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Adjective:

In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified. Adjectives are one of the traditional eight English parts of speech, although linguists today distinguish adjectives from words such as determiners that formerly were considered to be adjectives. In this paragraph, "traditional" is an adjective, and in the preceding paragraph, "main" is.

Distribution
Most, but not all, languages have adjectives. Those that do not, typically use words of another part of speech, often verbs, to serve the same semantic function; an example, such a language might have a verb that means "to be big", and would use as attributive verb construction analogous to "big-being house" to express what English expresses as "big house". Even in languages that do have adjectives, one language's adjective might not be another's; for example, whereas English uses "to be hungry" (hungry being an adjective). Adjectives form an open class of words in most languages that have them; that is, it is relatively common for new adjectives to be formed via such processes as derivation. Bantu languages are well known for having only a small closed class of adjectives, however, and new adjectives are not easily derived. Similarly, native Japanese adjectives (i-adjectives) are a closed class (as are native verbs), although nouns (which are open class) may be used in the genitive and there is the separate class of adjectival nouns (na-adjectives), which is also open, and functions similarly to noun adjuncts in English.

Adjectives and adverbs


Many languages, including English, distinguish between adjectives, which qualify nouns and pronouns, and adverbs, which modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Not all languages have exactly this distinction and many languages, including English, have words that can function as both. For example, in English fast is an adjective in "a fast car" (where it qualifies the noun car), but an adverb in "he drove fast" (where it modifies the verb drove). In Dutch and German, almost all adjectives are implicitly also adverbs, without any difference in form.

Determiners
Linguists today distinguish determiners from adjectives, considering them to be two separate parts of speech (or lexical categories), but formerly determiners were considered to be adjectives in some of their uses. In English dictionaries, which typically still do not treat determiners as their own part of speech, determiners are often recognizable by being listed both as adjectives and as pronouns. Determiners are words that are neither nouns nor pronouns, yet reference a thing already in context. Determiners generally do this by indicating definiteness (as in a vs. the), quantity (as in one vs. some vs. many), or another such property.

Types of use
A given occurrence of an adjective can generally be classified into one of four kinds of uses: Attributive adjectives are part of the noun phrase headed by the noun they modify; for example, happy is an attributive adjective in "happy people". In some languages, attributive adjectives precede their nouns; in others, they follow their nouns; and in yet others, it depends on the adjective, or on the exact relationship of the adjective to the noun. In English, attributive adjectives usually precede their nouns in simple phrases, but often follow their nouns when the adjective is modified or qualified by a phrase acting as an adverb. For example: "I saw three happy kids", and "I saw three kids happy enough to jump up and down with glee." See also Postpositive adjective. Predicative adjectives are linked via a copula or other linking mechanism to the noun or pronoun they modify; for example, happy is a predicate adjective in "they are happy" and in "that made me happy." (See also: Predicative expression, Subject complement.) Absolute adjectives do not belong to a larger construction (aside from a larger adjective phrase), and typically modify either the subject of a sentence or whatever noun or pronoun they are closest to; for example, happy is an absolute adjective in "The boy, happy with his lollipop, did not look where he was going." Nominal adjectives act almost as nouns. One way this can happen is if a noun is elided and an attributive adjective is left behind. In the sentence, "I read two books to them; he preferred the sad book, but she preferred the happy", happy is a nominal adjective, short for "happy one" or "happy book". Another way this can happen is in phrases like "out with the old, in with the new", where "the old" means, "that which is old" or "all that is old", and similarly with "the new". In such cases, the adjective functions either as a mass noun (as in the preceding example) or as a plural count noun, as in "The meek shall inherit the Earth", where "the meek" means "those who are meek" or "all who are meek".

Adjectival phrases
An adjective acts as the head of an adjectival phrase. In the simplest case, an adjectival phrase consists solely of the adjective; more complex adjectival phrases may contain one or more adverbs modifying the adjective ("very strong"), or one or more complements (such as "worth several dollars", "full of toys", or "eager to please"). In English, attributive adjectival phrases that include complements typically follow their subject ("an evildoer devoid of redeeming qualities").

Other noun modifiers


In many languages, including English, it is possible for nouns to modify other nouns. Unlike adjectives, nouns acting as modifiers (called attributive nouns or noun adjuncts) are not predicative; a beautiful park is beautiful, but a car park is not "car". In plain English, the modifier often indicates origin ("Virginia reel"), purpose ("work clothes"), or semantic patient ("man eater"), however, it may generally indicate almost any semantic relationship. It is also common for adjectives to be derived from nouns, as in boyish, birdlike, behavioral, famous, manly, angelic, and so on. Many languages have special verbal forms called participles that can act as noun modifiers. In many languages, including English, participles are historically adjectives, and have retained most of their original function as such. English examples of this include relieved (the past participle of the verb relieve, used as an adjective in sentences such as "I am so relieved to see you"), spoken (as in "the spoken word"), and going (the present participle of the verb go, used as an adjective in sentences such as "Ten dollars per hour is the going rate"). Other constructs that often modify nouns include prepositional phrases (as in "a rebel without a cause"), relative clauses (as in "the man who wasn't there"), other adjective clauses (as in "the bookstore where he worked"), and infinitive phrases (as in "a cake to die for"). In relation, many nouns take complements such as content clauses (as in "the idea that I would do that"); these are not commonly considered modifiers, however.

