In
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
, an adjective (
abbreviated
An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...
) is a word that generally
modifies a
noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
or
noun phrase
In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the main
parts of speech
In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are assi ...
of the English language, although historically they were classed together with
nouns
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
.
Nowadays, certain words that usually had been classified as adjectives, including ''the'', ''this'', ''my'', etc., typically are classed separately, as
determiners
A determiner, also called determinative (abbreviated ), is a word, phrase, or affix that occurs together with a noun or noun phrase and generally serves to express the reference of that noun or noun phrase in the context. That is, a determiner m ...
.
Here are some examples:
* That's a funny idea. (
attributive
In grammar, an attributive expression is a word or phrase within a noun phrase that modifies the head noun. It may be an:
* attributive adjective
* attributive noun
* attributive verb
or other part of speech, such as an attributive numeral.
...
)
* That idea is funny. (
predicative)
*
* The good, the bad, and the funny. (
substantive
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
)
Etymology
''Adjective'' comes from
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
', a
calque
In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language wh ...
of grc, ἐπίθετον ὄνομα, epítheton ónoma, additional noun (whence also English ''
epithet
An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...
''). In the grammatical tradition of Latin and Greek, because adjectives were
inflected
In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and defini ...
for gender, number, and case like nouns (a process called
declension
In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and ar ...
), they were considered a type of noun. The words that are today typically called nouns were then called ''
substantive
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
nouns'' ().
[McMenomy, Bruce A. ''Syntactical Mechanics: A New Approach to English, Latin, and Greek''. University of Oklahoma Press, 2014. p. 8.] The terms ''noun substantive'' and ''noun adjective'' were formerly used in English but are now obsolete.
Types of use
Depending on the language, an adjective can precede a corresponding noun on a prepositive basis or it can follow a corresponding noun on a postpositive basis. Structural, contextual, and style considerations can impinge on the pre-or post-position of an adjective in a given instance of its occurrence. In English, occurrences of adjectives generally can be classified into one of three categories:
# Prepositive adjectives, which are also known as "attributive adjectives", occur on an antecedent basis within a
noun phrase
In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
.
[See "Attributive and predicative adjectives" at ''Lexico'']
For example: "I put my ''happy kids'' into the car", wherein ''happy'' occurs on an antecedent basis within the ''my happy kids''
noun phrase
In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
, and therefore functions in a prepositive adjective.
#
Postpositive adjective
A postpositive adjective or postnominal adjective is an adjective that is placed after the noun or pronoun that it modifies, as in noun phrases such as ''attorney general'', ''queen regnant'', or ''all matters financial''. This contrasts with prepo ...
s can occur: (a) immediately subsequent to a noun within a ''noun phrase'', e.g. "The only ''room available'' cost twice what we expected"; (b) as linked via a
copula or other linking mechanism subsequent to a corresponding noun or pronoun; for example: "''My kids are happy''", wherein ''happy'' is a predicate adjective
(see also:
Predicative expression
A predicative expression (or just predicative) is part of a clause predicate, and is an expression that typically follows a copula (or linking verb), e.g. ''be'', ''seem'', ''appear'', or that appears as a second complement of a certain type of v ...
,
Subject complement In grammar, a subject complement or predicative of the subject is a predicative expression that follows a linking verb ( copula) and that complements the subject of the sentence by either (1) renaming it or (2) describing it. It completes the mea ...
); or (c) as an appositive adjective within a noun phrase, e.g. "My ''kids,
ho are
Ho (or the transliterations He or Heo) may refer to:
People Language and ethnicity
* Ho people, an ethnic group of India
** Ho language, a tribal language in India
* Hani people, or Ho people, an ethnic group in China, Laos and Vietnam
* Hiri Mo ...
happy'' to go for a drive, are in the back seat."
#
Nominalized adjective
A nominalized adjective is an adjective that has undergone nominalization, and is thus used as a noun. In ''the rich and the poor'', the adjectives ''rich'' and ''poor'' function as nouns denoting people who are rich and poor respectively.
In En ...
s, which function as nouns. One way this happens is by
eliding
In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run toget ...
a noun from an adjective-noun noun phrase, whose remnant thus is a
nominalization
In linguistics, nominalization or nominalisation is the use of a word that is not a noun (e.g., a verb, an adjective or an adverb) as a noun, or as the head of a noun phrase. This change in functional category can occur through morphological tr ...
