The role of adjectives

hmm... hmm... Adjectives are words that describe nouns. For example: A blue painting A funny alien A nice dog An Italian painting A great art class Adjectives can for example describe how something looks blue or what something is: funny, nice, great They can also describe something like a thing’s origin: Italian Words can do different things in a sentence depending on how they are used. We say that they have different grammatical functions.

Adjectives are mostly used to describe nouns, tell us their properties. In this case, we say that adjectives have a descriptive function – or an attributive function. All of the adjectives we’ve seen so far have an attributive function. When used like this, the adjectives go together with the noun they are describing, and are part of the same clause element. Adjectives can also have a different grammatical function.

For example, when they are used together with verbs like: be, become, turn There are many more verbs like this. We could say that they are “linking” verbs, the important part comes after the verb. The adjective completes the verb. be funny become beautiful turn red When an adjective completes the verb in this way, we say that it has a predicative function. The alien is funny The painting became beautiful.

Lingo turned red. An adjective with a predicative function can either say something about the subject of a clause… like in these sentences. ...or about an object of a clause, when we are doing something to someone or something: Lingo is painting the dog red The dog This here is the object of the clause, and the adjective describes the dog. red So far, we have seen adjectives that say something about nouns. But adjectives can also have other uses. Sometimes an adjective can replace a noun, and be the main word of a subject ..or an object.

The young teach the old. This happens when you talk about a group, where all in the group can be described with the same adjective. young, old They are adjectives, but function as nouns in this sentence. Subject and object. This can also be done with adjectives like these: impossible, good For example: I will attempt the impossible.

Good will triumph. Finally, adjectives can also be used as exclamations, or interjections: Great! Awesome! Good! Beautiful!

For example, if you see a really good, awesome, beautiful painting. ...or dog.