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What Are Adjectives?
A brief introduction to adjectives
Date : 18/03/2022
Adjectives.
These describe nouns. They tell us about the thing, place, person, object.
Adjectives tell us more about the nouns They can come before the noun (to modify that noun) Attributive Adjective This is a USEFUL thing This OLD man is my BELOVED granddadOr, they can appear after (copular*) verbs like to be, seem, appear (to predicate about the noun that precedes these verbs) Predicative Adjective This thing is USEFUL My granddad is OLD *copular verb - refers to a state of being not an action
Gradable adjectives We can arrange them on a scale of comparison with the help of INTENSIFYING ADVERBS This task is pretty difficult - attributive Joanna seems rather pale attributive The grammar I learnt in school was entirely different predicative This exercise is too easy predicative
Absolute Comparative Superlative Inflection Big Clever Bigger Cleverer Biggest Cleverest Intensifying adverbs Boring Clever Most boring Most clever Irregular inflections Good Bad Better Worse Best Worst Some adjectives are non-gradable: Dead, wooden, married (can t say very dead, or a bit wooden!) DE-VERBAL ADJECTIVES = non-gradable. These are moulded out of certain verbsTo marry __> married (they are married) To depart __> departing (the departing planes) To take away __> takeaway (let s order a takeaway) To swim __> swimming (we are watching the swimming competition)
If you`re unsure on the word class, swap it! For example, They are married could become They are big. We know that [big] is an adjective as it describes them, so [married] must be too in this case!!
Can you find any other adjectives?This resource was uploaded by: Lucy