. In the sentence, "I read two books to them; he preferred the sad book, but she preferred the happy", ''happy'' is a nominalized adjective, short for "happy one" or "happy book". Another way this happens is in phrases like "out with the old, in with the new", where "the old" means "that which is old" or "all that is old", and similarly with "the new". In such cases, the adjective may function as a
mass noun
In linguistics, a mass noun, uncountable noun, non-count noun, uncount noun, or just uncountable, is a noun with the syntactic property that any quantity of it is treated as an undifferentiated unit, rather than as something with discrete elemen ...
(as in the preceding example). In English, it may also function as a plural
count noun
In linguistics, a count noun (also countable noun) is a noun that can be modified by a quantity and that occurs in both singular and plural forms, and that can co-occur with quantificational determiners like ''every'', ''each'', ''several'', et ...
denoting a collective group, as in "The meek shall inherit the Earth", where "the meek" means "those who are meek" or "all who are meek".
Distribution
Adjectives feature as a
part of speech
In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are assi ...
(word class) in most
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
s. In some languages, the words that serve the
semantic
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...
function of adjectives are categorized together with some other class, such as
noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
s or
verb
A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...
s. In the phrase "a
Ford
Ford commonly refers to:
* Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford
* Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river
Ford may also refer to:
Ford Motor Company
* Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company
* Ford F ...
car", "Ford" is unquestionably a noun but its function is adjectival: to modify "car". In some languages adjectives can function as nouns: for example, the Spanish phrase "" means "a red
ne.
As for "confusion" with verbs, rather than an adjective meaning "big", a language might have a verb that means "to be big" and could then use an
attributive verb An attributive verb is a verb that modifies (expresses an attribute of) a noun in the manner of an attributive adjective, rather than express an independent idea as a predicate.
In English (and in most European languages), verb forms that can be u ...
construction analogous to "big-being house" to express what in English is called a "big house". Such an analysis is possible for the
grammar of Standard Chinese, for example.
Different languages do not use adjectives in exactly the same situations. For example, where English uses ''"''to be ''hungry''" (''hungry'' being an adjective),
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
,
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, and
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
use "", "", and "" respectively (literally "to have hunger", the words for "hunger" being nouns). Similarly, where Hebrew uses the adjective (, roughly "in need of"), English uses the verb "to need".
In languages that have adjectives as a word class, it is usually an
open class; that is, it is relatively common for new adjectives to be formed via such processes as
derivation
Derivation may refer to:
Language
* Morphological derivation, a word-formation process
* Parse tree or concrete syntax tree, representing a string's syntax in formal grammars
Law
* Derivative work, in copyright law
* Derivation proceeding, a proc ...
. However,
Bantu languages
The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages.
The t ...
are well known for having only a small closed class of adjectives, and new adjectives are not easily derived. Similarly, native
Japanese adjectives
This article deals with Japanese equivalents of English adjectives.
Types of adjective
In Japanese, nouns and verbs can modify nouns, with nouns taking the 〜の particles when functioning attributively (in the genitive case), and verbs in the ...
(''i''-adjectives) are considered a closed class (as are native verbs), although nouns (an open class) may be used in the
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...
to convey some adjectival meanings, and there is also the separate open class of
adjectival nouns (''na''-adjectives).
Adverbs
Many languages (including English) distinguish between adjectives, which qualify nouns and pronouns, and
adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering ...
s, which mainly modify
verb
A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...
s, adjectives, or other adverbs. Not all languages make this exact distinction; many (including English) have words that can function as either. For example, in English, ''fast'' is an adjective in "a ''fast'' car" (where it qualifies the noun ''car'') but an adverb in "he drove ''fast''" (where it modifies the verb ''drove'').
In
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
and
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
, adjectives and adverbs are usually identical in form and many grammarians do not make the distinction, but patterns of inflection can suggest a difference:
:
::A clever new idea.
:
::A cleverly developed idea.
A German word like ("clever(ly)") takes endings when used as an attributive adjective but not when used adverbially. (It also takes no endings when used as a predicative adjective: , "he is clever".) Whether these are distinct parts of speech or distinct usages of the same part of speech is a question of analysis. It can be noted that, while German linguistic terminology distinguishes from , German refers to both as ("property words").
