Adjectives

Adjectives are words that describe or modify another person or thing in the sentence. The Articles “a, an, and the — are” adjectives.

• The tall professor
• The lugubrious lieutenant
• A solid commitment
• A month's pay
• A six-year-old child
• The unhappiest, richest man

If a group of words containing a subject and verb acts as an adjective, it is called an Adjective Clause. My sister, who is much older than I am, is an engineer. If an adjective clause is stripped of its subject and verb, the resulting modifier becomes an Adjective Phrase: He is the man who is keeping my family in the poorhouse.

Position of Adjectives

Unlike Adverbs, which often seem capable of popping up almost anywhere in a sentence, adjectives nearly always appear immediately before the noun or noun phrase that they modify. Sometimes they appear in a string of adjectives, and when they do, they appear in a set order according to category. When indefinite pronouns — such as something, someone, and anybody— are modified by an adjective, the adjective comes after the pronoun.

Degrees of Adjectives

The degrees of comparison are known as the positive, the comparative, and the superlative. (Actually, only the comparative and superlative show degrees.) We use the comparative for comparing two things and the superlative for comparing three or more things.

Collective Adjectives

When the definite article, the, is combined with an adjective describing a class or group of people, the resulting phrase can act as a noun: the poor, the rich, the oppressed, the homeless, the lonely, the unlettered, the unwashed, the gathered, and the dear departed. The difference between a Collective Noun and a collective adjective is that the latter is always plural and requires a plural verb:

• The rural poor have been ignored by the media.
• The rich of Connecticut are responsible.
• The elderly are beginning to demand their rights.
• The young at heart are always a joy to be around.