Summary of English Adjectives: Forms and Functions

## Introduction Adjectives are central to describing people, things and experiences in English. This guide breaks down adjective types, formational processes, syntactic behavior, and practical usage so you can recognize, form, and use adjectives accurately in academic and everyday contexts. > Definition: An adjective is a word or phrase that modifies a noun by providing information such as quality, size, age, temperature, shape, colour, or origin. ## 1. How adjectives are formed Adjectives in English arise in several ways: base adjectives, derivation from nouns and verbs, participial forms, prefixes, and compounding. ### 1.1 Derivation from nouns (common suffixes) - **-al**: person → personal - **-ary**: custom → customary - **-ful**: beauty → beautiful - **-ish**: fool → foolish - **-ly**: friend → friendly - **-ous**: nerve → nervous - **-y**: cloud → cloudy > Definition: Derivational suffixes attach to a base word to change its part of speech and meaning. ### 1.2 Derivation from verbs (common suffixes) - **-able**: agree → agreeable - **-ent**: depend → dependent - **-ible**: sense → sensible - **-ive**: attract → attractive ### 1.3 Participial adjectives - Present participle endings **-ing** form adjectives that typically describe an ongoing quality: interesting, boring, impressing - Past participle endings **-ed** form adjectives that often indicate a resultant state or feeling: interested, bored, impressed, disappointed Example: The film was interesting (it causes interest). She felt interested (she experienced interest). ### 1.4 Prefixes (usually negative) Prefixes commonly produce negative or opposite meanings: - **dis-**: agreeable → disagreeable - **un-**: pleasant → unpleasant - **im-**: possible → impossible - **ir-**: regular → irregular ### 1.5 Compound adjectives Compound adjectives combine words (often participles, numbers, nouns, or words with suffixes/prefixes): - Participles: absent-minded, short-sighted, time-consuming - Prefix/suffix combos: water-resistant, health-conscious - Number + noun: a five-year-old girl, a ten-minute break Fun fact: Many compound adjectives are hyphenated before a noun (a five-year-old child) but lose the hyphen when used after the noun in some style guides (the child is five years old). ## 2. Gradability and comparison Adjectives are divided into **gradable** and **non-gradable** types. | Feature | Gradable Adjectives | Non-gradable Adjectives | |---|---:|---:| | Can take intensifiers like "very"/"too"/"enough" | Yes | No | | Form comparative/superlative (e.g., -er, -est or more/most) | Yes | No | | Typical examples | big, small, happy, cold | perfect, dead, unique, impossible | - Use intensifiers and comparison with gradable adjectives: "very big", "bigger than" - Non-gradable adjectives generally resist modification and comparison: "absolutely perfect" rather than "very perfect" ## 3. Attributive vs Predicative use From a syntactic viewpoint, adjectives function in two main ways. ### 3.1 Attributive adjectives - Appear before a noun (usually between a determiner and the noun): my favourite book - They directly modify the noun inside a noun phrase ### 3.2 Predicative adjectives - Appear in the predicate, usually after linking verbs like be, look, seem: She is happy; The soup smells hot - They describe the subject rather than directly qualifying a noun inside the noun phrase > Definition: Attributive adjectives occur before a noun; predicative adjectives occur after a verb and form part of the predicate. ### 3.3 Adjectives with different senses in attributive vs predicative positions Some adjectives change meaning depending on position. Examples: - Predicative: "Mrs Smith is 80. She is very old now." (age) - Attributive: "My old friend hasn’t arrived yet." (longstanding relationship) Other contrastive pairs: "Jane is late" vs "my late cousin" (late as deceased). ## 4. Adjectives restricted to one syntactic position Some adjectives are typically only predicativ