Adjective order
In many languages, attributive adjectives usually occur in a specific order. In general, the adjective order in English is: Determiners articles, adverbs, and other limiters.

Observation postdeterminers and limiter adjectives (e.g., a real hero, a perfect idiot) and adjectives subject to subjective measure (e.g., beautiful, interesting), or objects with a value (e.g., best, cheapest, costly) Size and Shape adjectives subject to objective measure (e.g., wealthy, large, round), and physical properties such as speed. Age adjectives denoting age (e.g., young, old, new, ancient, six-year-old). Color adjectives denoting color (e.g., red, black, pale). Origin denominal adjectives denoting source of noun (e.g., French, American, Canadian). Material denominal adjectives denoting what something is made of (e.g., woolen, metallic, wooden). Qualifier final limiter, often regarded as part of the noun (e.g., rocking chair, hunting cabin, passenger car, book cover). So, in English, adjectives pertaining to size precede adjectives pertaining to age ("little old", not "old little"), which in turn generally precede adjectives pertaining to color ("old white", not "white old"). So, we would say "One (quantity) nice (opinion) little (size) round (shape) old (age) white (color) brick (material) house." This order may be more rigid in some languages than others; in some, like Spanish, it may only be a default (unmarked) word order, with other orders being permissible. Due partially to borrowings from French, English has some adjectives that follow the noun as postmodifiers, called postpositive adjectives, such as time immemorial and attorney general. Adjectives may even change meaning depending on whether they precede or follow, as in proper: They live in a proper town (a real town, not a village) vs. They live in the town proper (in the town itself, not in the suburbs). All adjectives can follow nouns in certain constructions, such as tell me something new.

Comparison of adjectives
In many languages, some adjectives are comparable. For example, a person may be "polite", but another person may be "more polite", and a third person may be the "most polite" of the three. The word "more" here modifies the adjective "polite" to indicate a comparison is being made, and "most" modifies the adjective to indicate an absolute comparison (a superlative). Many adjectives do not lend themselves to comparison, however. For example, it does not make sense to speak of something that is "more here" than another, or of something "most here". Such adjectives are called non-comparable.

Comparable adjectives are also known as gradable adjectives, because they tend to allow grading adverbs such as "very", "rather", and so on. Among languages that allow adjectives to be compared, different means are used to indicate the comparison. Many languages do not distinguish comparative from superlative forms. In English, there are three different means to indicate comparison: most simple adjectives take the suffixes "-er" and "-est", as "big", "bigger", "biggest"; a very few adjectives are irregular: "good", "better", "best", "bad", "worse", "worst", "old", "elder", "eldest" (in certain contexts only; the adjective is usually regular) "far", "farther/further", "farthest/furthest" "many", "more", "most" (usually regarded as an adverb or determiner) "little", "less", "least"; all others are compared by means of the words "more" and "most". There is no simple rule to decide which means is correct for any given adjective, however. The general tendency is for simpler adjectives, and those from Anglo-Saxon to take the suffixes, while longer adjectives and those from French, Latin, Greek do notbut sometimes sound of the word is the deciding factor. Even most non-comparable English adjectives may however sometimes be compared; for example, one might say that a language about which nothing is known is "more extinct" than a well-documented language with surviving literature but no speakers, or say that in an egalitarian society, some people are "more equal" than others. These cases may be viewed as statements about the degree to which the subject fits the adjective's definition, rather than the degree of intensity of the adjective.

Restrictiveness
Attributive adjectives, and other noun modifiers, may be used either restrictively (helping to identify the noun's referent, hence "restricting" its reference) or non-restrictively (helping to describe an already-identified noun). For example: "She was a lazy sort, who would avoid a difficult task and fill her working hours with easy ones."

"difficult" is restrictive - it tells us which tasks she avoids, distinguishing these from the easy ones: "Only those tasks that are difficult". "He had the job of sorting out the mess left by his predecessor, and he performed this difficult task with great acumen." "difficult" is non-restrictive - we already know which task it was, but the adjective describes it more fully: "The aforementioned task, which (by the way) is difficult" In some languages, such as Spanish, restrictiveness is consistently marked; for example, in Spanish la tarea difcil means "the difficult task" in the sense of "the task that is difficult" (restrictive), whereas la difcil tarea means "the difficult task" in the sense of "the task, which is difficult" (non-restrictive). In English, restrictiveness is not marked on adjectives, but is marked on relative clauses (the difference between "the man who recognized me was there" and "the man, who recognized me, was there" being one of restrictiveness).

References:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjective
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/adjectives.htm http://www.writingcentre.uottawa.ca/hypergrammar/adjectve.html http://www.chompchomp.com/terms/adjective.htm http://grammar.about.com/od/ab/g/adjecterm.htm

Adjective Classes: A Cross-linguistic Typology by R.M.W. Dixon, Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald

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