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Some linguists also classify possessive pronouns, such as his or her, and demonstratives, such as this or that as adjectives. However, they can only be used in an attributive manner.
An adjectival phrase is a phrase with an adjective as its head. (e.g. full of toys) . Adjectival phrases may occur as premodifiers to a noun (a bin full of toys), or as predicatives to a verb. (the bin is full of toys.)
Adjectives are sometimes used in place of nouns, as in many of the Beatitudes (e.g. "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy"); these are called substantive adjective s. In languages with grammatical genders, such as Latin, the gender of the adjective may indicate the gender of the implied noun; thus malus means the bad man; mala, the bad woman; malum, the bad thing. In some languages, participles are used as adjectives.
In the following examples, the adjective is highlighted in bold.
Many adjectives have comparative and superlative forms. In English grammar, these are formed in one of two ways: either by suffixes (big, bigger, biggest) or by the use of the grammatical particles more and most. Some adjectives in English have suppletiveIn linguistics and etymology, suppletion is the use as an inflected form of a word of an entirely different word that is not cognate to the uninflected form. Here are some examples: In English, the past tense of the verb go is went which comes from the pa forms in their comparison, such as good, better, best.
Which English adjectives are compared by which means is a complex matter of English idiomAn idiom is an expression whose meaning is not compositional — that is, whose meaning does not follow from the meaning of the individual words of which it is composed. For example, the English phrase to kick the bucket means to die''. A listener knowing t. Generally, shorter adjectives, Anglo-SaxonOld English (also called Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language which was spoken in England around the year 1000. It is a West Germanic language, and is therefore similar to Frisian and Old Saxon. It is also quite similar to Old Norse (and, words, and shorter, fully domesticated FrenchFrench le francais la langue francaise is one of the most important Romance languages, outnumbered only by Spanish and Portuguese. French is the 11th most spoken language in the world, spoken by about 77 million people (called Francophones) as a mother to words (e.g. noble) use the suffixes. Longer words, especially those derived from GreekThe Greek language ( /Elini'k{/) is an Indo-European language which has existed from around the 14th century BC in the Cretan inscriptions called Linear B. Mycenaean Greek of this period is distinguished from later Classical or Ancient Greek of the 8th ce and LatinAlternative meanings: See Latin (disambiguation Latin was the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. It gained great importance as the formal language of the Roman Empire. All Romance languages are descended from Latin, and ma, require more and most. A fair number of words, especially longer adjectives that end in Anglo-Saxon derivative suffixes like -ly, can take either form.
Grammatical prescriptivistsIn linguistics, prescription is the laying down or prescribing of normative rules of the language. This is in contrast to the description of language, which simply describes how language is used in practice. For example, a descriptive linguist descriptivi frequently object to phrases such as more perfect, on the grounds that being perfect is a quality that by definition admits to no comparison. Most speakers of English understand the phrase to mean more nearly perfect, however, and dismiss the prescriptivists' objection as pedantry.General usage guide
Most one syllable adjectives take the suffixes -er/-est.
Two syllable adjectives tend to be split between the two possibilities. Some take either and the situation determines the usage eg you will see commoner and more common depending on which sounds better in the context.
Adjectives with three or more syllables generally use more/most but there are exceptions. The use of -er/-est extends to more longer words in American English than British English.
There are a number of endings which generally do not use -er/est but there are exceptions. For example adjectives which end in ous do not take -er/-est yet you will find curiouser in both Websters Third and the Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition. This is only because Lewis Carroll used it incorrectly in curiouser and curiouser to produce a particular effect. It would not be used in good English except for effect.
Whilst most adjectives are gradable there are also many that are not gradable and therefore do not use either. For example in a planktonic organism the adjective planktonic simply means plankton-type and does not take either since there are no degrees or grades of planktonic; an organism is either one of those in plankton or it isn't. For gradable adjectives -er/-est and more/most are only used on the base form of the adjective (eg you do not use lessest).
A good general rule is to use whatever sounds natural and gives the desired effect. Shorter adjectives are generally well known and using -er/-est sounds natural and the meaning is clear. Longer adjectives are less well known and the use of -er/-est may not be clear and using more/most leads to clarity. It should be remembered in particular that the use of -er for adjectives is a relatively minor part of the overall usage of this ending. For example -er is extremely common as a way of converting action nouns to someone who does the action stated by the noun eg break gives breaker, talk gives talker, etc (there are thousands of these). Putting -er on an unfamiliar adjective can easily lead to confusion.