Adjectives

What are Adjectives?

• Adjectives are modifiers. They modify nouns or pronouns. This means they change the image of a noun or pronoun.

• Adjectives can be located by asking the questions:

What kind?Which one?How many?How much?

What are Adjectives?

Picture a car in your mind.

Do you have an

image in your head?

Now make it red.

What is an Adjective?

Now make it fast.

What is an Adjective?

Now make it old-fashioned.

What is an Adjective?

Now make it broken.

What is an Adjective?

Now make it green.

What is an Adjective?

Adjectives change the meaning of a noun by somehow changing the image of it.

That’s why they are called modifiers.

There are two kinds of adjectives:descriptive

and limiting.

Descriptive Adjectives• Descriptive adjectives

DESCRIBE!

• The add some sensory image to your sentence which allows the reader to see, smell, hear, touch, or taste something in the sentence.

• All of the modifiers in the earlier section of the slide show concerning the car were descriptive adjectives. They made the car red, fast, old-fashioned, broken, and green. Those words are all adjectives!

• Descriptive adjectives make writing much better!

Proper Adjectives

• One type of descriptive adjective is called the proper adjective.

• Proper adjectives are derived from, or come from, proper nouns. This means that they must always be capitalized.

• Proper adjectives sometimes are formed by adding a suffix to the proper noun.

Proper Adjectives

Examples of Proper Adjectives

Proper Noun Proper Adjective

America American

France French

China Chinese

Pennsylvania Pennsylvanian

Proper Adjectives

Sometime proper nouns don’t change in form at all when they become proper adjectives.

Ex. President Kennedy was a good leader. (In this sentence President Kennedy is a person; therefore, he is a noun.)

Ex. The Kennedy Library is very large. (in this sentence Kennedy is describing the library; therefore, it is an adjective.)

Articles

There are three articles:a

anthe

“The” is called a definite article because it points out nouns more specifically.

“A” and “an” are called indefinite articles because they do not point nouns out as specifically.

Articles

“The” can be used before both singular and plural nouns.

Ex. the cat, the houses

“A” and “an” can only be used before singular nouns.

Ex. a book, an elephant

Articles

“The” can be used before both vowels and consonants.Ex. the ant, the car

“A” must be used before consonant sounds. Ex. a duck, a fossil, a uniform

“An” must be used before a vowel sounds.Ex. an umbrella, an excuse

Demonstrative Adjectives

• Demonstrative adjectives point out a noun.• They are the same words as the

demonstrative pronouns.• There are four demonstratives:

thisthatthesethose

Location of Adjectives

Adjectives can be located in three places in a sentence.

1. The most common location is directly in front of the noun it is modifying.

Ex. the big dog, the new toy

2. Another location is after a linking verb or verb of condition. These are called predicate adjectives.

Ex. The game was interesting.3. The final location of adjectives occurs after a noun

when it is set off by commas.Ex. The book, well-written and suspenseful, kept my interest.