Adjectives - Different Types

This lesson is on different types of adjectives we can group adjectives into six common types and these are descriptive quantitative demonstrative possessive interrogative and distributive.

We’ll look at examples of all of those.

Now

descriptive adjectives are probably the most common in use only think of adjectives as things that describe nouns and modify nouns the ones that usually spring to mind are these descriptive ones for example the dog is hungry Tom is exhausted Phil’s paintings are amazing pulls a comedian he’s funny the flowers are lovely and have a wonderful smell.

In this example we can really see where adjectives are useful if we didn’t have them we just say flowers have a smell doesn’t really tell us much but saying they’re lovely have a wonderful smell gives us much more information and even better example is this next one the red sofa has green cushions with blue stripes and you can really sort of picture that in your mind if we didn’t have the adjective you just say the sofa has cushions with stripes and you asked 10 people you get ten different ideas about what this sofa looks like.

What were the adjectives you get us on a similar idea.

Because it tells you much more detail what it really looks like to quantitative adjectives.

Tell us about a number or a quantity and answer the question how many or how much.

And just as a reminder we use how many for countable nouns and how much for uncountable nouns there’s some countable examples 27 people are swimming in the pool my brother has three children please go to the shops and buy eight apples and seven bananas We have some with how much I think your plants need more water.

did you really eat the whole cake the old woman has many grandchildren that demonstrative examples point out nouns or pronouns and they always come directly before the word that they’re referring to and the four common demonstrative adjectives are this that these and those and they all have specific uses so this and that are for singular items and these and those are for plural items in this and these are for things close to us that and those are for things further away.

So that gives us the for this is one thing close to me that is one thing far away these are many things close and those are many things far away and we’ll see examples of those but would you like this cake or that cake.

So this cake is nearby or that one is over there.

I would like to buy that shirt and someone pointing to a specific shirt over there why did you buy these pears.

The already rotten I’ve seen you have them in the hand or close by in the basket and I wonder who owns those horses they’re magnificent.

Someone’s seen some horses further away in a field than ever fell into those horses over there.

Possessive adjectives show ownership or possession but there are lots of them.

My her they’re your.

An hour have to be followed by a noun and the equivalent versions of those without a noun are mine hers theirs yours and ours.

And as a small exception is can be used both with and without a noun as we will see.

Whose bike is that.

The answer is it’s my bike or it’s mine.

Now if you just use the first one without the noun it’s my it is wrong or it’s mine.

Bike is also wrong.

So either it’s my bike or it’s mine.

Pizza sold his car to Susan it’s hers.

Now in this first half of the sentence his car and then it’s hers now so hers has no noun after it if you think their house is grand.

You should see ours.

Again there is from the group that has to be followed by a noun.

Ours is from the group that doesn’t your cake is delicious.

So much nicer than mine.

And again your with the noun.

Mine without.

And as you can maybe tell by the name interactive.

Adjectives are used to ask questions and they are what which.

And whose and they are always followed by a noun.

This is important but what film do you want to watch this evening.

And here we see what followed by a noun so it is interrogator of adjective.

What do you want to do this evening is a very similar question but what is not followed by a noun and so is not an interrogator adjective such an interrogator pronoun which is why it’s not in italics Which tie do you like with this suit.

Do you know whose car that is in this examples of the three types of interactive adjective in use and distributive.

Adjectives are used to single out one or more things as nouns pronouns that type of thing.

Common distributive adjectives are each every either neither and any and again they’re always followed by a noun Linda wore a bracelet on each ankle every employee will receive a bonus this year I don’t mind what we watch either film is fine by me Neither Bob nor Andy is qualified for the position you can choose the music put on any CDU like all hope be noticed by the either and neither we can pronounce them how you wish can either pronounce it either or either and neither or neither.

There’s no preference as no one is correct the other is incorrect it’s purely as you wish the bride receive each and every present on her wish list.

This is a slight sort of exception to the usage here because by using each and every it emphasizes the fact that she received every single present on her wish list and it’s a fairly common expression that you would use when maybe talking to somebody but maybe not.

He wouldn’t use it in formal writing.