Saturday, February 21, 2015

The Beauty Of Adjectives

When it comes to definition, an adjective can be defined as the modifier of a noun. In simple terms, these words tell us something about the noun. Most of the time, these are used before the noun in English grammar. As far as the usage of adjectives in the English language is concerned, these do not change with gender such as feminine, masculine or with other forms such as singular or plural nouns.

It is always invariable. In other words, it can be said that actives do not change with the form.


For instance, one always uses big chicken, small taken, big chickens, ten chickens.

What are Possessive Adjectives?

There are many people who do not find using possessive objectives such as her, his, you, our, my or their easy to use. These are also known as possessive adjectives as they tell the reader about the possession or about the owner of something. More often than not, people using adjectives make the mistake of using the wrong form of gender.

Check out examples here, watch the use of the word his.

It is important to keep in mind that the adjective in the English language is invariable and does not change with the gender. Therefore, this is the correct usage when one asks a question with the use of possessive objectives.

Jack asked if you have seen his sister.

Many users make the mistake of writing this sentence as, Jack asked if you have seen her sister.

The use of her sister is wrong. It should be his sister as the adjective his refers to Jack and not his sister. It is important to keep in mind that the sentence would have still used his even if the sentence was referring to the brother of Jack. For instance, if Jack wanted to ask about his brother, the sentence would have been, Jack asked if you have seen his brother.

It does not matter whether Jack is asking about his brother or his sister, the possessive adjective to be used is always going to be his and not her, as it relates to the noun, Jack and it does not change.

In some of the other languages, the usage of adjectives change but this is what makes English grammar and language different from the other languages.

Order of Adjectives


One of the biggest peculiarities of English grammar is the order of adjectives. It has been seen that, more often than not, non-native English speakers do not use adjectives in the correct order. This is one of the many ways in which one can differentiate non-native English speakers from native English speakers.

For instance, if you consider the following sentence with regards to the use of adjectives, you may find nothing wrong with it, as far as the meaning of sentence is concerned but it does tell a native English speaker that the correct order of adjectives has not been followed.

John had a German red old car.



If you want to describe a car, you may use a number of adjectives together to describe it in the manner that you think is right. However, it is extremely important to use those adjectives in the correct order to ensure that one gets the meaning of the sentence as desired. As far as the perfect order of objectives is concerned, one needs to use that adjective first that is an observation about the noun.

(John had an old red German car.)

There are various categories of adjectives and the words in these categories need to be used in the correct order to ensure that you are able to form a coherent sentence using the adjectives.

Opinion adjectives  


Words used for describing the feelings of the writer or speaker towards the noun or the observations of the noun. These typically include words such as delicious, ridiculous, silly, nice, expensive and other such words. These adjectives can be further divided into general opinion words and specific opinion words. The general opinion category includes words such as wonderful, terrible, nice, good, bad and similar words. On the other hand, specific adjectives describe only a specific category of nouns such as delicious food, intelligent people, well-designed buildings and so on. When writing about a controversial topic, opinion adjectives become more frequently used to describe the situation.

There are other types of directives that are used for defining the physical features of a particular noun. For instance, size adjectives such as, enormous, minute and gigantic are used to describe the size of the noun. Similarly, there are age adjectives such as old or young that are used to describe the noun age.

In addition to the above mentioned types of protective, there are shape adjectives such as triangular, round, square or cylindrical. There are also color adjectives such as bluish, whitish, black and other such words.

There are also adjectives of origin such as Australian or American among others. These are used for describing the source of origin of the noun. There are also material adjectives such as glass, cardboard or metallic that are used to describe the material of the noun. In addition to these adjectives, there are also qualified adjectives that are used for describing the usage of noun. Most of the time, these additives end with, ing such as laughing, shopping, baking etc.

If the adjectives are used in the correct order in the English language, you may not have to use commas and the sentence will still be grammatically correct. It is true that it may not look like a gem in the English language but it will still be grammatically correct. When adjectives are used in such a manner that they do not require commas, they are known as cumulative adjectives.

However, if you are confused by the order of various adjectives used in the correct manner, you are not alone. Many experts in the English language consider the order of adjectives to be one of the most confusing things in the English language.

Therefore, it is recommended to read a lot about the correct usage of the order of adjectives and keep using them. Soon, you'll find that you are using them in the correct manner.


Many Types of Adjectives


One of the best things about the English language is that it is continuously evolving. Each year, a number of words are added to the English language. This also makes English a bit difficult to use as a large number of words are added to it each year. Therefore, it is very difficult to account for all of the adjectives that are in English.

It is not surprising that the latest Oxford dictionary has more than 50,000 adjectives. It will be safe to say that in the next few years, the number of adjectives will grow and it will continue growing.

One of the best ways to learn about adjectives and the usage of adjectives is to learn the various groups in which these adjectives are classified. As mentioned above, there are opinion adjectives, color adjectives, material adjectives, shape adjectives and many more.

Usage of Adjectives


People who are new to the English language are often confused by the many adjectives that have similar meanings but are used in a different manner. For instance, ecstatic, smug, please and joyful all in the end, having something to refer to the term happy. The confusing thing is that all of these words mean a different degree and type of happiness.

However, this is also the beauty of English language as there are so many words to define the degree of a word it provides complete control to writers to create an image of the written word in the minds of the readers.

For instance, each of the above-mentioned words can be used to convey different meanings dependent on the choice of the word.

A pleased Jack ate the cake.
An ecstatic Jack ate the cake.
A smug Jack ate the cake.

The above three sentences convey different meanings depending on the word the writer uses.


Adjectives are Powerful 


One of the most common uses of adjectives is the introduction of a character in the story. For instance, most of the time, a character is introduced with an adjective such as ambitious, dynamic, immaculate, amazing, tall or similar words.

For a writer, it is important to build up a huge repertoire of adjectives if one wants to be an amazing writer.ry Did you notice the adjective in the last sentence?

Conclusion

It won't be wrong to say that adjectives are what make the English language such an interesting language. If there were no adjectives, the English language would be dull.

There are many reasons that we need adjectives in the English language but two of the most relevant reasons are that these are not only useful for making the written word more informative but these are also useful for making the narrative more interesting.

As mentioned above, these are used for modifying the noun or for describing the noun. It is not difficult to master the art of using adjectives but one does need to spend some time to master the usage of adjectives.

Needless to say, one can easily learn how to use adjectives in English language if one is willing to practice continuously.

What do you think, are the enormous amount of adjectives a help or a hinderance?

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