Determiners
Linguists today distinguish determiners from adjectives, considering them to be two separate parts of speech (or ''
lexical categories
In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are ass ...
''). Determiners formerly were considered to be adjectives in some of their uses. Determiners function neither as nouns nor pronouns but instead characterize a nominal element within a particular context. They generally do this by indicating
definiteness
In linguistics, definiteness is a semantic feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between referents or senses that are identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and those which are not (indefinite noun phrases). The prototypical d ...
(''a'' vs. ''the''),
quantity
Quantity or amount is a property that can exist as a Counting, multitude or Magnitude (mathematics), magnitude, which illustrate discontinuity (mathematics), discontinuity and continuum (theory), continuity. Quantities can be compared in terms o ...
(''one'' vs. ''some'' vs. ''many''), or another such property.
Adjective phrases
An adjective acts as the head of an ''adjective phrase'' or ''adjectival phrase'' (AP). In the simplest case, an adjective phrase consists solely of the adjective; more complex adjective phrases may contain one or more
adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering ...
s modifying the adjective ("''very'' strong"), or one or more
complements (such as "worth ''several dollars''", "full ''of toys''", or "eager ''to please''"). In English, attributive adjective phrases that include complements typically follow the noun that they qualify ("an evildoer ''devoid of redeeming qualities''").
Other modifiers of nouns
In many languages (including English) it is possible for nouns to modify other nouns. Unlike adjectives, nouns acting as modifiers (called ''attributive nouns'' or ''
noun adjunct
In grammar, a noun adjunct, attributive noun, qualifying noun, noun (pre)modifier, or apposite noun is an optional noun that grammatical modifier, modifies another noun; functioning similarly to an adjective, it is, more specifically, a noun funct ...
s'') usually are not predicative; a beautiful park is beautiful, but a car park is not "car". The modifier often indicates origin ("''Virginia'' reel"), purpose ("''work'' clothes"), semantic
patient
A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other health c ...
("''man'' eater") or semantic
subject
Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to:
Philosophy
*''Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing
**Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective cons ...
("''child'' actor"); however, it may generally indicate almost any semantic relationship. It is also common for adjectives to be
derived
Derive may refer to:
* Derive (computer algebra system), a commercial system made by Texas Instruments
* ''Dérive'' (magazine), an Austrian science magazine on urbanism
*Dérive, a psychogeographical concept
See also
*
*Derivation (disambiguatio ...
from nouns, as in ''boyish'', ''birdlike'', ''behavioral (behavioural)'', ''famous'', ''manly'', ''angelic'', and so on.
In
Australian Aboriginal languages
The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...
, the distinction between adjectives and nouns is typically thought weak, and many of the languages only use nouns--or nouns with a limited set of adjective-deriving
affix
In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. Affixes may be derivational, like English ''-ness'' and ''pre-'', or inflectional, like English plural ''-s'' and past tense ''-ed''. They ar ...
es--to modify other nouns. In languages that have a subtle adjective-noun distinction, one way to tell them apart is that a modifying adjective can come to stand in for an entire
elided
In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run toget ...
noun phrase, while a modifying noun cannot. For example, in
Bardi, the adjective ''moorrooloo'' 'little' in the phrase ''moorrooloo'' ''baawa'' 'little child' can stand on its own to mean 'the little one,' while the attributive noun ''aamba'' 'man' in the phrase ''aamba baawa'' 'male child' cannot stand for the whole phrase to mean 'the male one.'
In other languages, like
Warlpiri, nouns and adjectives are lumped together beneath the
nominal
Nominal may refer to:
Linguistics and grammar
* Nominal (linguistics), one of the parts of speech
* Nominal, the adjectival form of "noun", as in "nominal agreement" (= "noun agreement")
* Nominal sentence, a sentence without a finite verb
* Nou ...
umbrella because of their shared syntactic distribution as
arguments
An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialectic ...
of
predicates
Predicate or predication may refer to:
* Predicate (grammar), in linguistics
* Predication (philosophy)
* several closely related uses in mathematics and formal logic:
**Predicate (mathematical logic)
**Propositional function
**Finitary relation, ...
. The only thing distinguishing them is that some nominals seem to semantically denote entities (typically nouns in English) and some nominals seem to denote attributes (typically adjectives in English).
