Índice

Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1

Adjective........................................................................................................................... 2

1. Conceptual Framework................................................................................................. 2

2. Types ............................................................................................................................ 3

3. Meaning ........................................................................................................................ 5

4. Placement and Order of Adjectives .............................................................................. 6

5. Using Adjectives .......................................................................................................... 7

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 8

References ........................................................................................................................ 9
Introduction

The main theme of this work is that adjectives are characterized as expressions that
"alter, clarify or adjust the substantive competences of meaning", the aim of allowing
the expression of "gradations of more subtle meanings". Only names.

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Adjective

1. Conceptual Framework

The notion of adjective has been raised in “the definitions of traditional

grammars and dictionaries which represent adjectives as complementary types of
modifier: an adjective modifies a noun” (Payne, Huddleston & Pullum, 2010, p.
31).

Regarding Pustet (2006), “adjectives can be defined at various of the organization

of language, in particular, at the levels of morph syntax, semantics, syntactic
usage” (p. 60).

For the morph syntax perspective, languages mostly have no independent class of
adjective. Each lexicon can be combined with any types of grammatical items when
it is used in syntactic context by investigating the position from other constituents in
the higher-order syntactic configurations. Adjectives, in terms of semantic sense, refer
“to express property concepts” (Pustet, 2006, p. 61).

From this point of view, it shows the distinguished features which are different from
other parts of speech, nouns and verbs, “whose most prototypical representatives
denote object concepts and event concepts, respectively” (Pustet, 2006, p. 61).

Lastly, adjectives in the syntactic sense are considered as functions which consist of two
aspects: attributive and predictive functions. According to Quirk et al. (1985),
“adjectives are attributive when they pre-modify the head of a noun phrase; likewise,
they are predicative when they function as subject complement or object complement”
(p. 417).

Specially, “adjectives are subject complement not only to noun phrases, but also to
clauses” (Quirk et al., 1985, p. 417) which probably include finite or non-finite clauses.
Adjectives can be an object complement to clauses which mostly functions to express
“the result of the process denoted by the verb…by using the verb be” (Quirk et al.,
1985, p. 417).

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Adjectives sometimes can also be postpositive. That is to say, three positions of
adjectives are considered. As exemples provided by Quirk et al. (1985, p. 418),
Predicative: This information is useful. Attributive: useful information. Postpositive:
something useful.

Quirk et al. (1985) also claim four common features of adjectives (p. 402 - 403):

1) They can freely occur in attributive function (i.e. they can pre-modify a noun,
appearing between the determiner, including zero article and the head of a noun phrase).

Ex. an ugly painting, the round table

2) They can freely occur in predicative function (i.e. they can function as subject
complement or object complement).

Ex. the painting is ugly.

He thought the painting ugly.

3) They can be pre-modified by the intensifier very.

Ex. the children are very happy.

4) They can take comparative and superlative forms. The comparison may be by means
of inflections (-er and -est) or by the addition of the pre-modifiers more or most
(periphrastic comparison).

Ex. The children are happier now.

These students are more intelligent.

From characteristics of adjectives, they can be subdivided into several types

(Khamying, 2007). below demonstrates their specific types, functions, and examples.

2. Types

 Descriptive Adjective

To attribute or qualify people, animals, things, or places in order to describe its features
Ex. The rich man lives in the big house.

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  Proper Adjective

To modify noun in terms of the nationality, this type is originated from proper noun.
Ex. He employs a Chinese book.

 Quantitative Adjective

To modify noun for particular details in quantifying. Ex. He ate much rice at school
yesterday.

 Numeral Adjective

To modify noun for particular details in exact quantifying which is divided into three
perspectives: cardinal number (exact quantity), ordinal number (hierarchical number),
and multiplicative number (double number)

1) Cardinal Numeral adjective. Ex. My hand has five fingers.

2) Ordinal Numeral adjective. Ex. I am the seventh son of my family.

3) Multiplicative adjective. Ex. Some roses are double.

 Demonstrative Adjective (this, that, these, those)

To show the noun it modifies is singular or plural and whether the position of the noun
is near or far from the person who is speaking or writing. Ex. I invited that man to come
in.

 Interrogative Adjective

To modify noun as a questioning form. Ex. What book is he reading in the room?

 Possessive Adjective

To express possession of a noun by someone or something. Ex. This is my table.

 Distributive Adjective

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To modify noun by dividing or separating into different parts. Ex. Every soldier is
punctually in his place.

 Emphasizing Adjective

To modify noun by highlighting or emphasizing the texts Ex. Supansa is my own girl-
friend.

