Adjectives
What is adjectives?
• An adjective is a word that describes or modifies a
noun or pronoun by giving more information
about its quality, quantity, size, color, shape, or
other characteristics.
Position of adjectives
• Before a noun
• For example: I love my new house.
• After verbs:
• For example: The food smells sweet.
• After as, how, so, this( =so), that (=so), and too, adjevtives
come before the article.
• For example:
• I could never live in as crowded a city as Tashkent.
• How crowded a city is Toshkent?
• Some adjectives only appear after a verb and not before a noun.
These includes adjectives beginning with a-, such as afraid, alive, asleep,
etc
• For example:
• A boy was asleep in the street.
• But this sentence is not correct: There was an asleep boy in the street.
Position of multiple adjectives.
When multiple adjectives are used together, they usually follow this order:
1.O – Opinion (beautiful, ugly,
interesting)
2.S – Size (big, small, huge)
3.A – Age (young, old, new)
4.S – Shape (round, square, oval).
5.C – Color (red, blue, yellow)
6.O – Origin (Italian, Chinese,
American)
7.M – Material (wooden, plastic,
metal)
8.P – Purpose (sleeping bag,
running shoes, cooking pot)
Adjectives used as nouns.
• To refer to members of a general social group
• Ex: We need to provide better housing for the poor.
• To refer to members of a specific group
• Ex: When the building collapsed, the injured were rushed to hospital.
• To refer to some nationalities
• Ex: The French have introduced new housing regulations in Paris.
Comparatives and superlatives
• We can use comparative adjectives to compare
things or people that are different.
• Superlative adjectives can be used to compare
one of a group of people or things with whole
group.
Comparative
superlative
Regular adj with one syllable : -er (blacker)
and
(ending in vowel + consonant) : double final letter + -er
-est (blackest)
and -est
Regular adj with two syllables
(ending in y)
:
replace –y with –ier
and iest
Regular adj with two
or more syllables:
more/less +adj
and most/least +adj
Irregular adjectives/quantifiers
• Adjective /
comparative /
superlative
• Good
/ better
/ best
• Bad
/ worse
/ worst
• Far
/ farther/further / farthest/furthest
• Little
/ less
/ least
• Much /many / more
/ most
• Regular adjectives with two syllables can often also form the
comparative and superlative like adjectives with one syllable.
• For example: clever, cleverer, cleverest
• Remember that comparative forms are often followed by than.
• Crime is a much bigger problem in this country than in many
other countries.
• Remember that superlative forms are often preceded by the.
• Our local police force is the best in the country.
Structures used to make comparisons
• (nearly/almost/twice/etc) as …as
Platinum is about twice as expensive
as gold.
• Not (nearly/quite) as/so …as
• Paper is not nearly as strong as plastic. (large difference between things)
• diamond is not quite as valuable as gold. (small difference between things)
• Nothing like as…as/ nowhere near as…as
• Iron is nothing like as hard as diamond
• The…, the… The taller the building, the greater the fire risk.
Gradable and ungradable adjectives
• Ungradable adjectives describe qualities which are extreme and which cannot
be 'more' or 'less’. For example: amazing, dead, exhausted, fantastic, helpless,
impossible, incredible, necessary, perfect, pointless, right, splendid,
unacceptable, wonderful, wrong, etc. Other adjectives are gradable.
• Modifiers with ungradable adjectives: absolutely, completely, quite, totally,
utterly, etc
• Modifiers with gradable adjectives: a bit, a little, fairly, quite, really, too, very,
etc.
Watch out!
• When quite is used with gradable adjectives, it means 'rather,
fairly'. When quite is used with ungradable adjectives, it means
'absolutely, completely.
• ✔️ Our flat's quite nice, but not perfect.
• ✔️ I love your flat! The balconies are quite splendid!
Confusing cases
• Some words have the same form as an adjective and as an adverb and some
also form adjectives with -ly. The different forms can have different
meanings. These include:
• fair/fairly
fast hard/hardly
straight etc
• Some adjectives end in -ly, eg costly, deadly, friendly, likely, lively, lonely,
lovely. They do not form adverbs, but we often use a phrase such as in a ...
way to describe how something is done.
• ✓ She looked at me in a very friendly way.
So and such
• To show the results of a situation or action
• Form
• So + adjective + that : The burglar was so clever that no one could catch
him
• So+ adverb + that : Jane took the money so quickly that no one saw her
• So+ many/much+ noun + that : There was so much money that the
robber couldn't carry it all.
• The word that is not usually necessary to introduce the second clause.
• ✓ The crime rate is so high people are very frightened
• The word so has a number of other uses. Try not to get confused between
them.
• The crime rate is so high that people are very frightened. I saw that burglar
leaving the house, so I called the police.
Such
• Form
• such + a/an + adjective + singular noun+ that
• It was such a terrible crime that the man was sent to prison for life
• such + adjective + plural noun + that
• The security guard had such good hearing that he heard the door open immediately.
• such + a lot of + noun + that
• There is such a lot of crime here that the police can't cope.
Enough
• To show the results of a situation or action where there is/isn't the right
amount/number of something
• Form
• enough + noun (+ for and/or + full infinitive): There is enough money for
apples
• Adjective/ adverb + enough (+ for and/or + full infinitive) :He is enough
smart to solve the problem.
Too
• To describe something that is more than necessary and We arrived too late
for the start of the trial. which has a negative effect.
• Form
• too + adjective/adverb (+ for and/or + full infinitive) :The young man was
too young to go to prison.
• Too + many/much + noun (+ for and/or + full infinitive): We send too
many innocent people to prison.