Many languages have
participle
In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
forms that can act as noun modifiers either alone or as the head of a phrase. Sometimes participles develop into functional usage as adjectives. Examples in English include ''relieved'' (the past participle of ''relieve''), used as an adjective in
passive voice
A passive voice construction is a grammatical voice construction that is found in many languages. In a clause with passive voice, the grammatical subject expresses the ''theme'' or ''patient'' of the main verb – that is, the person or thing t ...
constructs such as "I am so ''relieved'' to see you". Other examples include ''spoken'' (the past participle of ''speak'') and ''going'' (the present participle of ''go''), which function as attribute adjectives in such phrases as "the ''spoken'' word" and "the ''going'' rate".
Other constructs that often modify nouns include
preposition
Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
al phrases (as in "a rebel ''without a cause''"),
relative clause
A relative clause is a clause that modifies a noun or noun phraseRodney D. Huddleston, Geoffrey K. Pullum, ''A Student's Introduction to English Grammar'', CUP 2005, p. 183ff. and uses some grammatical device to indicate that one of the arguments ...
s (as in "the man ''who wasn't there''"), and
infinitive
Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is deri ...
phrases (as in "a cake ''to die for''"). Some nouns can also take complements such as
content clause In grammar, a content clause is a dependent clause that provides content implied or commented upon by an independent clause. The term was coined by Danish linguist Otto Jespersen. They are also known as noun clauses.
English
In English, there are ...
s (as in "the idea ''that I would do that''"), but these are not commonly considered
modifiers
In linguistics, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure which ''modifies'' the meaning of another element in the structure. For instance, the adjective "red" acts as a modifier in the noun phrase "red ball", provi ...
. For more information about possible modifiers and dependents of nouns, see
Components of noun phrases.
Order
In many languages, attributive adjectives usually occur in a specific order. In general, the adjective order in English can be summarised as: opinion, size, age or shape, colour, origin, material, purpose.
[Order of adjectives](_blank)
British Council. Other language authorities, like the ''
Cambridge Dictionary
The ''Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary'' (abbreviated ''CALD'') was first published in 1995 under the name ''Cambridge International Dictionary of English'', by the Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the ...
'', state that shape precedes rather than follows age.
Determiners and postdeterminers—articles, numerals, and other limiters (e.g. ''three'' blind mice)—come before attributive adjectives in English. Although
certain combinations of determiners can appear before a noun, they are far more circumscribed than adjectives in their use—typically, only a single determiner would appear before a noun or noun phrase (including any attributive adjectives).
# Opinion – limiter adjectives (e.g. a ''real'' hero, a ''perfect'' idiot) and adjectives of subjective measure (e.g. ''beautiful'', ''interesting'') or value (e.g. ''good'', ''bad'', ''costly'')
# Size – adjectives denoting physical size (e.g. ''tiny'', ''big'', ''extensive'')
# Shape or physical quality – adjectives describing more detailed physical attributes than overall size (e.g. ''round'', ''sharp'', ''swollen'', ''thin'')
# Age – adjectives denoting age (e.g. ''young'', ''old'', ''new'', ''ancient'', ''six-year-old'')
# Colour – adjectives denoting colour or pattern (e.g. ''white'', ''black'', ''pale'', ''spotted'')
# Origin – denominal adjectives denoting source (e.g. ''Japanese'', ''volcanic'', ''extraterrestrial'')
# Material – denominal adjectives denoting what something is made of (e.g., ''woollen'', ''metallic'', ''wooden'')
# Qualifier/purpose – final limiter, which sometimes forms part of the (compound) noun (e.g., ''rocking'' chair, ''hunting'' cabin, ''passenger'' car, ''book'' cover)
This means that, in English, adjectives pertaining to size precede adjectives pertaining to age ("little old", not "old little"), which in turn generally precede adjectives pertaining to colour ("old white", not "white old"). So, one would say "One (quantity) nice (opinion) little (size) old (age) round (shape)
'or'' round oldwhite (colour) brick (material) house." When several adjectives of the same type are used together, they are ordered from general to specific, like "lovely intelligent person" or "old medieval castle".
