Adjectives Flashcards
The Basic Rules: Adjectives
Adjectives modify nouns. To modify means to change in some way.
For example:.
“I ate a meal.” Meal is a noun. We don’t know what kind of meal; all we know is that someone ate a meal.
“I ate an enormous lunch.” Lunch is a noun, and enormous is an adjective that modifies it. It tells us what kind of meal the person ate.
Adjectives usually answer one of a few different questions: “What kind?” or “Which?” or “How many?” For example:
“The tall girl is riding a new bike.” Tall tells us which girl we’re talking about. New tells us what kind of bike we’re talking about.
“The tough professor gave us the final exam.” Tough tells us what kind of professor we’re talking about. Final tells us which exam we’re talking about.
“Fifteen students passed the midterm exam; twelve students passed the final exam.” Fifteen and twelve both tell us how many students; midterm and final both tell us which exam.
So, generally speaking, adjectives answer the following questions:
Which?
What kind of?
How many?
Some other rules:
Most of the time, adjectives come before nouns. However, they come after the nouns they modify, most often when the verb is a form of the following:
be feel taste smell sound look appear seem
Some examples:
“The dog is black.” Black is an adjective that modifies the noun dog, but it comes after the verb. (Remember that “is” is a form of the verb “be.”)
“Brian seems sad.” Sad is an adjective that modifies the noun Brian.
“The milk smells rotten.” Rotten is an adjective that modifies the noun milk.
“The speaker sounds hoarse.” Hoarse is an adjective that modifies the noun speaker.
Be sure to understand the differences between the following two examples:
“The dog smells carefully.” Here, carefully describes how the dog is smelling. We imagine him sniffing very cautiously.
But:
“The dog smells clean.” Here, clean describes the dog itself. It’s not that he’s smelling clean things or something; it’s that he’s had a bath and does not stink.
