ADJECTIVE
Introduction

       An adjective is a word which qualifies a noun or a pronoun.

For example,

• She is a good girl.
• Here, the word ‘good’ is an adjective that says about the ‘girl’. We all know that ‘girl’ is a noun. Therefore, an
• adjective says something more about a noun and always adds something to the meaning of a noun

.
Following are the kinds of adjectives:

• 1. Adjectives of Quality: Adjectives that show the kind or quality of a person or thing.
•  E.g.: An honest man.
• 2. Adjectives of Quantity: An Adjective that shows how much of a thing is meant.
•  E.g.: Some milk, enough oil, sufficient sugar, no manners.
• 3. Adjectives of Number: An adjective that shows how many persons or things are meant or in what order a
• person or thing stands.
• E.g.: He has four pens.
•  She has two books.
• 4. Demonstrative Adjectives: The adjective that points out which person or thing is meant.
•  E.g.: This boy, that group, these people, those countries.
• 5. Interrogative Adjectives: What, which and whose are interrogative adjectives when they are used with a noun.
•  E.g.: Which room is hers?
•  Whose book is this?
• 6. Distributive Adjectives: The Adjective which refers to each one of the number is known as distributive
• adjective.
•  E.g.: Each candidates is honest.
•  Every boy is present today.
• 7. Possessive Adjectives: Adjectives that shows possession.
•  E.g.: My book, our class
• 8. Proper Adjective: An adjective which is formed from proper nouns is called proper adjective.
•  E.g.: Buddhist monastery, British rule
•  Here ‘Buddhist’ and ‘British’ are proper adjectives.

Formation of Adjectives
A number of adjectives are formed from other parts of speech by the addition of certain suffixes.

• (1)From Nouns:
• For example.
• boy boyish
• dirt dirty
• courage courageous
• wood wooden
• gold golden
• artist artistic
• man manly
• trick trickly etc.
• (2) From Verbs: 
• For example,
• enjoy enjoyable
• tire tireless
• move moveable (or movable)
• divide divisible
• censure censurable etc.

Degrees of Comparison
Positive Degree Comparative Degree Superlative Degree
Bold               Bolder           Boldest
Sweet             Sweeter        sweetest
Long                Longer          Longest
Formation of Comparative Superlative
(i) Adjective of one-syllable add ‘er’ in the comparative form and ‘est’ in superlative form.

For example,

• Positive  Comparative   Superlative

• tall            taller                tallest

• short         shorter            shortest

• clever       cleverer          cleverest

• fine             finer               finest

• brave          braver            bravest

• wise            wiser              wisest

• big              bigger             biggest

• fat               fatter               fattest

• hot             hotter              hottest

• sad             sadder             saddest

• glad           gladder             gladdest

• slim            easier               easiest

• dry             drier                  driest

• holy            holier                holiest

• funny         funnier                funniest

• happy        happier              happiest

Irregular forms

• bad       worst          worst

• good      better          best

• well        better           best

• little        less             least

• much      more           most

• many      more           most

• far          farther         farthest

• far          further         furthest

• old          elder           eldest (of people only)

• old          older            oldest (of people and things)

Positive Superlative

top                    topmost

northern           northernmost

southern           southernmost

eastern            easternmost

western            westernmost

Some of the non-gradable adjective are as follows:

• Absolute, chief, complete, blind, head, dumb, entire, excellent, extreme, full, ideal, impossible, perfect, right, round,

• square, universal, unique, whole, wrong.

• Determiners

• Determiners fall into the following categories:

• (i) Article: a, an, the

• (ii)Possessives: my, our, your, his, her, their, its

• (iii)Demonstratives: this, that, these, those

• These are used to point out people or things. For example,

• This car is red.

• That boy is fat.

• (iv) Distributive: each, every, either, neither.

• They refer to each member of class separately. For example,

• I have met seven girls. Each girl is smart/Every girl is smart.

• (v) Number expressions: another, many, several, some, any, no few enough, a number of, a lot of, lots of,

• plenty of, some of, many of one, two, three,…. (cardinal numbers)

• First, second, third, last, next, ….(ordinal numbers)

• (vi) Quantifiers: much, some, no, any, little, enough, a lot of, lots of, plenty of, much of, some of.

• (vii) Interrogatives: what, which.

• They combine with nouns to form interrogative expression used in questions. For example,

• What color is the sky?

• Which girl is the tallest?

• There are some words which are used in the comparative adjectives are followed by ‘to’ in place of ‘than’. These

• words are: inferior, superior, prior, interior, posterior, senior, junior etc. For example,

• He is superior to me. (not, than)

• This is inferior to that. (not, than)

• He is junior to me.

• She is senior to him.

• The adjective ‘preferable’ is used as a comparative. It is followed by ‘to’. It is not used with ‘more’. For example,

• This is more preferable than that, (Incorrect)

• This is preferable to that. (Correct)

• Fish is more preferable to red meat. (Incorrect)

• Fish is preferable to red meat. (Correct)

• The construction one of the + superlative + plural noun is used to compare more than two people more

• than two people or things. For example,

• Kalidas is one of the greatest poets.

• Jaisalmer is one of the hottest places in summer.

• Note: A plural noun is always used after the superlative. For example,

• One of the brightest objects.

• One of the cheapest bags.

• The construction as + adjective (positive degree) + as indicates equality between two people or things.

• For example,

• He is as gentle as a lamb.

• Virtue is as important as money.

