Adjective: What is an Adjective?

The Adjective is one of the parts of speech that describes some extra information about the noun or a pronoun in a sentence.

What is an Adjective?

The adjective may be present single or multiple in a sentence that presents before a noun or a pronoun. Some articles like (a, an, the) are also called adjectives.

Many adjectives come before nouns or come along with linking verbs like feel, seen, appear, etc. Some adjectives never come before the noun, while some are placed just after the noun.

An adjective also improvises a noun or a pronoun. Some sentences contain more than one adjective. They must be assigned with commas.

Types of adjectives:

There are eight types of an adjective, depending on the place of an adjective in a sentence, meaning, and other illustrations,

1. Descriptive Adjective
2. Demonstrative Adjective
3. Distributive adjective
4. Interrogative Adjective
5. Numeral Adjective
6. Quantitative Adjective
7. Proper Adjective
8. Possessive Adjective

Descriptive Adjective:

A descriptive adjective is used to illustrate or to give some description of the qualities of a noun or pronoun of a sentence.

The list of adjectives contains more descriptive adjectives, which are also known as qualitative adjectives.

Examples:

1. Harley Davidson bikes are stylish, fast, and expensive.
   • Here, the words stylish, fast, and expensive provide extra details of the bike, called descriptive adjectives.
2. Daniel bought a beautiful flower bouquet to present her gorgeous girlfriend.
3. She is very hungry.
4. Oxford University has an attractive auditorium.
5. He came into the party with an ugly hairstyle.

Demonstrative Adjective:

The demonstrative adjective is used to demonstrate certain things, people, or animals.

This adjective is also telling the position of the noun and comes before other adjectives in the phrase of a sentence to which it is going to modify.

This, these, that, and those are demonstrative adjectives.

Where this and these are used to assign singular and plural nouns that are close to us.

And that and those are used to assign singular and plural nouns that are far from us.

Examples,

1. Those pictures were just awesome when we looked at the exhibition.
   • Here, the word “those” demonstrates the pictures and tells us that they are far away from their reach.
2. Watching these kinds of movies is nothing but wasting time.
3. These all are my office colleagues.
4. Collect all the fruits and put them on that table.
5. These cookies are nicer baked than yesterday’s cookies.

Distributive Adjective:

Distributive Adjectives are generally used to point to a particular group or individual and are used with singular nouns. It is used to modify nouns.

It contains E-type adjectives that are accompanied by nouns or pronouns in a sentence.

• Each, every, neither, and either are four distributive Adjectives.

Examples,

1. Each student has to take part in cultural events.
   • Here, the word “each” is used to distribute them into single ones.
2. There were two washing machines, but neither worked properly.
3. I will be happy with either decision. 
4. Every bogie of a train is filled with coal.
5. The monkey divides the piece of bread and gives them to each cat. 

Interrogative Adjective:

Interrogative adjectives are adjectives that tend to ask questions or to interrogate nouns or pronouns and to modify them as well in a sentence.

There are three interrogative adjectives, “what, which, and whose,” respectively.

These adjectives no longer function like adjectives if the noun or a pronoun does not present just after these words in a sentence.

Other wh- type or question words can not be considered adjectives because they don’t modify the nouns or pronouns, respectively.

Examples,

1. Which bracelets do you like the most?
   • Here, “which” becomes an interrogative adjective because it asks to specify the noun “bracelet”.
2. What location type are you looking to go to?
   • In this question statement, the noun “location” comes after the word “what,” which makes this word an adjective.
3. What is the exact location?
   • But in this question statement, the noun is absent after the word “what,” which does not make this word an adjective.
4. Whose ambition is to become an astronaut?

Numeral Adjective:

A numeral adjective determines the number of nouns present in any sentence.

Numeral Adjectives are of three types:

1. Definite Numeral Adjectives(cardinal and ordinal):
   • Definite numeral adjectives contain two types, Cardinal numeral adjectives, and ordinal numeral adjectives.
2. A cardinal numeral adjective is used to count anything in numbers. (one, two, three, four, etc.)
3. The ordinal numeral adjective is used to mention the order or position of anything. (first, second, third, etc.)

