WHERE TO
PLACE AN ADJECTIVE IN A SENTENCE
The
Position of Adjectives in a Sentence
In order to
ensure that you have a properly formed and grammatically correct sentence, it
is important to position the adjectives in the correct place. We are now going
to take a look at where the adjective should be placed within a sentence in
order to make it sound as authentic as possible.
An
attribute adjective is placed before the noun it is modifying. Let’s take a
look at some examples of this.
She is
a pretty girl.
This is
my green dress.
Today, we
will have heavy rain.
Ants
have tiny legs.
It is
a hot day.
You can
also have a predicative adjective which is placed after the noun which it is
modifying. Here are some examples to demonstrate this.
This
sandwich is tasty.
The boy
is tall.
My cat’s
eyes are yellow.
The cake is
not healthy.
My daughter
is beautiful.
There is
also the opportunity to place an adjective after certain verbs in order to
modify them. This does not apply to all verbs, so let’s take a look at some
examples verbs which can be modified with an adjective. It is worth noting that
when using an adjective to modify a verb, the verb should come before the
adjective, it will not sound correct if placed the other way around. The
following verbs can be modified with an adjective.
appear
become
go
get
turn
feel
keep
Here are
some examples of these verbs being modified with an adjective.
I
feel amazing after my spa day.
He has
become lazy having not had a job for weeks.
The dog
appears aggressive.
You can
also use an adjective after the verbs to smell, to taste, to sound and to look.
Let’s take a look at some examples of the adjective placement for these verbs.
That pizza
tastes fantastic.
The music
sounds good.
It
looks stunning.
That
smells awful.
ADJECTIVES
WITHOUT A NOUN
It is
possible to use an adjective as a standalone word without a noun. This can be
seen in an example such as the following. “He is rich” the
adjective here is being used with the pronoun he, however this can be used on
its own as simply describing something as “rich.” You might also use an
adjective on its own in a sentence such as the following, “The largest must
go at the back.”
ADJECTIVES
IN PAIRS
You might
wish to use more than one adjective in order to give your sentence a very
descriptive feel. For example, you might say “This is a large,
red car.” or “I am a clever, thoughtful person.”
Order of
Adjectives
Learn rules
and examples for the order of adjectives in English.
In general,
the adjective order in English is:
1: Determiner
2: Observation
(Opinion)
3: Size
and Shape
4: Age
5: Color
6: Origin /
Nationality
7: Material
8: Qualifier
(Purpose)
In English,
it is common to use more than one adjective before a noun. For
example, “It is a beautiful long new dress.” or
“She has bought a square white Japanese cake.”
When you use more than one adjective, you have to put them in the right order –
order of adjectives.
Learn how
to put adjectives in the right order with useful grammar rules and examples.
In general,
the adjective order in English is:
DETERMINER
Words that
work as articles and other limiters including numbers.
Example: a,
an, the, both, either, some, many, my, your, our, their, his, her, five, each,
every, this, that…
OBSERVATION
(OPINION)
In general,
an opinion adjective explains what you think about something (other people may
not agree with you).
Example: good,
bad, great, terrible, pretty, lovely, silly, beautiful, horrible, difficult,
comfortable/uncomfortable, ugly, awful, strange, delicious, disgusting, tasty,
nasty, important, excellent, wonderful, brilliant, funny, interesting, boring.
SIZE AND SHAPE
Adjectives
that describe a factual or objective quality of the noun.
A SIZE
ADJECTIVE, of course, tells you how big or
small something is.
Example: huge,
big, large, tiny, enormous, little, tall, long, gigantic, small, short,
minuscule.
A SHAPE
ADJECTIVE describes the shape of something.
Example: triangular,
square, round, flat, rectangular.
AGE
An age
adjective (adjective denoting age) tells you how young or old something or
someone is.
Example: young,
old, new, ancient, six-year-old, antique, youthful, mature, modern,
old-fashioned, recent…
COLOR
A color adjective
(adjective denoting color), of course, describes the color of something.
Example: red,
black, pale, bright, faded, shining, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, pink,
aquamarine…
ORIGIN / NATIONALITY
Denominal
adjectives denoting source of noun.
An origin
adjective describes where something comes from.
Example: French,
American, Canadian, Mexican, Greek, Swiss, Spanish, Victorian, Martian…
MATERIAL /
SUBSTANCE
Denominal
adjectives denoting what something is made of.
Example: woollen,
wooden, silk, metal, paper, gold, silver, copper, cotton, leather, polyester,
nylon, stone, diamond, plastic…
QUALIFIER (PURPOSE)
Final
limiter, often regarded as part of the noun.
A purpose
adjective describes what something is used for. These adjectives often end with
“-ing”.
Example: writing
(as in “writing paper”), sleeping (as in “sleeping bag”), roasting (as in
“roasting tin”), running (as in “running shoes”).
To summarize, in English, adjectives pertaining to size precede adjectives pertaining to age (“little old“, not “old little“), which in turn generally precede adjectives pertaining to color (“old white“, not “white old“). So, we would say “A (determiner) beautiful (opinion) old (age) Indian (origin) lamp.”
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