This order may be more rigid in some languages than others; in some, like Spanish, it may only be a default (''
unmarked
In linguistics and social sciences, markedness is the state of standing out as nontypical or divergent as opposed to regular or common. In a marked–unmarked relation, one term of an opposition is the broader, dominant one. The dominant defau ...
'') word order, with other orders being permissible. Other languages, such as
Tagalog, follow their adjectival orders
as rigidly as English.
The normal adjectival order of English may be overridden in certain circumstances, especially when one adjective is being
fronted. For example, the usual order of adjectives in English would result in the phrase "the bad big wolf" (opinion before size), but instead, the usual phrase is "the big bad wolf".
Owing partially to borrowings from French, English has some adjectives that follow the noun as
postmodifier
In linguistics, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure which ''modifies'' the meaning of another element in the structure. For instance, the adjective "red" acts as a modifier in the noun phrase "red ball", provi ...
s, called
postpositive adjective
A postpositive adjective or postnominal adjective is an adjective that is placed after the noun or pronoun that it modifies, as in noun phrases such as ''attorney general'', ''queen regnant'', or ''all matters financial''. This contrasts with prepo ...
s, as in ''time immemorial'' and ''
attorney general
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general.
In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...
''. Adjectives may even change meaning depending on whether they precede or follow, as in ''proper'': ''They live in a proper town'' (a real town, not a village) vs. ''They live in the town proper'' (in the town itself, not in the suburbs). All adjectives can follow nouns in certain constructions, such as ''tell me something new''.
Comparison (degrees)
In many languages, some adjectives are ''comparable'' and the measure of comparison is called ''degree''. For example, a person may be "polite", but another person may be "''more'' polite", and a third person may be the "''most'' polite" of the three. The word "more" here modifies the adjective "polite" to indicate a comparison is being made, and "most" modifies the adjective to indicate an absolute comparison (a ''superlative'').
Among languages that allow adjectives to be compared, different means are used to indicate comparison. Some languages do not distinguish between
comparative
In general linguistics, the comparative is a syntactic construction that serves to express a comparison between two (or more) entities or groups of entities in quality or degree - see also comparison (grammar) for an overview of comparison, as wel ...
and
superlative
Comparison is a feature in the morphology or syntax of some languages whereby adjectives and adverbs are inflected to indicate the relative degree of the property they define exhibited by the word or phrase they modify or describe. In languages t ...
forms. Other languages allow adjectives to be compared but do not have a special comparative form of the adjective. In such cases, as in some
Australian Aboriginal languages
The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...
, case-marking, such as the
ablative case
In grammar, the ablative case (pronounced ; sometimes abbreviated ) is a grammatical case for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives in the grammars of various languages; it is sometimes used to express motion away from something, among other uses. T ...
may be used to indicate one entity has more of an adjectival quality than (i.e. ''from''—hence ABL) another. Take the following example in
Bardi:
In English, many adjectives can be inflected to
comparative
In general linguistics, the comparative is a syntactic construction that serves to express a comparison between two (or more) entities or groups of entities in quality or degree - see also comparison (grammar) for an overview of comparison, as wel ...
and
superlative
Comparison is a feature in the morphology or syntax of some languages whereby adjectives and adverbs are inflected to indicate the relative degree of the property they define exhibited by the word or phrase they modify or describe. In languages t ...
forms by taking the suffixes "-er" and "-est" (sometimes requiring additional letters before the suffix; see forms for ''far'' below), respectively:
: "great", "greater", "greatest"
: "deep", "deeper", "deepest"
Some adjectives are ''irregular'' in this sense:
: "good", "better", "best"
: "bad", "worse", "worst"
: "many", "more", "most" (sometimes regarded as an
adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering ...
or
determiner
A determiner, also called determinative (abbreviated ), is a word, phrase, or affix that occurs together with a noun or noun phrase and generally serves to express the reference of that noun or noun phrase in the context. That is, a determiner m ...
)
: "little", "less", "least"
Some adjectives can have both ''regular'' and ''irregular'' variations:
: "old", "older", "oldest"
: "far", "farther", "farthest"
also
: "old", "elder", "eldest"
: "far", "further", "furthest"
Another way to convey comparison is by incorporating the words "more" and "most". There is no simple rule to decide which means is correct for any given adjective, however. The general tendency is for simpler adjectives and those from
Anglo-Saxon
The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
to take the suffixes, while longer adjectives and those from
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
,
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, or
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
do not—but sometimes ''sound'' of the word is the deciding factor.
