms at all, e.g.
two-piece, birds-eye and slip-on
in the following description.
1. His two-piece birds-eye suit is
impressive.
2. His blue shirt with its rounded
collar immaculate, his thin,
faintly European slip-on shoes
impeccable.
 REMEMBER: Adjectives
don’t change before plural
nouns
• Two green books
• NOT-Two greens books
 Comparative and
superlative forms
• We add er to the end of most
short adjectives to make the
comparative form, and to make
the superlative form we add est.

• Comparative: I am older than you.

• Superlative: Which city is the

coldest in the United States?
• With longer adjectives we usually
add more or most.
• For example:
1. More intelligent
2. Most beautiful
Some adjectives have irregular
comparative and superlative
forms.
1. Good better best
2. Bad worse worst
 Where do adjectives
come in sentences?
• Single adjectives
• There are two usual sentence
positions for single adjectives:
-Before a noun (within a noun
phrase)
-After a noun (a pronoun) and a
verb.
 Before a noun

• When we use adjectives before

nouns they are usually the last-but-
one item in the noun phrase.

Determiner Intensifier Adjective Noun

some - enchanted evening
a very old story

We can usually leave adjectives out of

a noun phrase without making
nonsense of the sentence.
For example:
I watched the entire performance.
NOT: The performance was entire.
 After a noun or pronoun
and verb
• We also use adjectives after
nouns (‘predicatively’). In this
case we use a complement verb
to link it to the noun (or pronoun)
it qualifies.
Complement Adjective
verb
He is cold.
It Is getting dark.

When we use adjectives

predicatively, they usually express
the main point of the clause, and
we can’t leave them out.
• A few adjectives (e.g. alive,
asleep, awake) are used only after
nouns.
1. She’s asleep.
NOT: We found an asleep child in a
basket on our doorstep.
2. Is Julia awake?
3. Is your passion alive?
 Using more than one
adjective
• Order
The following is a helpful rule of
thumb to use when two or more
adjectives occur before a noun:
1. General before specific:
-A large French car
NOT: A French large car.
2. Opinion before description:
-A wonderful high ceiling.
NOT: A high wonderful ceiling.
 Punctuation

• In writing we generally separate

the adjectives in a list by commas
when they all qualify the same
noun.
For example:
A terrifying, dark, gloomy clearing.
But we leave out commas when
one adjective qualifies another.
A pale blue vase.
 Linking adjectives with
‘and’
• Before a noun, we don’t need to use
a conjunction to separate the
adjectives we put together..
They came to a terrifying, dark,
gloomy clearing in the wood.

However, after a noun or a pronoun,

we have to use and before the last
of the two or more adjectives.
1. She was cold and hungry.
2. She was cold, tired and hungry.
 Adjectives followed by
‘prepositions’, ‘infinitives’
and ‘that’
• We use adjectives predicatively
we can sometimes follow them
with a preposition, infinitive or
that clause.
1. Unaware of speaking
2. Happy to learn
3. Eager that you should go
 Prepositions after
adjectives
• Good, bad, easy, difficult, usual,
wise, and foolish (and some more
adjectives with similar meanings
to these) are among those
normally followed by an infinitive.

Some adjectives can only be used if

they are followed by a
preposition, i.e. they can’t be
used on their own.
For example: I am fond of him.
NOT: I am fond.
After object-complement
verbs
• Object-complement verbs are
followed by an object (often a
noun or pronoun) and then a
complement (often an adjective).
Verb Object Complement
Don’t make me angry.
He left the door open.

Here the adjective as

complement describes
something about the subject.
 Ellipsis or omission

• We also use adjectives

immediately after nouns when we
leave something out of the
sentence (i.e. when ellipsis
occurs).
• Usually what we leave out is a
relative pronoun (e.g. who,
which, that) and a form of the
verb (to) be. This kind of ellipsis is
particularly common after
pronouns like something,
someone, somewhere,
sometime, and anything.
 Pronoun Adjective
You something warm. (i.e.
should something
wear [which is]
warm)
Take me somewhere nice. (i.e.
somewhere
[which is]
nice)
 Typical difficulties for
students
• If adjectives usually follow nouns
in your first language, you may
need time and lots of exposure to
English in order to become
familiar with the usual sequence
of information in English noun
phrase (adjectives before nouns).
 Three Different Degrees
of Adjectives
• The three degrees of an adjective are:
1. Positive
2. Comparative
3. Superlative
When you use them depends on how many
things you’re talking about:

1. A positive adjective is a normal adjective that’s

used to describe, not compare. For example:
“This is good soup” and “I am funny.”
2. A comparative adjective is an adjective that’s
used to compare two things (and is often
followed by the word than). For example: “This
soup is better than that salad” or “I am funnier
than her.”
3. A superlative adjective is an adjective that’s used
to compare three or more things, or to state that
something is the most. For example: “This is the
best soup in the whole world” or “I am the
funniest out of all the other bloggers.”
 Types of adjectives

1. Descriptive
2. Quantitative
3. Demonstrative
4. Possessive
5. Interrogative
6. Distributive
7. Articles
 1. Descriptive adjectives

• 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.
• For example:
1. The dog is hungry.
2. These flowers are beautiful.
2. Quantitative adjectives

• As the word suggests 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.
For example:
1. “How many children do you
have?” “I only have one daughter.”
2. “Do you plan on having more
kids?” “Oh yes, I want many
children!”
 3. Demonstrative
adjectives
• 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.
For example:
“Which car is yours?” “This car is mine, and that
one used to be mine until I sold it.
 4. Possessive adjectives

• 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
For example:
“Whose car is that?” “That’s mine.
That’s my car.”
5. Interrogative adjectives
• 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.
For example:
1. What dog do you want to get?
2. Whose child is this?
 6. Distributive adjectives
• 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.”
For example:
1. Every action has its consequences.
2. “Which of these two chocolates do you like?” “I
don’t like either chocolate.
 7. Articles
• There are only three articles in the English
language:
1. A
2. An
3. The
• Although articles are their own part of
speech, they’re technically also adjectives!
Articles are used to describe which noun
you’re referring to.
• A — A singular, general item.
• An — A singular, general item. Used before
words that start with a vowel.
• The — A singular or plural, a specific item.
For example:
1. An elephant can weigh over 6,000 kg.
2. I have a cat.
3. This is the best judicial academy you can
ever find.
 No double superlatives
please!

You can’t say:

1. He is the most happiest man.
2. This is the least thinnest boy
here.
3. She is the most smartest girl in
her class.
1. Quandary
 1. Quandary

Meaning: A state of not being able to decide

what to do about a situation in which you are
involved
Sentences:
1. I've had two job offers, and I'm in a
real quandary about/over which
one to accept.
2. George is in a quandary about
whether or not he should keep the
money he found in the park.
2. Clandestine
 2. Clandestine

Meaning: Planned or done in secret,

especially describing something
that is not officially allowed.
Sentences:
1. The thieves held weekly
clandestine meetings in a public
park.
2. She undertook several
clandestine operations for the
secret services.
 Problems related to
adjectives
1. Ordering two or more adjectives
that occur together.
2. Constructing comparative and
superlative forms.
 Summary

1. Adjectives
2. Three degrees
3. Types of adjectives
 Let’s call it a day

• To stop what you are doing