What is adjective?

We explain what an adjective is and what is the function of this word. In addition, what are the types of adjectives that exist.

1. What is adjective?

Adjectives are a type of words whose function is to complement and specify characteristics to nouns , which it accompanies adjacently in a sentence .

The term “adjective” comes from the Latin language “adiectivus,” which means “to be added.”

2. What is the function of an adjective?

Adjectives classify or categorize all things , to nouns, highlighting the properties that can be attributed to them. So what they do is to attribute to the nouns a certain quality that is concrete, tangible and perceptible through the senses.

Adjectives can be before or after nouns . It should be noted that the adjectives that are usually used are the qualifying adjectives (eg red house , pretty woman ).

Adjectives depend on an adjacent noun to define its form : there are adjectives with a termination that do not vary according to the gender of the substantive word they accompany. And others that do vary their termination, such as terminations: good / good, bad / bad, etc.

3. Types of adjectives

According to their syntactic function they are classified as:

• Attribution adjectives :  In which the verb “to be” or “to be” is used to link them to the attribute. For example: “The night is freezing.”
• Adjectives attached :  They are those that go together to the name, noun. For example: «The new car«.
• Adjectives complement the predicate :  They are linked by a non-copulative verb in the same way as the adjectives of attribution. For example: “The owner arrived tired .”
• Appositional adjectives : They go next to the nouns but without any type of written union but if united by some punctuation mark. For example: «The dog, big «.

There is another classification of adjectives that serves to highlight the attribute of the noun of which reference is being made, the point in them is made before or without the adjective.

• Explanatory adjectives :  They express the quality of the noun and are written after it. For example: new car, black cat .
• A specific objectives : They express a certain quality by emphasizing it to represent the noun. We could say in other words, that quality gives relevance to the thing. And the adjective is positioned ahead of the noun. For example: great moment, cold night.

Adjectives that are part of an interrogative or exclamatory sentence always precede the noun and are accentuated as for example in the case of the word, how much, which, what, etc.

There is also another type of adjectives that are linked to the way they measure the amount with respect to the noun to which they are speaking. These are the quantifying adjectives, basically there are three different categories:

• Ordinal adjectives : They indicate an order, a consecutive list, are the cases such as: first, second, third, etc.
• Adjectives c ardinal :  They indicate the amount in real numbers, where there is no necessary ordering but total amount, such as: one, two, three, four.
• Multiplicative adjectives :  They are used to indicate the multiplicity of the core of the noun phrase, for example: double day, triple or quadruple, etc.