Anadjective (abbreviatedadj.) is a word that describes or defines anoun ornoun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the mainparts of speech of the English language, although historically they were classed together withnouns.[1] Nowadays, certain words that usually had been classified as adjectives, includingthe,this,my, etc., typically are classed separately, asdeterminers.
Adjective comes fromLatinnōmen adjectīvum,[2] acalque ofAncient Greek:ἐπίθετον ὄνομα (surname),romanized: epítheton ónoma,lit. 'additional noun' (whence also Englishepithet).[3][4] In the grammatical tradition of Latin and Greek, because adjectives wereinflected for gender, number, and case like nouns (a process calleddeclension), they were considered a type of noun. The words that are today typically called nouns were then calledsubstantive nouns (nōmen substantīvum).[5] The termsnoun substantive andnoun adjective were formerly used in English but are now obsolete.[1]
Depending on the language, an adjective can precede a corresponding noun on a prepositive basis or it can follow a corresponding noun on a postpositive basis. Structural, contextual, and style considerations can impinge on the pre-or post-position of an adjective in a given instance of its occurrence. In English, occurrences of adjectives generally can be classified into one of three categories:
Prepositive adjectives, which are also known as "attributive adjectives", occur on an antecedent basis withinnoun phrases.[6] For example: "I put myhappy kids into the car", whereinhappy occurs on an antecedent basis within themy happy kidsnoun phrase, and therefore functions in a prepositive adjective.
Postpositive adjectives can occur: immediately subsequent to a noun within a noun phrase, e.g. "The onlyroom available cost twice what we expected"; as linked via acopula or other linking mechanism subsequent to a corresponding noun or pronoun; for example: "My kids are happy", whereinhappy is a predicate adjective[6] (see also:Predicative expression,Subject complement); or as an appositive adjective within a noun phrase, e.g. "Mykids, [who are] happy to go for a drive, are in the back seat."
Nominalized adjectives, which function as nouns. One way this happens is byeliding a noun from an adjective-noun noun phrase, whose remnant thus is anominalization. In the sentence, "I read two books to them; he preferred the sad book, but she preferred the happy",happy is a nominalized adjective, short for "happy one" or "happy book". Another way this happens is in phrases like "out with the old, in with the new", where "the old" means "that which is old" or "all that is old", and similarly with "the new". In such cases, the adjective may function as amass noun (as in the preceding example). In English, it may also function as a pluralcount noun denoting a collective group, as in "The meek shall inherit the Earth", where "the meek" means "those who are meek" or "all who are meek".
Adjectives feature as apart of speech (word class) in mostlanguages. In some languages, the words that serve thesemantic function of adjectives are categorized together with some other class, such asnouns orverbs. In the phraseaFord car,Ford is unquestionably a noun but its function is adjectival (noun adjunct, seebelow): to modifycar.
In some languages adjectives can function as nouns: for example, the Spanish phraseun rojo means'a red [one]'. This is also possible in English, seeabove. However, such nominalized adjectives mostly refer to people and are more commonly found in the plural:Reds ora Red (most commonly in the sense of'communist'),the rich and the famous,the oppressed,the poorer orthe poorest, or (not for people)(to venture into) the unknown,the obvious, etc., though use in the singular such asa poor (also the plural(the) poors unlikethe poor) ora gay (less so(the) gays) is widely considered dated and generally avoided.
As for "confusion" with verbs, rather than an adjective meaning "big", a language might have a verb that means "to be big" and could then use anattributive verb construction analogous to "big-being house" to express what in English is called a "big house". Such an analysis is possible for thegrammar of Standard Chinese andKorean, for example.
Different languages do not use adjectives in exactly the same situations. For example, where English uses"to behungry" (hungry being an adjective),Dutch,French, andSpanish use "honger hebben", "avoir faim", and "tener hambre" respectively (literally "to have hunger", the words for "hunger" being nouns). Similarly, where Hebrew uses the adjectiveזקוק (zaqūq, roughly "in need of" or "needing"), English uses the verb "to need".
In languages that have adjectives as a word class, it is usually anopen class; that is, it is relatively common for new adjectives to be formed via such processes asderivation. However,Bantu languages are well known for having only a small closed class of adjectives, and new adjectives are not easily derived. Similarly, nativeJapanese adjectives (i-adjectives) are considered a closed class (as are native verbs), although nouns (an open class) may be used in thegenitive to convey some adjectival meanings, and there is also the separate open class ofadjectival nouns (na-adjectives).
