Adjectives are one of the key important tools if you want to add emotions and talk about the quality and quantity in your sentence. So, it’s important to know how to make proper use of Adjectives. An Online Speaking Platform helps you in getting the required thing if you wish to get your language improved.
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What Are Adjectives?
Adjectives are words that describe the qualities of nouns: small, sagacious, red, slow. Adjectives also describe the quantity of nouns: much, some, billions, twelve.
Adjectives Modify Nouns
Most of the teacher teach that adjectives are words that modify (describe) nouns. Keep in mind that adjectives do not modify verbs or adverbs or other adjectives.
Sita wore a beautiful hat to the pie-eating contest.
Furry cats may overheat in the summertime.
My cake should have nineteen candles.
The scariest villain of all time is Dev Laos.
In the above sentences, it’s easy to find out the adjectives because they come immediately before the nouns they modify.
But adjectives can do more than just modify nouns in a sentence. They are also used as a complement to linking verbs or the verb to be.
A linking verb is a verb like to feel, to seem, or to taste that highlights a state of being or a sensory experience of a living being.
That dog sure is happy.
It smells gross in the store room.
Driving is faster than cycling.
The technical term that is used for an adjective which is used this way is predicate adjective.
Uses of Adjectives
Adjectives tell the person how much—or how many—of something you’re precisely talking about, which thing you want passed to you, or which kind of a thing you actually want.
Please use four white flowers in the arrangement.
Three and red are modifying flowers.
Mostly, whenever adjectives are used together, you must separate them with a comma or conjunction.
I’m looking for a big, good-tempered dog to keep as a pet.
My new dog is big and good-tempered.
Degrees of Comparison
Adjectives are used in three forms: absolute, comparative, and superlative. Absolute adjectives describe something in its own right.
A cool girl
A messy chair
A mischievous dog
Garrulous fox
Comparative adjectives are used to make a comparison between two or more things. A cooler teacher
A messier chair
A more mischievous dog
More garrulous fox
Superlative adjectives indicate that something has the highest degree of the quality in question.
Using a superlative inherently highlights that you are talking about a specific item or items.
The coolest guy
The messiest desk
The most mischievous cat
The most garrulous squirrels
Coordinate Adjectives
Coordinate adjectives should be separated by a comma (,) or by the word and. Coordinate Adjectives are those adjectives who modify the same noun in a sentence.
This is going to be a long, warm winter.
Ram’s dedicated and tireless efforts made all the difference.
But it’s not that two adjectives appear next to each other doesn’t always mean they are coordinate. It also happens that an adjective and a noun form a single semantic unit which is then modified by another adjective. In this case, the adjectives are not coordinate and should not be separated by a comma as well.
My dog, Goober, loves sleeping on this tattered woolen sweater.
No one could open the new silver locket.
In some cases, it’s quite difficult to decide whether two adjectives are coordinate or not. But it’s not impossible. Try to put the word and between the adjectives to see if the phrase still seems natural. In the first sentence, “this tattered and woolen sweater” doesn’t sound correct because you really don’t mean about a sweater that is both tattered and woolen. That is a woolen sweater that is tattered. In this sentence, Woolen sweater forms a unit of meaning that is modified by tattered.
Adjectives vs. Adverbs
Adjectives also act as complements for linking verbs. This leads to a common type of mistake in making sentences: incorrectly substituting an adverb in place of a predicate adjective.
For example:
I feel badly about what happened.
Because “feel” is a verb, it seems to call for an adverb instead of an adjective. But “feel” isn’t just any verb; it’s a linking verb.
An adverb would describe how you perform the action of feeling—an adjective describes what you feel.
“I feel badly” means that you are bad at feeling things. If you’re going to read Braille through thick gloves, then it may make sense for you to say “I feel badly.” But if you’re trying to say that you are feeling or observing negative emotions, “I feel bad” is the phrase you want.
It’s easier to see this distinction with a different linking verb. Consider the difference between these two sentences:
Ram smells badly.
Ram smells bad.
“Ram smells badly” means that Ram has a weak sense of smell. “Ram smells bad” means Ram stinks.
When Nouns Become Adjectives and Adjectives Become Nouns
Sometimes a word that is normally used as a noun can also function as an adjective, depending on its placement.
For example:
Never try to pet someone’s guide dog without asking permission from the owner first.
Guide is a noun in this sentence. But here, it modifies the word dog. It also works in a different way as well. Some words that are normally adjectives can also function as nouns sometimes:
Sita is working on a fundraiser to help the homeless.
In this sentence, homeless is functioning as a noun.
This is how you learn how to make proper use of Adjectives.
Grammar is the key if you want your language to be improved and correct. And also focus on skills to write grammatically correct.
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