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| DEFINITION (fragment from Definition M3 in LSEG) "Adjective" is the sentence element used to qualify/determine a noun or a noun-equivalent construction. Morphologically, adjectives are noun determiners; syntactically, adjectives are ... The notion of "noun-equivalent" refers to a sentence element or to a phrase/expression working as one noun. The following topics are summarily presented in this page: 1. Categories of Adjectives 2. Comparing Adjectives 3. Determining Adjectives 4. Forming Adjectives | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ATTENTION These Grammar Notes are not sufficient to understand the topics presented. For accurate and detailed information we recommend LOGICALLY STRUCTURED ENGLISH GRAMMAR. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
First of all, adjectives are: A. qualifying B. determining The group of determining adjectives is a bit more complex; it includes: B1. possessive adjectives B2. demonstrative adjectives B3. interrogative adjectives B4. relative adjectives B5. indefinite adjectives Syntactically, qualifying adjectives are (generally) employed as: 1. attributes 2. predicative complements (subjective or objective complements) Predicative complements employing (only) adjectives are also known as "predicative adjectives" NOTE Particular attention needs to be exercised when dealing with the following instances (details are presented in LSEG): 1. adjectives and adverbs having exactly the same form 2. adjectives requiring particular prepositions 3. adjectives preceded by adverbs 4. adjectives qualifying many nouns 5. adjectives qualifying pronouns 6. positioning adjectives 7. adjectives in comparative sentences 8. adjectives working as subjective complements (predicative adjectives) 9. adjectives working as objective complements (predicative adjectives) 10. using particular adjectives (number, gender, range of applications, and case agreement with the determined nouns) 11. forming and using adjective equivalents 12. determining adjectives vs. determining pronouns vs. determining adverbs 13. adjective's syntactic functions Another interesting aspect is, adjectives formed from nouns in synthetic genitive (details are presented in LSEG).
Adjectives positioned near verbs could be a source of confusion, because that is exactly the way
the adverbs work. However, only particular verbs (copulas) allow predicative adjectives, and you should
note that adjectives still qualify the nouns, only, regardless of their position within the sentence structure. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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