ADJECTIVES

An adjective is often defined as a word which describes or gives more information about a noun or pronoun. Adjectives describe nouns in terms of such qualities as size, color, number, and kind.  In the sentence The lazy dog sat on the rug, the word lazy is an adjective which gives more information about the noun dog. We can add  more adjectives to describe the dog as well as in the sentence The lazy, old, brown dog sat on the rug. We can also add adjectives to describe the rug as in the sentence The lazy, old, brown dog sat on the beautiful, expensive, new rug. The adjectives do not change the basic meaning or structure of the sentence, but they do give a lot more information about the dog and the rug. As you can see in the example above, when more than one adjective is used, a comma (,) is used between the adjectives. Usually an adjective comes before the noun that it describes, as in tall man. It can also come after a form of the word be as in The man is tall.  More than one adjective can be used in this position in the sentence The man is tall, dark and handsome. In later lessons, you will learn how to make comparisons with adjectives. Most adjectives do not change form whether the noun it describes is singular or plural. For example we say big tree and big trees, old house and old houses, good time and good times. There are, however, some adjectives that do have different singular and plural forms. The common words this and that have the plural forms these and those. These words are called demonstrative adjectives because demonstrate or point out what is being referred to. Another common type of adjective is the possessive adjective which shows possession or ownership. The words my dog or my dogs indicate that the dog or dogs belong to me. I would use the plural form our if the dog or dogs belonged to me and other people. The chart below shows the forms of possessive adjectives.

*Person is used here as a grammar word and has these meanings :

• 1st person or the self (I, me, we),
• 2nd person or the person spoken to (you)
• 3rd person or the person spoken about (he, she, him, her, they, them).