Adjectives

Grammar Lesson: Adjectives

Adjectives are an important word class ('part of speech') in English. They help us to describe the qualities and states of people, things, and abstractions. In this grammar lesson, we will learn how to identify adjectives based on their morphology (form), syntax (position), and semantics (meaning).

Identifying Adjectives:

Adjectives are words like dark, heavy, eager, and guilty. They modify nouns or pronouns by giving more information about their qualities or states. We can identify adjectives by looking at the following aspects:

A. Morphological: 

• Many adjectives can change their form by adding the inflectional suffixes -er (comparative) and -est (superlative) to show different levels of the same quality: dark -> darker -> darkest. For example: This room is darker than the other one. This is the darkest room in the house. Adjectives can also have complex forms: 
• derived adjectives are made by adding suffixes to other words, such as nouns or verbs (with suffixes in bold): acceptable (from accept), forgetful (from forget), influential (from influence); compound adjectives are made by combining two or more words, such as nouns, verbs, adverbs, or other adjectives (with hyphens in bold): colour-blind, home-made, ice-cold.

B. Syntactic: 

• Adjectives can be the head of an adjective phrase, which may have modifiers such as adverbs or prepositional phrases: [very dark], [eager to help], [guilty of a serious crime]. For example: She has very dark hair. He is eager to help his friends. They are guilty of a serious crime. Adjectives and adjective phrases are often used as modifiers before the head of a noun phrase, or as predicatives after the verb in clauses: 
• modifier: Tomorrow could be [a sunny day]. 
• predicative: It's nice and warm in here. It's sunny.

C. Semantic: 

• Adjectives give more information about the qualities of people, things, and abstractions: a heavy box, he is guilty, the situation is serious. For example: She lifted a heavy box with ease. He felt guilty about lying to her. The situation was serious and required immediate action. Many adjectives can be graded. That is, they can be compared and modified for the degree or level of the quality: heavier, very heavy, extremely serious. For example: This box is heavier than that one. This box is very heavy. This situation is extremely serious.

In summary, adjectives are words that modify nouns or pronouns by describing their qualities or states. We can recognise adjectives by their form, position, and meaning. Adjectives can make our language more expressive and precise.