Many languages (including English) distinguish between adjectives, which qualify nouns and pronouns, andadverbs, which mainly modifyverbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. Not all languages make this exact distinction; many (including English) have words that can function as either. For example, in English,fast is an adjective in "afast car" (where it qualifies the nouncar) but an adverb in "he drovefast" (where it modifies the verbdrove).
InDutch andGerman, adjectives and adverbs are usually identical in form and many grammarians do not make the distinction, but patterns of inflection can suggest a difference:
Eine kluge neue Idee.
Aclever new idea.
Eine klug ausgereifte Idee.
Acleverly developed idea.
A German word likeklug ("clever(ly)") takes endings when used as an attributive adjective but not when used adverbially. Whether these are distinct parts of speech or distinct usages of the same part of speech is a question of analysis. While German linguistic terminology distinguishesadverbiale fromadjektivische Formen, German refers to both asEigenschaftswörter ("property words").
Linguists today distinguish determiners from adjectives, considering them to be two separate parts of speech (orlexical categories). Determiners formerly were considered to be adjectives in some of their uses.[a] Determiners function neither as nouns nor pronouns but instead characterize a nominal element within a particular context. They generally do this by indicatingdefiniteness (a vs.the),quantity (one vs.some vs.many), or another such property.
An adjective acts as the head of anadjective phrase oradjectival phrase (AP). In the simplest case, an adjective phrase consists solely of the adjective; more complex adjective phrases may contain one or moreadverbs modifying the adjective ("very strong"), or one or morecomplements (such as "worthseveral dollars", "fullof toys", or "eagerto please"). In English, attributive adjective phrases that include complements typically follow the noun that they qualify ("an evildoerdevoid of redeeming qualities").
In many languages (including English) it is possible for nouns to modify other nouns. Unlike adjectives, nouns acting as modifiers (calledattributive nouns ornoun adjuncts) usually are not predicative; a beautiful park is beautiful, but a car park is not "car". The modifier often indicates origin ("Virginia reel"), purpose ("work clothes"), semanticpatient ("man eater") or semanticsubject ("child actor"); however, it may generally indicate almost any semantic relationship. It is also common for adjectives to bederived from nouns, as inboyish,birdlike,behavioral (behavioural),famous,manly,angelic, and so on.
InAustralian Aboriginal languages, the distinction between adjectives and nouns is typically thought weak, and many of the languages only use nouns, or nouns with a limited set of adjective-derivingaffixes, to modify other nouns. In languages that have a subtle adjective-noun distinction, one way to tell them apart is that a modifying adjective can come to stand in for an entireelided noun phrase, while a modifying noun cannot. For example, inBardi, the adjectivemoorrooloo'little' in the phrasemoorrooloobaawa'little child' can stand on its own to mean'the little one', while the attributive nounaamba'man' in the phraseaamba baawa'male child' cannot stand for the whole phrase to mean'the male one'.[7] In other languages, likeWarlpiri, nouns and adjectives are lumped together beneath thenominal umbrella because of their shared syntactic distribution asarguments ofpredicates. The only thing distinguishing them is that some nominals seem to semantically denote entities (typically nouns in English) and some nominals seem to denote attributes (typically adjectives in English).[8]
Many languages haveparticiple forms that can act as noun modifiers either alone or as the head of a phrase. Sometimes participles develop into functional usage as adjectives. Examples in English includerelieved (the past participle ofrelieve), used as an adjective inpassive voice constructs such as "I am sorelieved to see you". Other examples includespoken (the past participle ofspeak) andgoing (the present participle ofgo), which function as attribute adjectives in such phrases as "thespoken word" and "thegoing rate".
Other constructs that often modify nouns includeprepositional phrases (as in "a rebelwithout a cause"),relative clauses (as in "the manwho wasn't there"), andinfinitive phrases (as in "a caketo die for"). Some nouns can also take complements such ascontent clauses (as in "the ideathat I would do that"), but these are not commonly consideredmodifiers. For more information about possible modifiers and dependents of nouns, seeComponents of noun phrases.