1. Indefinite Numeral Adjectives:
   • Indefinite numeral adjectives are words that witness the presence or absence of anything like some, few, more, many, all, no, etc. 
2. Distributive Numeral Adjectives:
   • The distributive numeral adjectives are such adjectives that are used to distribute like each, neither, either, every, etc. 

Examples,

1. Mark purchased five Bugatti cars from the showroom. (Cardinal)
   • Here, five tells us about the number of cars present.
2. The second part of this movie is mind-blowing. (Ordinal)
3. Some people can never understand french. (Quantitative)
4. All the money you have can never buy happiness. (Indefinite)
5. Every living thing needs energy. (distributive)

Quantitative Adjective:

The quantitative adjective is used to explain the noun ( person or thing )and its quantity in a sentence. Sometimes a numeral adjective is also called a quantitative adjective though it specifies the numbers.

The quantitative type of adjective belongs to the question statement category like “how much or how many,” respectively.

• Little, more, much, few, all, large, small, tall, thirty, fifty, etc. are quantitative adjectives.

Examples,

1. I want many chocolates to eat. (how much)
   • Here, “many” indicates the number of chocolates.
2. Among all, some of them are Spanish, a few are Turkish, and the rest are Afrikans. (how many)
3. He played the guitar for the very first time. (how many)
4. There are 206 bones in a human skeleton. (how many)
5. Two boys are seriously injured in an accident. (how many)

Proper Adjective:

A proper adjective is an adjective that gives extra information related to a proper noun of a person, thing, animal, or object.

Though it refers to a particular person of existence and hence needs to be capitalized.

Examples, 

1. Australian kangaroos are very healthy.
   • Here, the word “Australian” represents Australia, which is a proper noun.
2. People called them Astronomers who study Astronomy.
3. African people are very hard workers.
4. I tasted different types of food, but Indian food has the best taste.
5. The highest currency in the world is the Kuwaiti Dinar.

Possessive Adjective:

A possessive adjective is an adjective that shows the possessive nature of the noun of a person or place in any sentence.

Possessive adjectives also function like possessive pronouns.

• First-person: My, ours.
• Second-person: Yours.
• Third-person: His, hers, its, their, whose.

Examples, 

1. My computer is working in better condition.
   • Here, “my” belongs to me shows some possession quality.
2. Their black Mercedes Benz car looks more attractive than this one.
3. Whose father is an Ex-Army man?
4. Is this band yours?
5. Both sisters have their own cupboards for clothes.

Degrees of Adjectives:

In the English language, An adjective has three degrees to give some extra and detailed information about some nouns or pronouns like person, place, things, objects, or even ideas, respectively.

These degrees are only applicable to descriptive adjectives as it has a tendency to illustrate the qualities of nouns or pronouns.

The three degrees of Adjectives are,

1. Positive degree.
2. Comparative degree and 
3. Superlative degree.

For example,

• Hard, harder, hardest.
• Much, more, most.
• Good, better, best.
• Large, larger, largest.
• Beautiful, more beautiful, most beautiful.
• Bad, worse, worst.
• Tall, taller, tallest.
• Thin, thinner, thinnest, etc.

Positive degree:

A positive degree shows a correlation between the adjectives and the adverbs in a normal adjective form.

There is no comparison shown between adjectives and adverbs that are called a positive degree.

Examples,

1. She looks pretty in this dress.
2. He bought a phone which is thin in size.
3. She ordered a large bucket of KFC for the treat.
4. The climate is hot today.
5. This metal sheet is hard enough to withstand the load we expected.

Comparative degree:

A comparative degree is a degree of adjective that applies to compare two things, either they are of the same origin or different.

It also compares one noun with another noun in a sentence. 

Comparative degrees have a suffix -er.

Examples,

1. Their goals are faster than our team’s.
2. She is more beautiful than her elder sister.
3. Today she looks happier than on other days.
4. Your handwriting is better than mine.
5. This swimming pool is deeper than that one.

Superlative degree: 

The superlative degree is an adjective that compares the quality or quantity of any person, place, thing, or object among three or more to show either the least quality or highest degree.

The superlative degree has a suffix -est.

Examples,

1. Seedan is one of the bravest men in his battalion.
2. Usain Bolt made a world record for the fastest athlete in the Olympics.
3. She is the most beautiful girl on our campus.