An adjective is a word or term that is used to describe the qualities or features of nouns and pronouns in a sentence or a paragraph. It notifies the shape, time, quality, quantity, emotions, and further more things about a noun.
Adjectives serve the purpose of giving authentic and important information about the nouns and pronouns. Adjectives enhances the sentence by including precision, and originality to it.
Example
The team has a fast baller. (What kind?)
I have twelve candies in my pocket. (How many?)
I loved that blue car. (Which one?)
I earn more money than he does in a year. (How much?)
Adjectives are used to answer questions regarding the features, skills or the nature of subject. However, the most frequent use of adjectives in the parts of speech in sentences. There are various types of adjectives that are used according to the nature of sentences.
Types of Adjectives
- Descriptive Adjectives
- Quantitative Adjectives
- Proper Adjectives
- Demonstrative Adjectives
- Possessive Adjectives
- Interrogative Adjectives
- Indefinite Adjectives
- Articles
- Compound Adjectives
- The Degree of Adjectives:
Descriptive Adjectives
A word or term that is used to describe the features of a noun or pronoun is known as a descriptive adjective. Usually most of the adjectives fall under this type. Such adjectives give information and provide attributes to the nouns and pronouns for description or modification. Descriptive adjectives are also known as qualitative adjectives.
Example
I have a fast bike. (The word ‘fast’ is describing an attribute of the bike)
I am starving. (The word ‘starving’ is providing information about the subject)
The hungry dogs are crying.
I saw a running Cheetah.
Quantitative Adjectives
An adjective that is used to denote the quantity of the subject is known as a quantitative adjective. They fall in the list of questions such as how much or how many.
Example
I have 10 bucks in my wallet. (How much)
They have four children. (How many)
You should have completed the half task. (How much)
Proper Adjectives
The use of proper adjectives is only limited for proper nouns. Proper nouns describe or denote nouns or pronouns and they become proper adjectives.
Proper adjectives are used to concise a concept in one word which helps in avoiding lengthy sentences. Proper adjectives are mostly identified with capital letters.
Example
Russian cars are very strong.
American people are hard workers.
I love KFC burgers.
Marxist philosophers despise capitalism.
Demonstrative Adjectives
A demonstrative adjective denotes directly to something or someone. A demonstrative adjective is never used alone and is written with the word that it modifies.
Example
That house is so gorgeously decorated. (‘The word that is referring to a singular noun by the speaker)
This doll is mine. (‘This’ word is referring to a singular noun close to the speaker)
These dogs are cute. (‘These is referring to a plural noun close to the speaker)
Those flower buds are heavenly. (‘Those’ is referring to a plural form of noun distant from the speaker)
Possessive Adjectives
A word or term that depicts ownership or possession over something or someone is known as a possessive adjective. It tells if something or someone belongs to someone or something. Such adjectives are used before nouns.
Example
My bike is parked outside.
His dog is very cute.
Our task is almost done.
Her novels are interesting.
Interrogative Adjectives
The word interrogative is used to highlight that the sentence is a question or a query. An interrogative adjective must be written either with a noun or pronoun. These adjectives are used for the purpose of inquiring in a statement.
Example
Which car do you use?
What game do you want to play?
Whose bike is this?
Indefinite Adjectives
An indefinite adjective identifies or modifies a noun by providing indefinite and unspecific information of that particular noun. The most frequent used indefinite adjectives are few, many, much, most, all, any, several, etc.
Example
I gave some chocolates to her.
I want a few moments alone with him.
Several reporters wrote about the recent incidents.
Each freelancer will have to submit work tomorrow.
Articles
Articles also the purpose of noun modification in a sentence. They are used to highlight the features of a noun.
Example
A cat is always afraid of dogs.
The dog is afraid of me.
Compound Adjectives
When compound nouns or words are used for the modification of other nouns, they become compound adjectives. These adjectives are used to combine more than one word into one lexical unit and modifies it into a noun. They are mostly separated by a hyphen or combined together with a quotation mark.
Example
I have a broken-down table.
I saw a six-foot-long lizard.
The Degree of Adjectives:
Adjectives are of three degrees: Positive, comparative, and superlative.
These degrees are only applicable on descriptive adjectives.
Example
Positive degree: He is a good boy.
Comparative degree: He is better than other boys in the class.
Superlative: He is the best boy.