After nouns and verbs adj. are the largest word class in English. Adjectives are words that go together with the nouns and provide information about them.Adj. can refer to:Quality: a beautiful woman ,a new house Size : a big town, a small car Age : a new book, a young lady,Temp. : a warm day, a cold dayShape : a round table, a square box
Color : blue sky, grey hair, Origin : an American film, a Swiss watch
The form of adjecitves• Adjectives in present day English
have the same form no matter wether they refer to people or things in the singular or plural , masculine or feminine. They do not agree with their noun in number and gender. Examples: * a tall man *a tall men* a tall woman *a tall women
Morphological structureAccording to their morphological structure adjectives can be subdivided into four main groups: 1. Simple 2.Derived 3.Participial 4.Compound
“Simple adjectives Most simple adjectives are of one syllable and none have more than two except a few that begin with derivational prefix like :uncommon , inhuman ..
Derived AdjectivesAre formed with the suffixes :
-able readable -less nameless
-al musical -like manlike
-ary documentary -ly lovely -ate fortunate -ory observatory-ed barbed -ous dangerous-en wooden -some troublesome
-ful careful -y dirty-ic historic-ing amazing-ish bookish-ive sensitive
Participles as adjectivesMany past participles ending in –ed (excited)
and some present participles ending in –ing (excting) can be used as adjectives in present day English . a) Present participles as adjectives
a crying baby a passing car the coming week breaking glass a serving officer boiling water
a burning candle growing boys*some participles take a negative prefix:*uninteresting ,unthinking etc
b) Past participles as adjectives a broken cup a fixed idea a frozen lake a known criminal a hired car paid billsa locked door wasted energy a frightened child last property- ed , - ing amazed-amazing annoyed-annoyingbored-boring enchanted-enchantingexcited-exciting interested-interesting tired-tiring pleased -pleasing
b) Past participles as adjectives a broken cup a fixed idea a frozen lake a known criminal a hired car paid billsa locked door wasted energy a frightened child last property
- ed , - ing amazed-amazing annoyed-annoying
bored-boring enchanted-enchantingexcited-exciting interested-interesting tired-tiring pleased -pleasing
Compound adjectivesA compound adjective is sometimes called
a hyphenated adjective. Definition:
Two or more words (such as part-time or high-speed) that act as a single idea to modify a noun (a part-time employee, a high-speed chase). Also called phrasal adjective or compound modifier.
As a general rule, the words in a compound adjective are hyphenated when they come before a noun (a well-known actor) but not when they come after (The actor is well known).
I saw a man-eating alligator. We are describing the alligator . I saw a man eating alligator. This sentence without the hyphen sounds like a man is eating an alligator.
Syntactic function of adjectivesAdjectives may have different functions in the
sentence. The most common functions are : Attributive&Predicative 1When an adj. comes before a noun, it is Attributive:*She’s an intelligent young woman.*I love strong cheese.2When an adj. is separated from the noun and comes after the verb it is Predicative .(can be followed by verbs;be,become,get,seem,feel)not an object.*The exam was really difficult.*She seems worried.*Hilary made me very angry.
We say that adjective is Predicative or is used Predicatively when it comes after a linking verb (be,seem,etc) or some other state verbs , in which case it function as :Subject complement :
This ticket is old. He is careless.Your sister seems angry
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