English Grammar Drills - Mark Lester 2009
“True” adjectives
2 Adjectives
Part 1 Noun Phrases
The term adjective can be used broadly for any word that modifies a noun. In this book, however, we will divide all noun modifiers into three smaller groups and address each group in a separate chapter. In this chapter we will cover what we will call “true” adjectives. In Chapter 3 we will cover articles, and in Chapter 4 we will cover all post-noun modifiers, modifiers that follow the nouns they modify.
“True” adjectives
True adjectives have three distinctive features:
1. They immediately precede the nouns that they modify.
2. They have comparative and superlative forms.
3. They can be used as predicate adjectives.
To see the difference between a true adjective and another common type of noun modifier, let us compare the true adjective slow and the article the. Both slow and the are adjectives in the broad sense because they both modify nouns. For example, they modify the noun cars in the following sentences:
Slow cars should stay in the right lane.
The cars in the left lane passed me.
However, as a true adjective, slow has three characteristics that the does not have:
1. It always immediately precedes the noun being modified. We see in the preceding example sentences that both slow and the can be used immediately in front of the noun they modify. But what happens if we use both slow and the to modify the same noun? We can say this:
The slow cars moved into the right lane.
But we cannot say this:
X Slow the cars moved into the right lane.
There is a strict left-to-right rule that says that articles (and other types of noun modifiers as well) must precede true adjectives when they both modify the same noun. In other words, no other noun modifier can come between a true noun and the noun it modifies.
2. It has comparative and superlative forms. We can use slow in the comparative and superlative forms, but there are no comparative and superlative forms for the article the:
Base form |
Comparative form |
Superlative form |
slow |
slower |
slowest |
the |
X ther |
X thest |
3. It can be used as a predicate adjective. The term predicate adjective refers to adjectives that function as predicates of linking verbs. (These terms are explained in detail in Chapter 10.) For now, let’s just look at some examples of predicate adjectives:
The Tower of London is ancient.
The children are quiet.
Our dinner is ready.
The verb be is by far the most common linking verb. The predicate adjective in linking verb sentences is used to give information about the subject. In the three example sentences, ancient gives information about the Tower of London, quiet gives information about the children, and ready gives information about our dinner.
We can use slow as a predicate adjective, but we cannot use the:
The clock in the hall is slow.
X The clock in the hall is the.
Exercise 2.1
Here are three exercises in one. Following are pairs of noun modifiers; one member of the pair is a true adjective, and one is not. Fill in the blanks to see (1) which adjective always immediately precedes the noun, (2) which adjective has a comparative and superlative form, and (3) which adjective can be used as a predicate adjective. The noun modifier that fulfills these three criteria is the true adjective.
1. true/two
2. his/sweet
3. fast/all
4. these/hungry
5. bright/a