Many adjectives do not naturally lend themselves to comparison. For example, some English speakers would argue that it does not make sense to say that one thing is "more ultimate" than another, or that something is "most ultimate", since the word "ultimate" is already absolute in its semantics. Such adjectives are called ''non-comparable'' or ''absolute''. Nevertheless, native speakers will frequently play with the raised forms of adjectives of this sort. Although "pregnant" is logically non-comparable (either one is pregnant or not), one may hear a sentence like "She looks more and more pregnant each day". Likewise "extinct" and "equal" appear to be non-comparable, but one might say that a language about which nothing is known is "more extinct" than a well-documented language with surviving literature but no speakers, while
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...
wrote, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". These cases may be viewed as evidence that the base forms of these adjectives are not as absolute in their semantics as is usually thought.
Comparative and superlative forms are also occasionally used for other purposes than comparison. In English comparatives can be used to suggest that a statement is only tentative or tendential: one might say "John is more the shy-and-retiring type," where the comparative "more" is not really comparing him with other people or with other impressions of him, but rather, could be substituting for "on the whole" or "more so than not". In Italian, superlatives are frequently used to put strong emphasis on an adjective: means "most beautiful", but is in fact more commonly heard in the sense "extremely beautiful".
Restrictiveness
Attributive adjectives and other noun
modifiers
In linguistics, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure which ''modifies'' the meaning of another element in the structure. For instance, the adjective "red" acts as a modifier in the noun phrase "red ball", provi ...
may be used either ''restrictively'' (helping to identify the noun's referent, hence "restricting" its reference) or ''non-restrictively'' (helping to describe a noun). For example:
:''He was a lazy sort, who would avoid a difficult task and fill his working hours with easy ones.''
Here "difficult" is restrictive – it tells which tasks he avoids, distinguishing these from the easy ones: "Only those tasks that are difficult".
:''She had the job of sorting out the mess left by her predecessor, and she performed this ''difficult task'' with great acumen.''
Here "difficult" is non-restrictive – it is already known which task it was, but the adjective describes it more fully: "The aforementioned task, which (by the way) is difficult"
In some languages, such as
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
, restrictiveness is consistently marked; for example, in Spanish means "the difficult task" in the sense of "the task that is difficult" (restrictive), whereas means "the difficult task" in the sense of "the task, which is difficult" (non-restrictive). In English, restrictiveness is not marked on adjectives but is marked on
relative clause
A relative clause is a clause that modifies a noun or noun phraseRodney D. Huddleston, Geoffrey K. Pullum, ''A Student's Introduction to English Grammar'', CUP 2005, p. 183ff. and uses some grammatical device to indicate that one of the arguments ...
s (the difference between "the man ''who recognized me'' was there" and "the man, ''who recognized me'', was there" being one of restrictiveness).
Agreement
In some languages, adjectives alter their form to reflect the gender, case and number of the noun that they describe. This is called
agreement Agreement may refer to:
Agreements between people and organizations
* Gentlemen's agreement, not enforceable by law
* Trade agreement, between countries
* Consensus, a decision-making process
* Contract, enforceable in a court of law
** Meeting o ...
or concord. Usually it takes the form of inflections at the end of the word, as in
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
:
:
In
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages ( usually , but sometimes ) are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward ...
, however, initial consonant
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonority hierarchy, sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronic analysis, s ...
marks the adjective with a feminine singular noun, as in
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
:
:
Here, a distinction may be made between attributive and predicative usage. In English, adjectives never agree, whereas in French, they always agree. In German, they agree only when they are used attributively, and in Hungarian, they agree only when they are used predicatively:
:
Semantics
Semanticist
Barbara Partee
Barbara Hall Partee (born June 23, 1940) is a Distinguished University Professor Emerita of Linguistics and Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass).
Biography
Born in Englewood, New Jersey, Partee grew up in the Baltimore ...
classifies adjectives semantically as intersective, subsective, or nonsubsective, with nonsubsective adjectives being plain nonsubsective or privative.
