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Characteristics of Adjectives in English

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In my previous articles I discussed the characteristics of nouns and verbs. Now it’s time for the characteristics of adjectives.

Here’s a video version of this article:

So, let’s have a look at the morphological, syntactic and semantic characteristics of adjectives.

Morphological Characteristics of Adjectives

You can inflect some adjectives for comparison. Here belong only short, usually one- or two-syllable adjectives: old, older, oldest

Adjectives differ in structure. Here the division is into:

– simple adjectives: good, nice, red

– derived adjectives: greenish, adorable, healthy

– compound adjectives: homemade, color-blind, easygoing

Many adjectives derive from participles: interesting, tired, boring

Syntactic Characteristics

Adjectives can occur as the head of an adjective phrase: very eager to solve the problem

Sometimes they are used as the head of a noun phrase as well: the rich that you saw in the city

Adjectives are usually used as:

– premodifiers in noun phrases: the beautiful flowers

– predicative: She was so smart!

Sometimes also as postmodifiers: someone stupid

Semantic Characteristics

Adjectives usually describe:

– qualities: black, big, nice

– states: serious, sick

Adjectives can be divided into:

– descriptive adjectives: blue, hot, passionate

– classifiers: criminal (criminal law), medical (medical school)

– identifiers: aforementioned, identical

– intensifiers: complete, utter, partial

Adjectives can be also classified as:

– gradable: good – better – best

– nongradable: German, utter, identical

Another distinction is related to whether an adjective can be a predicative in a clause. So adjectives may be:

– predicating: they were hungry

– nonpredicating: criminal (like in criminal law): *the law was criminal

Descriptive adjectives are normally gradable and predicating. Classifiers, identifiers and intensifiers are normally nongradable and nonpredicating.


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