In many languages, attributive adjectives usually occur in a specific order. In general, the adjective order in English can be summarised as: opinion, size, age or shape, colour, origin, material, purpose.[9][10][11] Other language authorities, like theCambridge Dictionary, state that shape precedes rather than follows age.[9][12][13]
Determiners and postdeterminers—articles, numerals, and other limiters (e.g.three blind mice)—come before attributive adjectives in English. Althoughcertain combinations of determiners can appear before a noun, they are far more circumscribed than adjectives in their use—typically, only a single determiner would appear before a noun or noun phrase (including any attributive adjectives).
Opinion – limiter adjectives (e.g. areal hero, aperfect idiot) and adjectives of subjective measure (e.g.beautiful,supportive) or value (e.g.good,bad,costly)
Material – denominal adjectives denoting what something is made of (e.g.,plastic,metallic,wooden)
Qualifier/purpose – final limiter, which sometimes forms part of the (compound) noun (e.g.,high chair,northern cabin,passenger car,book cover)
This means that, in English, adjectives pertaining to size precede adjectives pertaining to age ("little old", not "old little"), which in turn generally precede adjectives pertaining to colour ("old white", not "white old"). So, one would say "One (quantity) nice (opinion) little (size) old (age) round (shape) [or round old] white (colour) brick (material) house." When several adjectives of the same type are used together, they are ordered from general to specific, like "lovely intelligent person" or "old medieval castle".[9]
This order may be more rigid in some languages than others; in some, like Spanish, it may only be a default (unmarked) word order, with other orders being permissible. Other languages, such asTagalog, follow their adjectival ordersas rigidly as English.
The normal adjectival order of English may be overridden in certain circumstances, especially when one adjective is beingfronted or withablaut reduplication. For example, the usual order of adjectives in English would result in the phrase "the bad big wolf" (opinion before size), but instead, the usual phrase is "the big bad wolf".
Owing partially to borrowings from French, English has some adjectives that follow the noun aspostmodifiers, calledpostpositive adjectives, as intime immemorial andattorney general. Adjectives may even change meaning depending on whether they precede or follow, as inproper: "They live in aproper town" (a real town, not a village) vs. "They live in thetown proper (in the town itself, not in the suburbs). All adjectives can follow objects or subjects in elliptical constructions, such as "tell mesomething [that is]new" or "We ate thepizza [that was]cold."
In many languages, some adjectives arecomparable and the measure of comparison is calleddegree. For example, a person may be "polite", but another person may be "more polite", and a third person may be the "most polite" of the three. The word "more" here modifies the adjective "polite" to indicate a comparison is being made, and "most" modifies the adjective to indicate an absolute comparison (asuperlative).
Among languages that allow adjectives to be compared, different means are used to indicate comparison. Some languages do not distinguish betweencomparative andsuperlative forms. Other languages allow adjectives to be compared but do not have a special comparative form of the adjective. In such cases, as in someAustralian Aboriginal languages, case-marking, such as theablative case, may be used to indicate one entity has more of an adjectival quality than (i.e.from—hence ABL) another.[7]
In English, many adjectives can be inflected tocomparative andsuperlative forms by taking the suffixes "-er" and "-est" (sometimes requiring additional letters before the suffix; see forms forfar below), respectively:
"great", "greater", "greatest"
"deep", "deeper", "deepest"
Some adjectives areirregular in this sense:
"good", "better", "best"
"bad", "worse", "worst"
"many", "more", "most" (sometimes regarded as anadverb ordeterminer)
"little", "less", "least"
Some adjectives can have bothregular andirregular variations:
"old", "older", "oldest"
"far", "farther", "farthest"
also
"old", "elder", "eldest"
"far", "further", "furthest"
Another way to convey comparison is by incorporating the words "more" and "most". There is no simple rule to decide which means is correct for any given adjective, however. The general tendency is for simpler adjectives and those fromAnglo-Saxon to take the suffixes, while longer adjectives and those fromFrench,Latin, orGreek do not—but sometimes thesound of the word is the deciding factor.
Many adjectives do not naturally lend themselves to comparison. For example, some English speakers would argue that it does not make sense to say that one thing is "more ultimate" than another, or that something is "most ultimate", since the word "ultimate" is already absolute in its semantics. Such adjectives are callednon-comparable orabsolute. Nevertheless, native speakers will frequently play with the raised forms of adjectives of this sort. Although "pregnant" is logically non-comparable (either one is pregnant or not), one may hear a sentence like "She looks more and more pregnant each day".
