4 Adjectives and Adverbs

In this section I’ve grouped the two parts of speech that are used to describe things in a sentence: adjectives and adverbs. Though they both do the job of describing things, they differ in terms of which types of words they describe.

I’m also going to introduce a term: modify. Modify simply means to give more information about something. It’s a synonym of describe. We’re going to use modify in our later discussions about sentence structure, so we might as well get used to it now.

Adjectives

Adjectives modify nouns (and, less often, pronouns).  They often describe a noun’s properties or qualities, answering these questions: How many? What type? Which one?

The fluffy kitten snuggled up to me on the leather couch. 

My ankle was swollen.

Where Do Adjectives Go?

Adjectives appear two places:

• Before the noun they are describing, like in the first sentence above (fluffy before kitten; leather before couch).
• After a linking verb, as in the second sentence above (swollen appears after the linking verb was).

Co-ordinate and Cumulative Adjectives

Sometimes you might want or need to use multiple adjectives to describe something, as in the following sentences.

Few novice cooks can make a good omelet.

Those poisonous, dangerous spiders live in Australia.

Now you might be wondering why I placed a comma between adjectives in the second sentence but not the first. And you might also be thinking to yourself, “that comma seems necessary — it feels right.” If so, that’s great, because that comma is indeed necessary. Here’s why.

In the second sentence, the adjectives are called co-ordinate adjectives, which means that they modify the noun (spiders) independently of one another. You could swap the order of them, for example, and the meaning of the sentence doesn’t change. When you use two co-ordinate adjectives, place a comma between them.

In the first sentence, however, uses cumulative adjectives that build up the meaning in two stages.

1. 1. novice + cooks –> establishes a specific group of cooks
   2. Few + novice cooks –> tells us how many of those novice cooks

Because the adjectives are working together in a specific way, the order of adjectives matters. And you don’t need a comma here because a comma would be weirdly separating those two adjectives that are working together.

Adverbs

Adverbs have a similar job to adjectives: they describe (or modify) other words in a sentence. Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. In doing so, they answer to the following questions: How? When? Where? To what extent?

Most runners in the race were extremely fast.
(extremely modifies the adjective fast)

Carlita slowly jogged to the finish line.
(slowly modifies the verb jogged)

She had prepared very poorly for the race.
(very modifies the adverb poorly)

Notice that two of the adverbs above (three, if you count poorly) end in -ly. That’s one clue to identifying adverbs; many of them end in -ly. However, they don’t all share that ending. Here’s a quick list of common adverbs with different endings:

• very
• well
• sometimes, often
• never
• soon
• here, there
• today, yesterday, tomorrow

Where Should Adverbs Go?

Because adverbs can modify so many different types of words, it’s important to place them deliberately so readers understand which word they’re modifying. Readers will assume that adverbs modify the verb/adjective/adverb closest to them. Let’s take a quick look at a few sentences to show how the placement of the adverb only can affect the meaning of a sentence.

The child ate only plain noodles for three weeks.
Meaning: The only thing the child ate for three weeks was plain noodles.

The child ate plain noodles for only three weeks.
Meaning: The child ate plain noodles for just one three-week period. 

The child only ate plain noodles for three weeks.
Meaning: The only thing the child did for three weeks was eat plain noodles.

Keep that in mind when you write. Place the adverb as close as possible to the thing that it is modifying.