Adjective

Adjective is derived from the word 'adject' which is formed by prefixing 'ad' (meaning towards) to 'ject' (meaning throw), meaning thereby a word that is thrown towards a noun or pronoun. The general purpose of such a word added or attached primarily to a noun or pronoun is to denote their qualities. For example, 'a red rose' where 'red' is adjective and 'rose' is noun.

Adjectives are used for adding on to modify the noun referred to give a particular shade of meaning; as, this house, the other house, the whole house, one house, the first house, a little house, a comfortable house, an untidy house, each house, every house and so on.

Obviously, adjectives generally appear just before the noun to emphasize its quality, however, not necessarily. Sometimes, it is added to just modify the noun or pronoun it refers to, such as 'this house', the 'first house', or the 'every house'. Adjectives are sometimes compounded with the noun it qualifies, such as 'sweetheart'. An adjective is used in two ways, attributively - such as 'a lame horse' or predicatively - such as, 'the horse went lame'.

In grammar, adjective is a part of speech. A word is classified as an adjective when it functions as adjective in a sentence. An adjective enlarges the meaning and narrows the application of a noun. It should also be noted that the quality of qualifying or attributing another noun is also found in the Definite article the or the Indefinite article a or an which are generally written before an adjective.

Goold Brown mentions six classes of adjectives:
I. Common adjective - that is any ordinary epithet, or adjective denoting quality or situation; as, good, bad, peaceful, warlike, eastern, outer etc.

II. Proper adjective - that is an adjective formed from a proper name; as, A Portuguese sailor, The English language.

III. Numeral adjective - that is an adjective expressing numerals such as in a definite number; as, One, two, three as Cardinal, and first, second, third as Ordinals. Indefinite numerals may be used as - all, some, enough, no or none, many, few etc.

A Definite numeral sometimes is made Indefinite, such as Some twenty men were present.
There can be indefinite quantitative adjectives - such as enough rice, and also indefinite numerals - such as a few loaves.

IV. Pronominal adjective - that is a definitive word which may either accompany its noun, or represent it understood; as, "All join to guard what each desires to gain."--Pope.

V. Participial adjective - that is one that has the form of a participle, but differs from it by rejecting the idea of time; as, "An amusing story."

VI. Compound adjective - that is one that consists of two or more words joined together, either by the hyphen or solidly: as, Nut-brown, four-footed, threefold etc.

Some other grammarians say there are eight kinds of adjectives, which are:
1. Proper adjective
2. Descriptive adjective
3. Quantitative adjective,
4. Numeral adjective,
5. Demonstrative adjective,
6. Distributive adjective,
7. Interrogative adjective, and
8. Possessive adjective

Sometimes, a phrase also functions as an adjective in a sentence, and hence such phrases are called adjective phrases.

Sometimes, a clause of a sentence also functions as an adjective in a sentence. Such a clause is called an adjective clause.

Nearby pages
Adjoint, Adjournment, Adjunct, Adjustable Peg, Adjustable Rate