WORLD OF ENGLISH

An adjective is a word that tells us more about a noun. (By "noun" we include pronouns and noun phrases.) An adjective "qualifies" or "modifies" a noun (a big dog). Adjectives can be used before a noun (I like Chinese food) or after certain verbs (It is hard). We can often use two or more adjectives together (a beautiful young French lady). 

 

But surely we must look closer into this topic:

 

Definition (Definition)

Adjectives are words that describe or modify another person or thing in the sentence. 

•    the tall professor

•    the lugubrious lieutenant

•    a solid commitment

•    a month's pay

•    a six-year-old child

•    the unhappiest, richest man

 

Position of Adjectives (Tillægsordenes placering i en sætning)
Unlike Adverbs, which often seem capable of popping up almost anywhere in a sentence, adjectives nearly always appear immediately before the noun or noun phrase that they modify. Sometimes they appear in a string of adjectives, and when they do, they appear in a set order according to category. (See the end of this chapter). When indefinite pronouns — such as something, someone, anybody — are modified by an adjective, the adjective comes after the pronoun:
Anyone capable of doing something horrible to someone nice should be punished. Something wicked this way comes.

 

 

Degrees of Adjectives (Gradbøjning af tillægsord)

Adjectives can express degrees of modification:

 

•    Gladys is a rich woman, but Josie is richer than Gladys, and Sadie is the richest woman in town.

 

The degrees of comparison are known as the positive, the comparative, and the superlative. We use the comparative for comparing two things and the superlative for comparing three or more things. The inflected suffixes -er and -est suffice to form most comparatives and superlatives, although we need –ier and -iest when a two-syllable adjective ends in y(happier and happiest); otherwise we use more and most when an adjective has more than one syllable. Look at the table below:

 

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
rich	richer	richest
lovely	lovelier	loveliest
beautiful	more beautiful	most beautiful

 

Certain adjectives have irregular forms in the comparative and superlative degrees:

 

Irregular Comparative and Superlative Forms

good                          better                            best

bad                            worse                           worst

little                            less                              least

much 

many                          more                            most

some    

far                              further                          furthest

 

 

Be careful not to form comparatives or superlatives of adjectives which already express an extreme of comparison — unique, for instance — although it probably is possible to form comparative forms of most adjectives: something can be more perfect, and someone can have a fuller figure. People who argue that one woman cannot be more pregnant than another have never been nine-months pregnant with twins.

 

The list below shows the adjectives with no comparison form:

 

absolute	impossible	principal
adequate	inevitable	stationary
chief	irrevocable	sufficient
complete	main	unanimous
devoid	manifest	unavoidable
entire	minor	unbroken
fatal	paramount	unique
final	perpetual	universal
ideal	preferable	whole

 

 

The Order of Adjectives in a Series (Tillægsordenes rækkefølge)

It would take a linguistic philosopher to explain why we say "little brown house" and not "brown little house" or why we say "red Italian sports car" and not "Italian red sports car." There is, however, a pattern. You will find many exceptions to the pattern in the table below, but it is definitely important to learn the pattern of adjective order if it is not part of what you naturally bring to the language.

The categories in the following table can be described as follows:

 

1. Determiners — articles and other limiters.

2. Observation — postdeterminers and limiter adjectives (e.g., a real hero, a perfect idiot) and adjectives subject to subjective measure (e.g., beautiful, interesting)

3. Size and Shape — adjectives subject to objective measure (e.g., wealthy, large, round)

4. Age — adjectives denoting age (e.g., young, old, new, ancient)

5. Color — adjectives denoting color (e.g., red, black, pale)

6. Origin — denominal adjectives denoting source of noun (e.g., French, American, Canadian)

7. Material — denominal adjectives denoting what something is made of (e.g., woolen, metallic, wooden)

8. Qualifier — final limiter, often regarded as part of the noun (e.g., rocking chair, hunting cabin, passenger car, book cover)

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