Adjectives

Adjectives give qualities of nouns

Determiners give grammatical information like possession, quantity, order, number, place of the things near / far, things to be definite / infinite and so on.

Types of Adjectives

There are 2 large groups of adjectives based on the functions:

          -----  Qualitative adjectives

          -----  Classifying adjectives.

Positions of Adjectives

          -----  attributive adjectives --  Before a noun

          -----  predicative adjectives          --  After a verb-to-be / a linking verb

          1.  Ahmad is a hardworking boy.  He is very hardworking.

          2.  Meihua is a polite girl.  She is polite to everybody.

Qualitative Adjectives

          good            bad              polite           rude

          Kind             cruel             hot              cold

          dry               wet              poor             rich

Gradable Adjectives

                Comparison of Adjectives

There are 2 forms of adjectives:  Regular and Irregular                  

There are 3 degrees:  (A1)Positive  (A2) Comparative  (A3) Superlative

                   A1                      A2                     A3

                Positive           Comparative          Superlative

(Regular)   as kind as          kinder than            kindest

               talkative          more talkative       most talkative        

              (adjective)         (er) / (more)         (est) / (most)

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(Irregular)     good                 better                  best

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1.  Positive degree      (A1)

     as adjective as

     [San San] is kind.

     [San San] is as kind as Peter.

     [Meena] is talkative.

     [Alice] is good at singing.

2.  Comparative degree      (A2)

         (er) / (more)  than

     In Comparative degree, we either suffix the adjective with ‘er’ like 

     ‘hard  ---- harder’ or we use ‘more’ for the adjective that we can’t suffix  

      the word with ’er’ like ‘talkative, hardworking, beautiful’)

     [John] is kinder than San San. 

     [Anna] is more talkative than Meena.

     [Chia Chia] is better than Alice at singing.

3.  Superlative degree   (A3)

       (est) /  (most)

     Similarly in the Superlative degree, if we can’t suffix the word with 

     ‘est’, we use ‘most’ .

  

      [Chong Huat] is the kindest of all.

      [Aminah] is the most talkative of all.

      [John] is the best of all at singing.                 

For the adjectives ended with ‘consonant letter + y’, then you have to drop ‘y’ and then add ‘ier’ for comparison and ‘iest’ for superlative degree.

For the adjectives ended with ‘vowel letter + y’, then you only have to add ‘er’ for the comparative degree and ‘est’ for the superlative degree

Sub-modifiers

= Intensifiers / down-toners

Intensifiers (adverbs of degree) are words like

‘absolutely, amazingly, completely, excitingly, extremely, really, totally, utterly, very,……… ’ 

They make adjectives stronger and are applicable to both gradable and non-gradable adjectives. 

[Helen] danced amazingly well in (the concert) last Sunday.

                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~                      ~~~~~~~~~~

[The teacher] was really pleased with (the work).

                           ~~~~~

Tina is a very co-operative worker.

Down-toners are words like ‘fairly, quite, rather, ……….’

They make adjectives weaker and are only used with gradable adjectives

Ahsiah is quite a polite girl.

That was a fairly time-wasting project.

Qualitative Adjectives are gradable.