Adjectives and Adverbs

In today's Grammar HELP! Student Handbook - Online! lesson, we continue our unit on Adjectives and Adverbs. For the next few lessons, we will be focusing on adjectives. 

You can read our prior lesson, Adjectives in Noun Phrases, before you begin today with the exercises.

Descriptive Adjectives

A descriptive adjective is an adjective such as beautiful, dangerous, and new.

Where do we find descriptive adjectives?

You can find a descriptive adjective in a noun phrase.

  • I gave birth to a beautiful daughter.

You can also find a descriptive adjective in the predicate of a sentence.

  • My daughter is beautiful.


Word Order

In English, when the adjective describing a noun is in a noun phrase, the word order is:

  The Noun Determiner (if one is required) The Adjective The Noun
     
We had a good time.
That was a dangerous situation.
I gave birth to a beautiful daughter.
   

Descriptive Adjective When the Noun Is Plural

In many languages, when a noun is plural, the adjective describing it also takes on a plural form.  This is not the case in English. This fact makes this a troublespot for many learners of English.

Is your first language like this?

Be careful because in English, descriptive adjectives do not have a plural form.

  The Noun Determiner
or
Quantifier
(if one is required) 		The Adjective The Noun
     
We had many good times.
We had   twin daughters.
This love of life has helped me in many dangerous situations.
They set up discussions in   high schools.
There are   Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in my neighborhood.
There are so many different types of counseling available for different purposes and problems.
 

 

Grammar Helper

Exercise 1  Beneath each bolded noun phrase, identify 1) the noun determiner position, 2) the adjective, and 3) the noun.

Write N.D. for each noun determiner (if there is one), adj for each possessive, descriptive or demonstrative adjective, and N for each noun.

1.  We had a good time.
            n.d.  adj     N

1.  They organized interesting meetings in the high school.

3.  This love of life has helped me in many dangerous situations.

4.  That counseling program helps people with a different type of problem.

5.  They gave out the telephone number of the office.

6.  Gregory preferred to live with his foster parents.

When you are ready to check your answers, click here for our Answer Key.

Next... Nouns that Function as Adjectives

Join us next week for our next lesson in the Adjectives and Adverbs Series, "Nouns that Function as Adjectives".

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