Parts of Speech: Adjectives
Understanding the different parts of speech is essential for writers who want to craft prose intelligibly.
A basic understanding of language and mastery of grammar helps writers understand the craft from a mechanical standpoint, and can result in superior writing abilities.
Parts of speech make up the fundamental building blocks of language. Do you know an adverb from an adjective? A conjunction from an interjection?
If you’re a writer, you should.
In a post titled “Parts of Speech,” we identified adjectives as follows:
Adjective: An adjective is a word that modifies a noun or pronoun. Often, adjectives are descriptive as in comfortable or red. Traditionally, adjectives included determiners, words that indicate definiteness as in articles a vs. the, or quantity as in one, some, or many. Linguists are increasingly separating determiners as unique parts of speech.
This definition only scratches the surface.
Interesting Facts About Adjectives
Did you know that not all languages have adjectives? Most do, though. And those that don’t use alternative parts of speech (such as verbs) to modify nouns and pronouns, thereby fulfilling the same role that adjectives play in English.
Also, words that are adjectives in one language may not be adjectives in another language. According to Wikipedia: “English uses “to be hungry” (hungry being an adjective), French uses “avoir faim” (literally “to have hunger”)…”
Adjectives lend themselves particularly well to derivation, which is the linguistic alteration of a word by adding a suffix (such as -ness, -ise, -al). Add -ize to the adjective glamor and you get glamorize.
Adjectives vs. Determiners: Separate Parts of Speech?
Determiners are a subclass of adjectives, which modify nouns by limiting their meaning. Determiners may precede descriptive adjectives.
Articles (a, an, the) are determiners as are words such as some, each, many, and few (to name a few). Other determiners are demonstratives, possessive determiners, quantifiers, and cardinal numbers (first, second, third, etc.). Many determiners are listed as pronouns, such as your or their.
Linguists increasingly regard determiners and adjectives as two separate and distinct parts of speech. However, that is not usually reflected in grammar references material. For example, most dictionaries still classify determiners as adjectives.
Types of Adjectives
There are several types of adjectives. Here’s a quick look at a few of them.
- Attributive adjectives – normally precede the nouns that they modify and are considered part of the noun phrase.
- Predicative adjectives – are linked to the nouns they modify, usually with a predicate (e.g. “the car is fast” rather than “the fast car”).
- Absolute adjectives – modify either the subject of a sentence or a nearby noun, and are best demonstrated by example: “The car, fast and sleek, sped through the intersection.”
- Substantive adjectives – are still modifiers, but used as freestanding nouns. Example: “There are two cars, a fast one and a red one. I’ll take the fast one, you take the red.”
Each of these types of adjectives warrant an entire study. This is just a brief overview so you understand how diverse the part of speech can be.
Adjectival Phrases
Most parts of speech team up with other words in a sentence to form phrases, and adjectives are no exception. In an adjectival phrase, the ajective is at the head. A single adjective in a sentence constitutes an adjectival phrase.
More often, adjectives that are modified by other adjectves or by adverbs make up an adjectival phrase (such as glaceing very in front of any adjective). More than one adverb or complement can be used to modify an adjective within an adjectival phrase.
Modifiers and Writing
Modifiers are essential to writers. They are the words that help us describe characters and scenes, but they are not meant to be crutches. They should be used conservatively for the greatest impact. Consider the following two sentences:
She quickly ran to the other side of the field.
She sprinted to the other side of the field.
Which of these sentences creates a more distinct image in your mind?
Highly descriptive verbs and nouns will always carry more impact that flat verbs and nouns that are modified with fancy adverbs and adjectives. Keep this in mind with your own writing, and try not to lean on modifiers as a crutch to enhance your writing.
Do you have anything to add? Do you have any questions about adjectives any other parts of speech? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment.
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