Adjectives

Definition

• Static property

• Temporary or permanent

• State or condition

• People or things

Properties

• Gradable, greater or lesser

• Take intensifying modifiers (highly, extremely, very)

• Often modify nouns

• Do not have plurals (unlike nouns, with only a few exceptions)

Forms

• Comparative form: inflected with -er for short adjective

• Superlative form: inflected -est, maximum degree

• For longer complex adjectives: more, most.

• more and most are modifiers, and together with the adjective it’s an AdjPs.

Attributive

You can use the definite article plus an attributive adjective, and it counts grammatically as part of the NP

The good, the bad, and the ugly (adjective serves as modifier and head)

Complements in AdjPs

Just like verbs, adjectives

Caveat and special cases

Russians, Israelis (adj, plural like noun)

The British, the Swiss

The poor are…, The Swiss are… (adj., singular form used as plural, only for human beings)

The unthinkable (adj., special case of NP w/o a head noun) The unknown (adj. developed usage as a noun, rare)