Adjective

An adjective is a part of speech which modifies a noun, usually making its meaning more specific. Adjectives are used in a predicative or attributive manner. In some languages, attributive adjectives precede the noun. This is the case in the Germanic languages, to which the English language belongs. In other languages, e.g. the Romance languages, the adjective follows the noun. However, adjective is not a universal word class; in other words, some languages do not have any adjectives. The Chinese languages, for example, have no adjectives; all the words that are translated into English as adjectives are, in fact, stative verbs.

Related Topics:
Part of speech - Noun - Germanic languages - English language - Romance languages - Chinese language - Stative verb

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Some linguists also classify possessive pronouns, such as his or her, and demonstratives, such as this or that as adjectives. However, they can only be used in an attributive manner.

Related Topics:
Possessive pronoun - Demonstrative

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

An adjectival phrase is a phrase with an adjective as its head (e.g. full of toys). Adjectival phrases may occur as postmodifiers to a noun (a bin full of toys), or as predicatives to a verb (the bin is full of toys).

Related Topics:
Adjectival phrase - Phrase

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Adjectives are sometimes used in place of nouns, as in many of the Beatitudes (e.g. "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy"); these are called substantive adjectives. Such usage is very common in the Romance languages. In languages with grammatical genders, such as Latin, the gender of the adjective may indicate the gender of the implied noun; thus malus means the bad man; mala, the bad woman; malum, the bad thing. In some languages, participles are used as adjectives.

Related Topics:
Beatitudes - Substantive adjective - Romance languages - Grammatical gender - Participle

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

English is rather unusual in that it allows nouns to be used attributively, as in a Georgia peach. These are not adjectives, as they cannot be used predicatively. While ripe has both roles (a ripe peach is similar in meaning to the peach is ripe), a Georgia peach cannot be rephrased as *the peach is Georgia.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~