{"id":613,"date":"2016-07-22T15:11:39","date_gmt":"2016-07-22T19:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greeklatinroots\/?post_type=chapter&p=613"},"modified":"2016-08-22T13:48:24","modified_gmt":"2016-08-22T17:48:24","slug":"%c2%a725-what-is-an-adjective","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greeklatinroots\/chapter\/%c2%a725-what-is-an-adjective\/","title":{"raw":"\u00a725. What is an Adjective?","rendered":"\u00a725. What is an Adjective?"},"content":{"raw":"

The Romans used the term adjectivum <\/b>to identify a word that was \u201cthrown beside\u201d or added to a noun. It is a part of speech that denotes a quality or attribute of a noun: a good<\/i> woman, a warm<\/i> kiss, an evil<\/i> person. Accordingly, we can define an adjective as a WORD THAT DESCRIBES OR MODIFIES A NOUN.<\/p>\r\n

By the structural rules of English, an adjective may occur in two rather different environments: \u201cmy ----- friend\u201d or \u201cMy friend is -----.\u201d Any of the following English adjectives may be used to complete either of those structural patterns:<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \r\n \t
  1. good, old, fat, late, wise, dear<\/em><\/li>\r\n \t
  2. better, older, best, oldest, dearest<\/em><\/li>\r\n \t
  3. manly, foolish, catlike, wonderful<\/em><\/li>\r\n \t
  4. smiling, forgotten, forgetful, bewildered<\/em><\/li>\r\n \t
  5. one, first, third<\/em><\/li>\r\n \t
  6. ill-mannered, left-handed<\/em><\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\nAll these English examples, as you may have guessed, are adjectives of Germanic descent. The words in group 1 are simple adjectives, whereas those in group 2 are forms in the comparative or superlative degree. Group 3 consists of adjectives that are derived from English nouns, while group 4 illustrates adjectives that are derived from English verbs. Numerals belong to the general category of adjectives, as we see from group 5; of course, if we used a plural number, we would have to pluralize the noun: \u201cmy five friends<\/b><\/span>.\u201d Finally, group 6 introduces a couple of compound adjectives.\r\n

    In due course, you will learn that all these adjectival types existed in the Latin language, and that their various derivatives have had a profound influence on English. In this chapter, however, we are not going to worry about the more complex Latin forms; for the present, we\u2019ll confine our survey to simple adjectives, like those in group 1 above, with a brief glance at the comparatives and superlatives of group 2.<\/p>","rendered":"

    The Romans used the term adjectivum <\/b>to identify a word that was \u201cthrown beside\u201d or added to a noun. It is a part of speech that denotes a quality or attribute of a noun: a good<\/i> woman, a warm<\/i> kiss, an evil<\/i> person. Accordingly, we can define an adjective as a WORD THAT DESCRIBES OR MODIFIES A NOUN.<\/p>\n

    By the structural rules of English, an adjective may occur in two rather different environments: \u201cmy —– friend\u201d or \u201cMy friend is —–.\u201d Any of the following English adjectives may be used to complete either of those structural patterns:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. good, old, fat, late, wise, dear<\/em><\/li>\n
    2. better, older, best, oldest, dearest<\/em><\/li>\n
    3. manly, foolish, catlike, wonderful<\/em><\/li>\n
    4. smiling, forgotten, forgetful, bewildered<\/em><\/li>\n
    5. one, first, third<\/em><\/li>\n
    6. ill-mannered, left-handed<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      All these English examples, as you may have guessed, are adjectives of Germanic descent. The words in group 1 are simple adjectives, whereas those in group 2 are forms in the comparative or superlative degree. Group 3 consists of adjectives that are derived from English nouns, while group 4 illustrates adjectives that are derived from English verbs. Numerals belong to the general category of adjectives, as we see from group 5; of course, if we used a plural number, we would have to pluralize the noun: \u201cmy five friends<\/b><\/span>.\u201d Finally, group 6 introduces a couple of compound adjectives.<\/p>\n

      In due course, you will learn that all these adjectival types existed in the Latin language, and that their various derivatives have had a profound influence on English. In this chapter, however, we are not going to worry about the more complex Latin forms; for the present, we\u2019ll confine our survey to simple adjectives, like those in group 1 above, with a brief glance at the comparatives and superlatives of group 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"menu_order":1,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"Chapter 4: Simple Latin Adjectives","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[52],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-613","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","chapter-type-numberless"],"part":580,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greeklatinroots\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greeklatinroots\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greeklatinroots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greeklatinroots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greeklatinroots\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1341,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greeklatinroots\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/613\/revisions\/1341"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greeklatinroots\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/580"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greeklatinroots\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/613\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greeklatinroots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greeklatinroots\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=613"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greeklatinroots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=613"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greeklatinroots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}