Summary of Different Types of Adjectives
An adjective is used to define and describe nouns and even other adjectives. Let us study what is an adjective and what are the types of adjectives used in English grammar.
What is the Meaning of Adjective?
An adjective is a part of speech used in a sentence to define the qualities of a noun or an adjective. In a nutshell, you can depict an adjective as a describing word. There are different kinds of adjectives you will find in English grammar. These adjectives can define a person, place, animal, thing, event, action, etc. Now that you have understood what is the definition of an adjective, let us study the different kinds of adjectives used in English grammar.
Kinds of Adjectives
Descriptive Adjectives
This kind of adjective is used to define the features and quality of a noun. If you ask questions- ‘of what kind’, ‘of what nature’, etc, you will get the adjective as the answer.
The fluffy dog rolled on the green grass.
Kolkata is a big city.
‘Fluffy’ and ‘big’ are used as adjectives to define the dog and Kolkata respectively.
Quantitative Adjectives
Quantitative adjectives are used to define an amount or quantity of a noun. These adjectives can either define a particular amount or an estimation. For example- some, many, much, few, etc.
Let us find out what is meant by the adjective used in this case.
Definitive Adjectives
As you can figure out from the name, these adjectives indicate a particular number of amount of a noun.
For example:
I have two apples in my bag.
She has three pens.
In-Definitive Adjectives
These adjectives fall in the quantitative section but are unable to define a proper amount or quantity of a noun. For example, few, much, many, some, etc.
Some of my friends were absent today.
A few of us fell sick on the way.
Distributive Adjectives
These adjectives are used to define a specific number among a group. For example-
They have two apples each in their bags.
Neither of you was able to answer.
Possessive Adjectives
These adjectives are used to declare possession or expressing ownership of a particular noun in a sentence.
My dog is very energetic.
His way of describing a fact is fun.
You can easily understand that these adjectives are the answer to the question of ‘Whose?’. The other examples of this kind are ours, mine, theirs, his, her, our, etc.
Demonstrative Adjectives
If you consider the literal meaning of this kind of adjective, you will find that they are used to answer the question ‘which?’.
Look at this girl singing!
Such rains cause floods in the cities.
This edition is the best in class.
Interrogative adjectives
These adjectives are used to ask a question and generally precede all the words.
What kind of cats do you like?
Which is your favourite player?
Not all interrogative adjectives ask a question. ‘What’ adjective can also be used in an exclamatory sentence.
What a beautiful flower!
This adjective is used to exclaim that the flower is beautiful.
How to Form Adjectives?
After learning the adjective and its types, we can infer that they are generally formed by adding a suffix. The general rules are:
Adding ‘y’ (after removing ‘e’ if present at the end of a word)- hairy, glossy, scary.
Adding ‘al’ (after removing ‘e’ if present at the end of a word)- natural, national, financial.
Adding ‘ly’- kindly, timely.
Adding ‘ful’(replace ‘y’ at the end with ‘i’)- beautiful, playful.
Adding ‘ory’ (removing ‘e’ at the end)- advisory, introductory.
Adding ‘ic’ (removing ‘y’)- energetic, mystic.
Adding ‘ous’ (if ends with ‘e’, remove it. Replace ‘y’ with ‘I’)- famous, mysterious.
Adding ‘ive’ (remove ‘ion’ and ‘e’)- impulsive, descriptive.
Adding ‘ish’- reddish, brownish.
There are many other ways to learn how to form different types of adjectives.
The Importance of Adjectives in the English Language
An adjective is a word that changes meaning so that the noun or pronoun makes it more expressive. For example, with the increase of adjectives, the word “man” becomes “a tall, attractive man” or “a short, stocky man.”
Descriptive words include the phrases “a, an,” and “the.” Although the words “a” and “no” are often referred to as uncertain because they do not determine the person or thing. "I" is known as a specific article as it describes a person or thing. For example, “man” (any man) is compared to “man” (a certain man). In each language, adjectives are important parts of sentences. Using adjectives means that we can express the nature of any person or thing. Without descriptive words, we could not say what any article looked like. They are not just pronouns and nouns that are used to express something or someone.
In addition; when we read the clear paper, the adjectives help us to convey a picture of what we are reading.
Considering the importance of adjectives in the English language, the following comes to our knowledge.
Definitely a noun. Mark, what is the name about? Location, person or thing?
It also tells us a descriptive concept of the same noun so that we can find the correct meaning and context of a particular article.
An adjective completely affects the meaning of a sentence. Its presence makes the sentence interesting.
Use of Comparative Adjectives
The comparative adjective is used to indicate the symbol of one object (noun or pronoun) compared to another object (only one object).
It makes comparisons between two items (not more than two).
Words like 'kuna' and 'to' are used after the comparative adjective in a sentence.
Examples:
The bus is bigger than a car.
The bed is heavier than a chair.
John is taller than Sarah
He is three years older than I am.
A car is faster than a bicycle.
Use of Superlative Adjective
The superlative adjective is used to indicate the symbol of one object compared to many other (more than one) objects. Comparing one thing with many other things A very high degree produces the highest thickness (i.e., quality or quantity) of an object compared to other objects. In other words, the higher adverb indicates that one thing exceeds all other things in certain respects.
For example, John is the tallest boy in his class.
It means that John is taller than all the boys in his class. No other boy, in his class, is taller than John. It compares John's height with that of all the other students in his class. See the following additional examples.
Conclusion
Study this summary to understand the different kinds of adjectives. Increase your knowledge by understanding this part of speech. Learn the adjective definition and types properly and escalate your grammar skills.
FAQs on Kinds of Adjectives
1. What is the Way to Identify an Adjective?
An adjective can be found in a sentence when you ask the noun a few questions. We know that an adjective and its kinds are descriptive words used to define a noun or even another adjective. Hence, this description can be recognized by simply asking questions of ‘what’, ‘which’, ‘why’, ‘how’, etc. For example,
It tastes sweet.
Give me the red ball.
They live in a nice house.
Lisa is wearing a sleeveless shirt today. This soup is not edible.
She is wearing a beautiful dress.
Ben is a lovely child.
Linda's hair is beautiful.
2. What are Possessive Adjectives?
Possessive adjectives are defined as something that indicates possession or ownership in this summary. When you ask the right question, you can understand what the types of adjectives are.
This is my castle and you have to follow my orders.
His masculinity draws everyone’s attention.
My computer is not working as fast as it used to.
My father told us not to argue with anyone.
Your cycle was stolen yesterday.
Your child is not doing well in school.
We are concerned about his performance.
3. How Adjectives can be Used to Compare?
Now that we know adjectives are used to indicate qualities and features of a noun, these features can be used to compare. After learning what do you mean by an adjective, we can easily understand how it can be used to compare. For instance:
I am smarter than him.
He is the smartest student in the class.
The Pacific Ocean is deeper than the Arctic Ocean.
He is more honorable than Joey.
My brother is taller than me, but also older.
The rose is more beautiful than the daisy.
The earth is bigger than the moon.
4. What is the law of comparative adjectives?
For just one letter adjective, add -er at the end (this explains the example above). For adverbs with two syllables not limited to -y and for all adjectives of three or more words, use the “more + adjective” form. In two-word adjectives ending in -y, change the -y to I and add -er. Comparable adjectives are used to compare two objects, qualities, person, things, or quantities. This represents a quantity of whatever you are measuring. Also, this is an important topic for study.