• Ram is as tall as Shyam

• Note: Some of the idiomatic comparisons are as follows:

• As black as coal/pitch as happy as lark

• As brave as a lion as hot as fire

• As bright as silver as light as a feather

• As busy as a bee as proud as a peacock

• As clear as crystal /day as quiet as a mouse

• As cunning as a fox as red as blood

• As cold as ice as smooth as velvet

• As easy as ABC as stupid as an ass

The following constructions also express comparison of two actions (infinitive):

• Prefer/would prefer ….. Rather than

• Had rather ….. Than

• Had better ….. Than

• Would sooner …… than

• I prefer to eat rather than cook

• I prefer to starve rather than beg

• I prefer to fight rather than surrender

• The construction that + comparative …. the + comparative is used to express parallel increase or decrease i.e.

• proportion. For example,

• The older you are the wiser you grow.

• The higher you go the harder you fall.

• The following constructions are used to express gradual increase or decrease:

• The construction comparative form + and + comparative form is used to express gradual increase or decrease. For

• example,

• The patient is getting weaker and weaker.

• Thieves are getting bolder and bolder.

• It is growing darker and darker.

• Farther, Further

• ‘Farther’ means ‘more distant in place’ i.e. ‘a greater distance’, For example,

• Delhi is farther from Patna than Lucknow.

• Patna is farther/further away than Ranchi

• For further details please contact the director.

• No further discussion is required now.

• Elder, Eldest

• (i) Elder or eldest is used to compare the members of the same family, i.e. close family relations like, sons,

• daughters, brother, sisters. It indicates seniority rather than age. For example,

• My eldest brother is the head of the family. (not, oldest brother)

• Where is your eldest son? (not oldest).

• Note: Elder / eldest is always used attributively (i.e. place immediately before the noun).

• (not, my brother is elder /eldest)

• (ii) Elder is not used with ‘than’ or ‘to’. For example,

• He is older than his sister. (elder is not acceptable here)

• (not, He is elder to/than his sister.)

• Older than must be used to indicate age.

• (iii)Elder/ eldest is preceded by ‘the’ and followed by ‘of when it (elder/eldest) is used predicatively (used after

• the verb). For example,

• He is the elder of the two.

• He is the eldest of the five sons.

• (iv) Older/oldest is used of both people and things. It expresses age, so it is used for comparison within the same

• family as well. For example,

• He is older than his sister. (not, elder)

• This museum is older than that. (not, elder)

• He is the oldest man in the village. (not, eldest)

• This is the oldest tree in the forest. (not, eldest)

• She is the oldest student in her class.

• (v) Elder brother /sister are used when a person has only one brother / sister who is older; eldest is used when

• there are more. An elder son/daughter is the older of two; and eldest son/daughter is the oldest of two or

• more.

• Later, Latter, Latest, Last

• (i) Later and latest denote time. For example,

• She came later than me. (not latter)

• I haven’t yet heard the latest news. (not, last)

• (ii) Latter and Last refer to position (place). For example,

• Keats and Shelley are great poets but the former is greater than the latter. (not, later)

• He is the last candidate on the list. (not, latest)

• (iii)Former, Latter

• ‘Former’ means ‘the first of the two people or things mentioned already’, ‘latter’ means ‘the second of the

• two people or things mentioned already’. Therefore, both are used with reference to two only. for example,

• Of the two poets (Yeats and Tagore), I prefer the former to the latter.

• (iv) First, Last

• When the reference is to more than two people or things we use first /last. ‘First’ means ‘coming before all

• others in order’ and ‘last’ means ‘coming after all others in order’. For example,

• January is the first and December the last month of the year.

• Of the three alternatives the first is the best and the last is the worst.

• (former/latter is not acceptable here)

• (v) Nearest, Next

• Nearest denotes distance. For example,

• Which is the nearest port?

• This school is the nearest to my house.

• Next denotes position. For example,

• My house is next to hers.

• He sat next to his wife.

• (vi) Fewer, Less, Lesser

• ‘Fewer’ denotes ‘number’. Fewer’ is the comparative of ‘few’ (used before plural nouns). For example,

• There are no fewer than twenty people here.

• Fewer buses are available at night.

• ‘Less’ denotes quantity. For example,

• I earn less money than a postman.

• But a cardinal number + plural noun takes ‘less’ (not, fewer) because in this construction the number denotes a

• definite amount/quantity. For example,

• a) There are five persons less for work today. (not, fewer)

• b) You may pay ten rupees less. (not, fewer)

• c) ‘Lesser’ means ‘less important’ or ‘less serious’. For example,

• d) The lesser poets of our times don’t receive any attention at all.

• e) I have got to choose the lesser of two evils.

• f) Mathali Saran Gupta is a lesser known writer.

• Few, A few, The few

• “Few’ means ‘not many’; hardly any’, It has a negative meaning. For example,

• a) Few people can speak correct English, (no people)

• b) Few men there are that really care. (no man)

• ‘A few’ means ‘some’. It has a positive meaning. For example,

• c) He has a few friends. (some friends)

• d) A few people can speak correct English. (some people)

• ‘The few’ means ‘not many, but all that are there’. For example,

• e) They sold the few dogs that they had. (not, a few)

• f) He had already read the few books that I have. (not, a few)

• Little, A little, the little

• ‘Little’ means ‘not any’; ‘almost nil’. Little’ is used in negative sense. For example,

• a) He has little money. (no money)

• b) She has little confidence in herself. (no confidence)

• ‘A little’ means ‘some though not much’. It has a positive meaning. For example,

• c) He has a little money. (Some money)

• d) There is a little after in the well. (Some water)

• e) She gave the beggar a little food. (some food)

• f) All I ask for is a little help from you. (some help)

• ‘The little’ means ‘mot much, but all that is there’. For example,