Comparative and superlative forms are also occasionally used for other purposes than comparison. In English comparatives can be used to suggest that a statement is only tentative or tendential: one might say "John is more the shy-and-retiring type", where the comparative "more" is not really comparing him with other people or with other impressions of him, but rather, could be substituting for "on the whole" or "more so than not". In Italian, superlatives are frequently used to put strong emphasis on an adjective:bellissimo means "most beautiful", but is in fact more commonly heard in the sense "extremely beautiful".
Attributive adjectives and other nounmodifiers may be used eitherrestrictively (helping to identify the noun's referent, hence "restricting" its reference) ornon-restrictively (helping to describe a noun). For example:
"He was a lazy sort, who would avoid adifficult task and fill his working hours with easy ones."
Here "difficult" is restrictive – it tells which tasks he avoids, distinguishing these from the easy ones: "Only those tasks that are difficult".
"She had the job of sorting out the mess left by her predecessor, and she performed thisdifficult task with great acumen."
Heredifficult is non-restrictive – it is already known which task it was, but the adjective describes it more fully: "The aforementioned task, which (by the way) is difficult."
In some languages, such asSpanish, restrictiveness is consistently marked; for example, in Spanishla tarea difícil means "the difficult task" in the sense of "the task that is difficult" (restrictive), whereasla difícil tarea means "the difficult task" in the sense of "the task, which is difficult" (non-restrictive). In English, restrictiveness is not marked on adjectives but is marked onrelative clauses (the difference between "the manwho recognized me was there" and "the man,who recognized me, was there" being one of restrictiveness).
In some languages, adjectives alter their form to reflect the gender, case and number of the noun that they describe. This is calledagreement or concord. Usually it takes the form of inflections at the end of the word, as inLatin:
InCeltic languages, however, initial consonantlenition marks the adjective with a feminine singular noun, as inIrish:
buachaill maith
(good boy, masculine)
girseach mhaith
(good girl, feminine)
Here, a distinction may be made between attributive and predicative usage. In English, adjectives never agree, whereas in French, they always agree. In German, they agree only when they are used attributively, and in Hungarian, they agree only when they are used predicatively:
An adjective is intersective if and only if theextension of its combination with a noun is equal to theintersection of its extension and that of the noun its modifying. For example, the adjectivecarnivorous is intersective, given the extension ofcarnivorous mammal is the intersection of the extensions ofcarnivorous andmammal (i.e., the set of all mammals who are carnivorous).
An adjective is subsective if and only if the extension of its combination with a noun is a subset of the extension of the noun. For example, the extension ofskillful surgeon is a subset of the extension ofsurgeon, but it is not the intersection of that and the extension ofskillful, as that would include (for example) incompetent surgeons who are skilled violinists. All intersective adjectives are subsective, but the term 'subsective' is sometimes used to refer to only those subsective adjectives which are not intersective.
An adjective is privative if and only if the extension of its combination with a noun isdisjoint from the extension of the noun. For example,fake is privative because afake cat is not a cat.
A plain nonsubsective adjective is an adjective that is not subsective or privative. For example, the wordpossible is this kind of adjective, as the extension ofpossible murderer overlaps with, but is not included in the extension ofmurderer (as some, but not all, possible murderers are murderers).
^In English dictionaries, which typically still do not treat determiners as their own part of speech, determiners are often recognizable by being listed both as adjectives and as pronouns.
^R. Declerck,A Comprehensive Descriptive Grammar of English (1991), p. 350: "When there are several descriptive adjectives, they normally occur in the following order: characteristic – size – shape – age – colour – [...]"
Dixon, R. M. W. (1977). "Where Have All the Adjectives Gone?".Studies in Language.1:19–80.doi:10.1075/sl.1.1.04dix.
Dixon, R. M. W. (1993). R. E. Asher (ed.).The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (1st ed.). Pergamon Press Inc. pp. 29–35.ISBN0-08-035943-4.
Dixon, R. M. W. (1999). "Adjectives". In K. Brown & T. Miller (eds.),Concise Encyclopedia of Grammatical Categories. Amsterdam: Elsevier.ISBN0-08-043164-X. pp. 1–8.
Warren, Beatrice (1984).Classifying adjectives. Gothenburg studies in English No. 56. Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis.ISBN91-7346-133-4.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1986). "What's in a Noun? (Or: How Do Nouns Differ in Meaning from Adjectives?)".Studies in Language.10 (2):353–389.doi:10.1075/sl.10.2.05wie.
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