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Adjectives Adverbs: The Describing' Words: Words That Modify Others, Giving You Optional Further Information

This document discusses adjectives and adverbs, including: 1. Adjectives modify nouns and can appear in attributive or predicative positions, while adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, or whole sentences. 2. Both adjectives and adverbs can be compared using suffixes like -er, -est, more, or most. Adjectives can also be turned into adverbs by adding -ly. 3. Context clues like possible positions, morphology, and comparisons can help determine if a word is being used as an adjective or adverb. Multiple pieces of evidence are needed since words can belong to different classes.

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Ashfaq Aslam
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54 views

Adjectives Adverbs: The Describing' Words: Words That Modify Others, Giving You Optional Further Information

This document discusses adjectives and adverbs, including: 1. Adjectives modify nouns and can appear in attributive or predicative positions, while adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, or whole sentences. 2. Both adjectives and adverbs can be compared using suffixes like -er, -est, more, or most. Adjectives can also be turned into adverbs by adding -ly. 3. Context clues like possible positions, morphology, and comparisons can help determine if a word is being used as an adjective or adverb. Multiple pieces of evidence are needed since words can belong to different classes.

Uploaded by

Ashfaq Aslam
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The ‘describing’ words: words that modify others, giving you optional further information

Adjectives: modify nouns

Adverbs: modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, & whole sentences

Part of speech Possible morphology What kind of positions can an adjective appear in?

1. In ‘Attributive’ position, modifying a noun:

awful That quiet room would be suitable.

magical A busy street can

Adjective presentable

childish 2. In ‘predicative’ position, telling us about the subject. This


kind of sentence has a copula verb like be or seems
active
That room is quiet.
penniless, etc
A street seems busy if there’s lots of buses.

You can compare one-


syllable adjectives with –er Some adjectives must be followed by a preposition:
or –est
He is fond of his daughter
Simple
*He is fond.
Simpler
Some adjectives can optionally have more information
simplest following:

He was quick to learn about grammar

The students seem happy about the changes

You can compare adjectives with two or more syllables by adding


more or most:

The more influential politician

The most laughable mistake


Also, you can turn a lot of
adjectives into adverbs by
adding –ly
Part of speech Possible endings Possible neighbours, some examples

-ly These are quite free in where they can be placed, depending partly
on what role they’re playing (i.e. what they’re telling us about):
Forwards

Adverb Sideways
- Modifying a whole sentence (and expressing the speaker’s
Greek-style attitude to what is being said):

Fortunately, it’s not raining today.

It’s not raining today, fortunately

- Modifying an adjective (e.g. ‘intensifiers’):

That very cheerful man

Your fast car

- Modifying a verb:

He sang cheerfully.

He ran quickly.

- Modifying another adverb:

He sang very cheerfully.

He ran remarkably quickly.

You can compare adverbs by adding more or most:

That machine does it more swiftly.

He answered most intelligently.


So, if you want to know if a word is an adjective or adverb, try putting it into the kind of positions
above that you know adjectives and adverbs can appear in. You can come up with the sentences
yourself, just think of several sentences that include a word you know is an adjective or adverb, then
see if the mystery word can also appear in the adjective/adverb position. Also, look at its
morphology, any clues there? Can you compare it by adding –er or –est or –more /-most? If it’s an
adjective, can it be turned into an adverb by adding -ly? If you took away the –ly ending, would it be
an adjective? Remember, you need more than one piece of evidence: words are slippery, often
appearing as different word classes in different sentences.

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