Adjectives Part One

The parts of speech that modifies a noun or a pronoun in a sentence is called the adjective. An adjective modifies (qualifies or limits the meaning of) a noun or a pronoun. To find out adjective from a sentence you need to ask some questions are What kind? Which one(s)? How many? How much? And the answer you will get is an adjective.

Therefore, let’s find out the adjective from the sentence following the questions as I have mentioned above. See the examples given below –

Shima reads an interesting story. (What kind of story?)

The recent article has that information. (Which article?)

Kent owns those surfboards. (Which surfboards?)

Wendy paid fifty dollars for the jacket. (How many dollars?)

Much space was devoted to her artwork. (How much space?)

Every bold letter in above sentences are the adjective. So it’s very easy to find out an adjective.

Two Uses of Adjective:

(a)  Attribute use

(b)  Predicative use

Attributive Use: (Adjective + Noun/Pronoun) in this way if an adjective is used and modifies noun or pronoun is called attributive use. See the example below –

He is good boy (good – adjective and boy – noun)

Therefore, the above sentence the adjective is used attributively.

Predicative Use: (Noun/Pronoun+ …..+Adjective) in this way if an adjective is used and modifies noun or pronoun is called predicative use. See the example given below

She is beautiful (She – Pronoun and beautiful – adjective)

Shila is intelligent (Shila – noun and intelligent – adjective)

Classes of Adjectives:

1)     Adjective of quality.

2)     Adjective of quantity.

3)     Adjective of number.

4)     Pronominal adjective.

Discussion in Details:

1)     Adjective of Quality: These types of adjective are used to show the kind, quality, condition (those things are impossible to be measured) is called adjective of quality.

Examples:      She is a good girl.

                        Monira is a beautiful girl.

                        The lion is very strong.

                        I am weak today.

                        The crow looks ugly.

                        CHT is a plain land.

Notes: Proper adjective means those adjectives which come from proper noun and they act adjective. “He is an American” “They are Bangladeshi” “She is a Chinese”. Therefore, the bold letters are proper adjectives and REMEMBER the first letter of proper adjective always written in CAPITAL LETTER.

2)     Adjective of Quantity: These types of adjective are used to indicate the quantity of anything (generally material noun and abstract noun)

Examples:                  I need much money.

                                    There is little milk in the glass.

                                    The whole class laughed out.

                                    Give me some salt.

                                    There was not enough rain last year.

3)     Numeral Adjective: These types of adjective used to show the number of any noun in exact number or continuously. So let’s discuss in details with some examples.

Example:                               They have three cows.

                                                He lives in the second room.

                                                Many people cam to the meeting.

In the above sentences every bold letter is numeral adjectives because they mean exact number of the noun.

Types of Numeral Adjective: The numeral adjective contains of three types are given below –

a)     Cardinal Numeral Adjective: When the cardinal numbers one (1), two (2), three (3), thirty (30) are used as an adjective is called cardinal numeral adjective. Such as – I have four cows. You brought seven birds.

b)     Ordinal Numeral Adjective: When first (not “one”), second (not “two”), third (not “three”) used in order and act as an adjective is called ordinal numeral adjective. Such as – She is my uncle’s tenth child. Keep it in the second box.

Note: To be clear about the difference between cardinal and ordinal number here is a table given below.

Cardinal	Ordinal
One Two Three Four Five	First Second Third Fourth Fifth

Note: “the” is used before ordinal numeral number adjective – (the + ordinal number adjective + noun)

c)     Multiplicative Numeral Adjective: When single, double, treble etc are used as an adjective in the sentence is called multiplicative numeral adjective. see how multiplicative number comes from cardinal number in the table given below –

Cardinal	Multiplicative
One Two Three Four	Single Twofold, double Twofold, treble, triple Fourfold, quadruple

Notes: Definite numeral adjective: In above cardinal, ordinal, and multiplicative are definite numeral adjective because they denote exact number of noun and exact quantity of noun.