* An adjective is intersective if and only if the
extension
Extension, extend or extended may refer to:
Mathematics
Logic or set theory
* Axiom of extensionality
* Extensible cardinal
* Extension (model theory)
* Extension (predicate logic), the set of tuples of values that satisfy the predicate
* E ...
of its combination with a noun is equal to the
intersection
In mathematics, the intersection of two or more objects is another object consisting of everything that is contained in all of the objects simultaneously. For example, in Euclidean geometry, when two lines in a plane are not parallel, their i ...
of its extension and that of the noun its modifying. For example, the adjective ''carnivorous'' is intersective, given the extension of ''carnivorous mammal'' is the intersection of the extensions of ''carnivorous'' and ''mammal'' (i.e., the set of all mammals who are carnivorous).
* An adjective is subsective if and only if the extension of its combination with a noun is a subset of the extension of the noun. For example, the extension of ''skillful surgeon'' is a subset of the extension of ''surgeon'', but it is not the intersection of that and the extension of ''skillful'', as that would include (for example) incompetent surgeons who are skilled violinists. All subsective adjectives are intersective, but the term 'subsective' is sometimes used to refer to only those subsective adjectives which are not intersective.
* An adjective is privative if and only if the extension of its combination with a noun is
disjoint from the extension of the noun. For example, ''fake'' is privative because a
fake cat is not a cat.
* A plain nonsubsective adjective is an adjective that is not subsective or privative. For example, the word ''possible'' is this kind of adjective, as the extension of ''possible murderer'' overlaps with, but is not included in the extension of ''murderer'' (as some, but not all, possible murderers are murderers).
See also
*
Attributive verb An attributive verb is a verb that modifies (expresses an attribute of) a noun in the manner of an attributive adjective, rather than express an independent idea as a predicate.
In English (and in most European languages), verb forms that can be u ...
*
Flat adverb In English grammar, a flat adverb, bare adverb, or simple adverb is an adverb that has the same form as the corresponding adjective,[Grammatical modifier
In linguistics, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure which ''modifies'' the meaning of another element in the structure. For instance, the adjective "red" acts as a modifier in the noun phrase "red ball", provi ...]
*
Intersective modifier In linguistics, an intersective modifier is an expression which modifies another by delivering the intersection of their denotations. One example is the English adjective "blue", whose intersectivity can be seen in the fact that being a "blue pig" ...
*
List of eponymous adjectives in English
*
Noun adjunct
In grammar, a noun adjunct, attributive noun, qualifying noun, noun (pre)modifier, or apposite noun is an optional noun that grammatical modifier, modifies another noun; functioning similarly to an adjective, it is, more specifically, a noun funct ...
*
Part of speech
In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are assi ...
*
Predication (philosophy)
Predication in philosophy refers to an act of judgement where one term is subsumed under another. A comprehensive conceptualization describes it as the understanding of the relation expressed by a predicative structure primordially (i.e. both origi ...
*
Privative adjective In linguistics, a privative adjective is an adjective which seems to exclude members of the extension of the noun which it modifies. For instance, "fake" is privative since a "fake nose" is not an actual nose. Other examples in English include "pre ...
*
Proper adjective English orthography sometimes uses the term proper adjective to mean adjectives that take initial capital letters, and common adjective to mean those that do not. For example, a person from India is Indian—''Indian'' is a proper adjective.
Etymol ...
*
Subsective modifier In linguistics, a subsective modifier is an expression which modifies another by delivering a subset of its denotation. For instance, the English adjective "skilled" is subsective since being a skilled surgeon entails being a surgeon. By contrast, ...
Explanatory notes
References
Further reading
*
*
* Dixon, R. M. W. (1999). "Adjectives". In K. Brown & T. Miller (eds.), ''Concise Encyclopedia of Grammatical Categories''. Amsterdam: Elsevier. . pp. 1–8.
*
* Warren, Beatrice (1984). ''Classifying adjectives''. Gothenburg studies in English No. 56. Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. .
*
External links
*
List of English collateral adjectives at
Wiktionary
Wiktionary ( , , rhyming with "dictionary") is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary of terms (including words, phrases, proverbs, linguistic reconstructions, etc.) in all natural languages and in a number ...
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Adjectives