Adjectives: Characteristics, Formation, and Syntactic Roles
Characteristics of Adjectives
Central Adjectives
Central adjectives can be inflected to show comparative and superlative degrees (e.g., nice-nicer-nicest). They have two main syntactic roles:
- Attributive: Part of a noun phrase, preceding and modifying the noun (e.g., brown eyes).
- Predicative: Characterizes a noun phrase that is a separate clause element. They typically occur as subject predicatives following a copular verb (be, appear, smell…) and describe the subject (e.g., The cake smells nice). They can also function as object predicatives, describing the object.
Central adjectives are descriptive, gradable (can take comparative and superlative forms), and characterize the referent of a nominal expression. Types include color (e.g., green), size/dimension (e.g., enormous), and time (e.g., new, old).
Peripheral Adjectives
Peripheral adjectives don’t share all the characteristics of central adjectives. Many only occur in either attributive or predicative roles, but not both. Examples include unable (predicative: I was totally unable to mend it) and mere (attributive: a mere 40% of men attend to their children). Other examples include afraid, different, absolute, and beautiful. Adjectives with the prefix a- are usually predicative (e.g., afraid, alike, alive, alone, aware, asleep). Adjectives ending in -al show a strong preference for attributive position (e.g., general, local, national, social, industrial).
The Formation of Adjectives
- Participial Adjectives: Most are derived from verbs (e.g., promising, surprised). -ed and -ing participial forms can be used as adjectives. New participial adjectives can be formed by adding a negative prefix (e.g., salted water/unsalted butter). Many -ing/-ed forms can serve both attributive and predicative functions (e.g., boring, confused), although they are more common with attributive uses. Common examples include corresponding, missing, working, outstanding, confused, excited, educated, unemployed, pleased, and interested.
- Derivational Suffixes: Adjectives can be formed from other adjectives, especially using negative prefixes (un-, in-, non-) (e.g., untidy, intolerable, nonsensical). Derived adjectives are most common in academic writing. Adjectives formed with -al are common, often referring to specialized words in academic contexts (e.g., pneumococcal). The same applies to -ous adjectives, though some are common in all registers (e.g., final, central, general, serious, obvious, previous). Suffixes like -ent (e.g., indifferent), -ive (e.g., abusive), and -ous (e.g., frivolous) are relatively common. Many -ent adjectives are derived from verbs (e.g., differ-ent), while -ive adjectives have various sources (verbs, nouns).
- Adjectival Compounds: Combinations of more than one word. Examples include adjective+adjective (e.g., greyish-blue), adjective+noun (e.g., full-time), noun+adjective (e.g., life-long), adverb+-ed participle (e.g., newly-built), adverb+-ing participle (e.g., slow-moving), adverb+adjective (e.g., highly-sensitive), and reduplicative (e.g., roly-poly). Alternative expressions to these compounds would require a full clause, often a relative clause (e.g., slow-moving animals = the tortoises which are slow-moving animals). Some compounds would be analyzed as two words if the hyphen were missing.
Semantic Categories of Adjectives
Descriptors (Describe, Gradable)
- Color (e.g., blue)
- Size/Quantity/Extent (e.g., big, little, wide)
- Time (e.g., daily, old, often)
- Evaluative/Emotive (e.g., bad, lovely, fine)
- Miscellaneous (e.g., cold, empty, free, positive, strong, sudden)
Classifiers (Restrict, Non-Gradable)
- Relational/Classificational/Restrictive (e.g., additional, maximum, final, following, general)
- Affiliative (e.g., Australian, Irish)
- Topical (e.g., legal, social, political)
Some adjectives are borderline between descriptors and classifiers (e.g., old jumper vs. poor old thing).
Adjectives in Combination
Repeated comparative adjectives (e.g., bigger and bigger) denote increasing degree, especially in fiction, often after resulting copular verbs. Some use more (e.g., He got more and more big). Intensifiers good and/nice and intensify meaning in predicative position (e.g., Milk makes you nice and strong). In attributive position, the first adjective retains its meaning (e.g., There are nice and cheap dresses).
Attributive Adjectives
Attributive adjectives modify common nouns (e.g., favorite food), proper place nouns (e.g., old-fashioned Istanbul), and occasionally people’s names (e.g., little Sarah) and personal pronouns in conversation and fiction (e.g., poor me).
Predicative Adjectives
1. Subject Predicatives
Complement copular verbs and characterize the subject (e.g., It would be easier to go get the keys). Many have prepositional phrases, to-infinitive clauses, or that-clauses complementing their meaning.
2. Object Predicatives
Occur with complex transitive verbs, following the direct object, characterizing the object (e.g., She had all her exercises wrong).
Other Syntactic Roles of Adjectives
- Postposed Modifiers: Follow the head word, common with compound indefinite pronouns (e.g., everything possible) and fixed expressions (e.g., notary public). Long adjective phrases often follow head nouns.
- Noun Phrase Heads: Can be modified by adverbs and take premodifiers, typically referring to groups of people (e.g., the rich).
- Linking Expressions: Link clauses or sentences (e.g., even worse, he left home).
- Free Modifiers: Modify noun phrases peripherally, often sentence-initial (e.g., Really frightened, Lucy screamed).
- Exclamations: Great! Amazing!
Modals Combined with Aspect and Voice
Modals combine with aspect and voice, not tense. Perfect aspect (modal + have + -ed participle) expresses logical necessity with must and should (e.g., They must have saved more). May and might express doubt about past events. Progressive aspect (modal + be + -ing participle) is less common (e.g., He must have been ill). Passive voice (modal + be + -ed participle) expresses possibility with can and could (e.g., The work could be finished). Must and should express collective obligation in academic prose (e.g., Studying should be an obligation).