ADJECTIVES
Nguyen Thi Kim Anh-DFL
I. Kinds of adjectives
The main kinds
Participles used as adjectives
II. Positions of adjectives
III. Orders of quality adj
IV. Comparisons
I. Kinds of adjectives
A. The main kinds are:
1. Demonstrative: this, that, these, those
2. Distributive: each, every, either, neither
3. Quantitative: some, any, no, little, few, many, much, one, twenty
4. Interrogative: which, what, whose
5. Possessive: my, your, his, her, its, our, their, your
6. Of quality: clever, dry, fat, golden, good, heavy, square
B. Participles used as adjectives
a. Present participle adjectives: amusing, boring, interesting, tiring, etc are active and means “having this effect”.
b. Past participle adjectives: amused, bored, interested, tired, etc are passive and mean “affected in this way”
E.g.
The play was boring. The audience was bored
The work is tiring. The workers were tired.
II. Positions of adjectives
1. Adjectives in groups (a)-(e) above come before their nouns:
E.g. this book, which boy, my dog
Adjectives in this position are called attributive adjectives.
2. Adjectives of quality, however, can come either before their nouns: a rich man, a happy girl or after a verb such as
(a) be, become, seem:
E.g. Tom became rich.
Ann seems happy.
b) appear, feel, get/ grow(= become), keep, look (appear), make, smell, sound, taste, turn:
E.g. Tom felt cold.
He got/grew impatient.
The idea sounds interesting.
Adjectives in this position are called predicative adjectives.
Verbs used in this way are called link verbs or copulas.

3. A few adjectives can have a different meaning as attributive adjectives from their meaning as predicative adjectives.
E.g. an early/late train means a train scheduled to run early or late in the day
The train is early/late means that it is before or after its proper time.
4. A few can be used only as attributive or only as predicative
(a). Only predicative:
-Some adjectives relating to health, including: ill, poorly, well/unwell, fine
- Adjectives beginning with a, including: asleep, afraid, alive, alone.
- Some adjectives describing feelings, including
content, glad, pleased, sorry,
- near, far: It’s not far away.
(b) Only attributive:
Adjectives which qualify the noun, including: chief, main, only, particular, principal, sole:
E.g. You are my only friend.
III. Order of adjectives of quality
Several variations are possible but a fairly usual order is:
Opinion: expensive, beautiful, attrative, etc
Size/physical quality: big/small/ huge/ tiny, etc
Age: new/ old/ ancient/ modern/ latest/ etc.
Shape: round/ square/ oval/ triangle/etc
Color: red/ blue/ white/ grey/ black, etc.
participle adjectives: boring, disappointed,
7. Origin: Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, etc
8. Material: silk, brick, gold, wood, etc
9. Type: digital,
10. Purpose: alarm, dining, walking, etc
11. noun: clock, table, cane, etc
a useful; digital alarm clock (= opinion, type, purpose, noun)
a frightening Korean mask (= opinion, origin, noun)
a hard red ball (= quality, colour, noun)
a red Chinese silk shirt (= colour, origin, material, noun)
IV. Comparisons
We use the comparative when comparing one person or thing with another.
The superlative when comparing one person or thing with more than one other.
1. Formation of comparisons
a. One syllable adjectives
- Comparative: adj +er
E.g. short-shorter; fast- faster; cold-colder
Superlative: the adj + est
E.g. short-the shortest; fast-the fastest; cold- the coldest
b. Adjectives with more than one syllable
- Comparative: more + adjective
E.g. modern- more modern;
beautiful- more beautiful
Superlative: the most + adjective
E.g. modern- the most modern
beautiful- the most beautiful
2. Two syllable adjectives ending in -y:
E.g. funny- funnier- the funniest;
early- earlier- the earliest
Notes
One syllable adjectives with single vowel and single consonant: double consonant before adding –er or est; hot, thin, big
hot- hotter- the hottest
thin- thinner- the thinnest
big- bigger- the biggest
simple- simpler- the simplest;
noble- nobler- the noblest
clever- cleverer- the cleverest;
narrow- narrower- the narrowest
quiet- quieter- the quietest or quiet- more- quiet- the most quiet
3. Irregular forms
good/well- better- best
bad/ badly- worse- worst
old- older/elder- oldest/ eldest
far- farther/ further- farthest/ furthest
much/many-more- most
little- less-least
Elder/ eldest describe family relations. Elder is not followed by than.
My elder brother is studying in England.
My brother is older than me (not elder than me)
Farther/ farthest are used only distance. Further/furthest are used for distance but they also mean more/most.
Today we walked farther/ further than we did yesterday.
There are no further details available yet.
4. When we compare two people or things, we can use the + comparative (not the + superlative)
E.g. Sam is the taller of the two brothers.
5. We can emphasize the meaning of adjectives and adverbs by adding:
very, pretty, most, rather, quite, fairly in the positive degree
E.g. He was most annoyed by the flight delay.
a bit, a lot, even, far, much, rather in the comparative degree.
She is far more attractive than her sister.

6. Other types of comparisons
a. Similarity:
as...as:
I won`t miss a film as interesting as that one.
the same as:
This exercise is the same as the previous one.
like: He must be sleeping like a log.
b. Dissimilarity:
not so/as +....as
E.g. A bicycle is not so/as fast as a car.
not such as +.....+ noun + as
E.g. Tim is not such a fast runner as his brother
c. Superiority
comparative/ superlative
E.g. A car is faster than a bicycle
This is the slowest car I`ve ever driven.
twice/ three times as....as;
E.g. He works twice as hard as his son.
d. Inferiority
less...than:
E.g. Italian food is less spicy than Indian.
the least:
E.g. This is the least interesting book I`ve ever read.
e. Successive comparison, meaning that the second depends on the first.
the + comparative.....the + comparative
E.g. The sooner we arrive, the better.
The more you study, the more successful you become.
f. Successive comparison, indicating a continual change:
comparative + comparative
The ozone layer is getting thinner and thinner.