The adjective

Adjectives are words expressing properties and characteristics of objects (e.g. blue, simple, progressive, etc.) and, hence, qualifying nouns. Grammatically, four features are generally considered to be characteristic of

adjectives:

1) their syntactic function of attributes;

2) their syntactic function of predicatives;

3) their taking of adverbial modifiers of degree (e.g. very);

4) their only grammatical category — the degrees of comparison.

Adjectives in English do not change for number or case.

Morphological Composition

Simple adjectives — old, kind, bad, good, etc.

Derived adjectives. Many adjectives are formed from other parts of speech by

adding different suffixes:

-able: comfortable; -ic: atomic;

-ible: visible; -ish: childish;

-ant: elegant; -ive: attractive;

-ent: dependent; -ful: careful;

-al: cultural; -less: careless;

-ly: brotherly, friendly; -ous: dangerous;

-y: dirty, sleepy

Some past participles ending in -ed (e.g. excited) and some present participles

ending in -ing (e.g. exciting) are used as adjectives. Common pairs of -ed/-ing adjectives are: amazed / amazing; annoyed / annoying; bored / boring, enchanted / enchanting.

Compound adjectives. They are used with hyphens: grass-green, deaf-mute, blue-eyed; long-legged; fair-haired.

Semantic Characteristics

Semantically adjectives can be divided into two groups.

1. Qualitative adjectives denote properties of a substance directly ― great, cold, beautiful. According to their meaning they may be further differentiated as:

a) descriptive ― denoting a quality in a broad sense ― cold, light, wonderful;

b) limiting ― denoting a category, a section of a whole, a number, i.e. specifying the substance (noun) ― the previous page, an equestrian statue, medical aid, the left hand, several pages.

2. Relative adjectives describe properties of a substance through relation to material: woollen, wooden, feathery; ― time: daily, weekly, monthly; place: Northern, European, Italian; some action: defensive, preparatory.

Relative adjectives are limiting in their meaning.

Many adjectives reveal a descriptive or limiting meaning depending on the head-word or the context.