Adjectives in English Grammar: Your Essential Student Guide
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14 cards
Question: What is the primary function of adjectives in English?
Answer: To modify a noun by saying what a person or thing is like, giving information about quality, size, age, temperature, shape, colour, and origin.
Question: Which types of words can become adjectives via derivational suffixes from nouns? Give examples with suffixes.
Answer: Suffixes from nouns: -al (person → personal), -ary (custom → customary), -ful (beauty → beautiful), -ish (fool → foolish), -ly (friend → friendly), -o
Question: Which adjective-forming suffixes derive from verbs? Give examples.
Answer: From verbs: -able (agree → agreeable), -ent (depend → dependent), -ible (sense → sensible), -ive (attract → attractive).
Question: What are participial adjectives and how are they formed? Give examples.
Answer: Participial adjectives are formed from verb participles: -ing adjectives (interesting, impressing, boring) and -ed adjectives (interested, impressed,
Question: How do common prefixes affect adjectives? Give examples.
Answer: Prefixes usually have a negative effect: dis- (agreeable → disagreeable), un- (pleasant → unpleasant), im- (possible → impossible), ir- (regular → irr
Question: How are compound adjectives commonly formed? Provide examples from the content.
Answer: Compound adjectives form with participles (absent-minded, short-sighted, time-consuming), with prefixes/suffixes (water-resistant, health-conscious),
Question: What distinguishes gradable from non-gradable adjectives?
Answer: Gradable adjectives can be modified by very/too/enough and take comparative/superlative forms. Non-gradable adjectives cannot be premodified by those
Question: What is the syntactic distinction between attributive and predicative adjectives?
Answer: Attributive adjectives occur between a determiner and noun in a noun phrase and only modify the noun (e.g., my favourite book). Predicative adjectives
Question: Can most adjectives be used both attributively and predicatively? Are there exceptions?
Answer: Most adjectives are central and can be used both attributively and predicatively, but some have different meanings in each position or are restricted
Question: Give examples showing a change of meaning between attributive and predicative adjective use.
Answer: Predicative: Mrs Smith is 80. She is very old now. Attributive: My old friend hasn’t arrived yet. (old = long-standing relationship) Predicative: Jane