Adjectives

Adjectives are considerably easier than nouns & verbs. But there are a few little things you need to know. First, adjectives have 3 forms: positive, comparative, superlative. The positive form is the plain old adjective. The comparative takes “more” or “-er.” The superlative takes “most” or “-est.” Talltallertallest Shortshortershortest Fastfasterfastest Prettyprettierprettiest Beautifulmore beautifulmost beautiful Intelligentmore intelligentmost intelligent Incrediblemore incrediblemost incredible

As a native speaker of English, you’ll usually use the correct comparative or superlative form. You wouldn’t say “beautifuler.” The rule is that if a word is one syllable long, or if it’s 2 syllables & ends with a “y,” you add –er or –est. Anything else gets “more” or “most.” Don’t be surprised if you come across an exception or two. Also, English has two irregular comparative & superlative forms: Good better best Bad worseworst

Second, possessives are adjectives: My hat Your friend Its bowl Kate’s boyfriend My mother’s money The president’s office. If you’re really clever & your mind is really linguistically adept, you’ll wonder what “my” is doing in that 5 th example. “My” is a possessive & therefore an adjective. “Mother’s” is also a possessive & an adjective. “My” appears to be describing “mother’s,” but an adjective can’t describe another adjective. So what is “my” when it comes before “mother’s”? Answer: it’s an adjective. When one part of speech becomes or acts like another part of speech, you can still treat it like the original part of speech. That is, since “mother” is a noun, you can still use an adjective to describe it even when you turn it into an adjective. When we begin looking at phrases & clauses, this concept becomes very important.

Third, nouns can sometimes function as adjectives: Paint bucket Water glass Time traveler Realizing that these words are actually nouns used as adjectives, not adjectives normally, is important when you’re studying a foreign language. There’s no reason to assume a noun can function as an adjective in other languages. Rather, there’s a good chance that you’d need to say something like “bucket for paint.”

Consider: have you ever said something like “Going to Six Flags is funner than going to Whitewater”? “Funner”? People say it, but if you’re educated, it sounds a bit funny to you, even if you say it. That’s because “fun” is actually a noun. And you can’t put an adjective ending (-er, -est) on a noun, even when the noun is functioning as an adjective. You’ll find some dictionaries that say it can be an adjective & even list “funner” & “funnest.” That’s because so many people use it that way that it’s become somewhat accepted.

Fourth, there are some adjectives that change if the describe a plural noun: This paperthese papers That paperthose papers Much papermany papers And you thought there was no such thing as noun-adjective agreement in English!

There’s no assignment attached to this presentation, but for a more detailed, in- depth look at adjectives, go here: