Adjectives - general problems

Adjectives in English may not seem like they should cause any problems.
You do not need to change their endings according to the gender and
case of the noun they qualify, as in German. Nor do you have to know
whether they should be placed in front of or after the noun, as in French
*. In fact, however, there are a number of difficulties that English
adjectives can cause, even to the more advanced learners of the
language. Let's have a look at some of these.

In general, adjectives can be both attributive and predicative. This means

simply that we can say both the big house .. and the house is big;
or the interesting book and the book is interesting. There are some
exceptions however. Many adjectives beginning with the letter a cannot
be used attributively. So, for instance, we can say the girl is asleep but
not the asleep girl; or the animal is alive but not the alive animal.
Similarly, we can say that a child is ill but to refer to an ill child does
not seem right (although a sick child is acceptable English). The
word poor is interesting, too. In its meaning of not rich, it can be used
both ways: the people are poor or the poor people. But when it has
the meaning of unfortunate or unhappy, it can only be used attributively.
In other words, we can say the poor child, but not the child is poor.

Some adjectives, the so-called classifying adjectives, behave in the

opposite way. For example you can speak about a woollen jacket, but
we do not say my jacket is woollen. Similarly we refer to outdoor
sports, but the sentence this sport is outdoor is impossible. A piece of
writing may contain countless mistakes, but we cannot tell a child
that her mistakes are countless.

Another problem for non-native speakers is knowing the correct order of

adjectives when there are more than one qualifying a noun. For example,
is it a big, old house or an old, big house? Do we speak of the three
first days of the vacation or the first three days? Is someone who is
annoying us a little obnoxious boy or an obnoxious little boy? Native
speakers do not have to worry themselves with questions like this. They
intuitively chose the correct order, although very few have any idea of the
"rules" they are following when they do so.

A related problem, and one not intuitive to native-speakers, is the

punctuation of strings of adjectives used attributively or predicatively.
Can we write: She's a silly little girl .. or must it be She's a silly, little
girl ..? If a nice big blue belt is acceptable (in British English at least),
why isa wonderful enormous aquamarine belt not? He has a large,
beautiful, powerful car .., is correct, but what about His car is large,
beautiful, powerful .. ?
A further difficulty with adjectives is knowing the comparative and
superlative form of those of two-syllables. Do they follow the one-syllable
rule of adding "-er"? Or do they require more/most as three-syllable
adjectives do? For example, is John a commoner name than Wilberforce
or a more common one? Is this restaurant crowdeder than that one
ormore crowded? Is Mary politer than Susan or more polite? There
are no rules that are of much use to answer these questions. The learner
must rely on a good dictionary in order to employ the words correctly.

Quiz

To test your knowledge of the use of adjectives in English, see if you can
answer these questions:

1. Can the following adjectives be used both attributively and

predicatively?

 little
 afraid
 closed
 shut
 daily

2. He's an old friend of mine. What does this sentence mean?

3. Put these adjectives into the correct order to qualify the given noun:

 leather - Spanish - red - beautiful: belt

 round - ancient - heavy: mirror
 lazy - wonderful - long: vacation

4. A silly little girl and a silly, little girl are both possible. Is there a
difference in meaning between them?

5. Do we form the comparative of the following two-letter adjectives with-

er or more?

 handsome
 narrow
 stubborn
 tired
 clever

Answers
1. Attributive, predicative or both?

 little: attributive only. We can speak of a small house or a

little house, and we can say the house is small, but we do
not say the house is little.
 afraid: predicative only. We can say the boy is afraid but we
do not talk of an afraid boy. It must be something likea
fearful boy or a frightened boy.
 closed: both. We can say both the door is closed and a
closed door.
 shut: predicative only. The door is shut is acceptable, but a
shut door does not sound right.
 daily: attributive only. We can say this is a daily paper but
we do not say this paper is daily. It would have to be
something like This paper is published daily (in which case
daily is an adverb).

2. He's an old friend of mine means that I have known him for a long
time. To express the idea of his advanced age you would need to say
something like: he's a friend of mine. He's (very) old.

3. These are the usual orders of attributive adjectives.

 a beautiful Spanish red leather belt

 an ancient round heavy mirror
 a wonderful long lazy vacation

The examples from the text above are as follows:

 a big, old house

 the first three days of the vacation
 an obnoxious little boy

4. Yes, there is a difference in meaning. A silly, little girl is a girl who is

silly and who is little. The writer wants to give equal weight to both
adjectives. A silly little girl, on the other hand, is a girl who is silly. The
writer wants to emphasize her silliness, not her littleness. In fact, she
may not even be particularly little in size - the littleness is in the
immaturity of her behaviour.

5. -er or more

 more handsome (handsomer seems just about possible)

 narrower is the usual form
 more stubborn
 more tired
 cleverer is more usual but more clever is acceptable
The other examples from the text

 commoner and more common are both acceptable

 it has to be more crowded
 politer and more polite are both ok

* A reader of this page reminded me of the small number of postnominal

English adjectives as in the following examples: whiskey galore, malice
aforethought, notary public.