 Exclamatory Adjective

To modify noun by using interjection words. Ex. What a man he is!

 Relative Adjective

To modify noun and combine sentence which are related between the first and second
sentences. Ex. Give me what money you have.

3. Meaning

I said above that adjectives introduce properties. Two kinds of facts suggest that
adjectives also denote properties. First, as we have already seen, adjectives may provide
the main predicate in a sentence. Second, we often see entailments from the attributive
form to the predicative form, as in.

a. Cosmo is a hairy brown dog.

b. Cosmo is hairy.

c. Cosmo is brown.

We do not need to know anything about dogs to know that entails. If we later learn that
Cosmo is not merely a dog, but also a Westminster Kennel Club champion, we may also
justifiably conclude from that he is a hairy brown Westminster Kennel Club champion.
If (18a) involves the ascription of three properties to Cosmo (being a dog, being brown
and being hairy), these patterns of reasoning follow.

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Adjectives that give rise to such reasoning patterns are often referred to as
INTERSECTIVE. Not all adjectives are intersective, however, a fact that introduces
challenges for the idea that adjectives as a class denote properties. Consider the
following examples, from Partee 1995. Knowing that is true does not justify the
conclusion in, because it could be the case that the only respect in which Francis is
skillful is in his role as a surgeon, in which case we would accept the former but most
likely deny the latter.

a) Francis is a skillful surgeon.

b. Francis is skillful.

a. Francis is a violinist.

b. Francis is a skillful violinist

4. Placement and Order of Adjectives

A single noun can be described as a list of adjectives. When more then one adjective is
used to modify a noun, it is important to consider the order in which the adjectives
appear. Generally, the adjectives most important in completing the meaning of the noun
are placed closest to the noun. Following is the usual order of adjectives in a series:

1. Determiners: articles (a, the), demonstratives (this, those), and possessives (his, our,
Mary’s, everybody’s), amounts (one, five, many, few), order (first, next last)
2. Coordinate adjectives (subjective evaluations or personal opinions): nice, nasty,
packed, pitiful
3. Adjectives describing size: big, huge, little, tiny
4. Adjectives describing shape: long, short, round, square
5. Adjectives describing age: young, old, modern, ancient
6. Adjectives describing color: blue, green, red, white
7. Adjectives describing nationality: Italian, French, Japanese
8. Adjectives describing architectural style or religion: Greek, Gothic, Catholic,
Jewish, Muslim
9. Adjectives describing material: cardboard, plastic, silver, gold
10. Nouns functioning as adjectives: soccer ball, cardboard box, history class

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Example:

 A big brick house (article, size, and material)

 These old brown cardboard boxes (demonstrative, age, color, material)
 A beautiful young Italian woman (article, personal opinion, age, nationality)

5. Using Adjectives

Adjectives as Subject Complements – The subject complement are a word that

follows a linking verb and modifies the sentence’s subject, not its verb. Linking verbs:
appear, become, believe, feel, grow, smell, seem, sound, remain, turn, prove, look, taste,
and the forms of the verb to be.

Example: The crowd appeared calm. (The linking verb appeared links the noun the
subject crowd with the adjective calm)

Adjectives as Object Complements – The object complement are a word that follows
a sentence’s direct object and modifies that object and not the verb. An object
complement answers the question what? after the direct object.

Example: Bob considered the experiment a success. (Success is the object compliment
that modifies the sentences direct object experiment.)

Adjectives with Past and Present Participle Verbs – Adjectives are frequently
formed by using the past participle (-ed, -t, or -en) and the present participle ( ing) verb
forms.

Example:

 The group of children scared the sleeping dog. (Sleeping describes the baby.)
 The students refused to eat the dried fruit. (Dried describes the cookies.)

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Conclusion

Adjectives are words that describe or modify another person or thing in the sentence.
An adjective modifies a noun or pronoun by providing descriptive or specific detail.
Unlike adverbs, adjectives do not modify verbs, other adjectives, or adverbs. Adjectives
usually precede the noun or pronoun they modify.

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References

Halliday, M.A.K. (1994). An Introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd ed). China:

Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

Khamying, S. (2007). Advanced English Grammar for high learner. Bangkok: V.J.
Printing.

Payne, J., Huddleston, R., & Pullum, G. K. (2010). The distribution and category status
of adjectives and adverbs. Word Structure, 3(1), 31-81. Retrieved from
http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/E1750124510000486.pdf.

Pustet, R. (2006). Adjectives. Encyclopedia Elsevier.

Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartvik, J. (1985). A Comprehensive
Grammar of the English Language. New York: Longman.