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Introduction

As stated in last lesson, this content is designed to help steemians who in one way or the other have challenges in grammar, effective use of English and communication skills, spellings and vocabularies. Reading this with undivided attention will be of great benefit to us all.
It will help us improve our writing and communication skills as bloggers.

What are adjectives?

Adjectives are words that give more information about a noun or pronoun in a sentence. Adjectives can be recognized easily by certain inflectional suffixes.

E.g.
divisible, impossible, edible, durable, portable, notable, joyous, sumptuous, delicious, colourful, careful, hopeful active punitive, festive boyish, smallish, foolish


Adjectives answer such questions as "which one?". Consider this statement:

Please call me the boy.
A question arises, "Which one?"
▪︎ The tall boy
▪︎ The handsome boy

The words tall and handsome give us additional information on the particular boy being referred to.
Adjectives fall into six classe, namely:

CLASSES OF ADJECTIVES

1.Possessive Adjective: This simply indicates possession or ownership. E.g. your, his, our, their, its, her, my.

▪︎This is my daughter
▪︎That is our car

2.Adjective of Quality: These are also called descriptive adjectives because they describe or tell us more about the qualities of persons or things.
E.g.
The short man is here
I bought some ripe oranges

I ate a delicious soup in Stephen's house

3.Adjective of Quantity: There are definite (numbers) and indefinite (few, all, several, much, some, etc).

E.g
▪︎ Both girls are good-looking
▪︎ Some men are faithful

4.Interrogative Adjectives: These adjectives ask questions about the nouns. Examples of Interrogative Adjectives are; what, which, where, when, etc.

Examples in sentences
▪︎ What question did he ask?
▪︎ Which course did she study?
▪︎ What time did he say?

5.Demonstrative Adjectives: These adjectives point to persons or
things. They usually come before the noun or pronoun. E.g. That, those, these, etc.

Examples in sentences
▪︎ I love that Governor
▪︎ That building is fine
▪︎ These men are criminals
▪︎ Those students are Christian

6.Adjectives of Emphasis: This class of adjectives is used to emphasize description. The intention is to draw one's attention to person or thing being described.

E.g. true, real, total, absolute, complete, pure, own, very etc.

▪︎Man is the architect of his own fortune.
▪︎His very friend betrayed him.

COMPARISON OF ADJECTIVES

There are three degrees of comparison the positive, the comparative, the superlative.

The positive is used when describing an object; comparative is used when comparing two objects and is formed by "er" suffix while superlative is used when speaking of more than two objects and is formed by adding "est" to the positive.

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
big	bigger	biggest
fat	fatter	fattest
old	older	oldest
mild	milder	mildest
heavy	heavier	heaviest
tender	tenderer	tenderest
loud	louder	loudest
thin	thinner	thinnest
long	longer	longest
hot	hotter	hottest

Other adjectives other than the ones discussed above form their comparative and superlative by adding the intensifier more and most before the adjectives.

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
delicious	more delicious	most delicious
handsome	more handsome	most handsome
exciting	more exciting	most exciting
interesting	more interesting	most interesting
effective	more effective	most effective

A few commonly used adjectives have irregular forms.

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
good	better	best
bad	worse	worst
little	less	least
much	more	most
many	more	most

ORDERING OF ADJECTIVES

When adjectives appear in cluster, there is an order that they follow.

Note the following steps:

(A) Step 1: The Modifier comes first, e.g., articles, determiners,
quantifies (e.g., the, an, a, some, his, those, etc).

(b) Step II: The general adjectives come next, e.g., ugly, beautiful,
happy, faithful, pretty, etc.

(C) Step III: Adjectives that denote size, followed by those of age,
and then, those of colour
(D) Step IV: The participle adjectives come next. Usually, they end in (ed) or (ing).
(E) Step V: Next is the noun adjectives, which can stand on their own as noun.
(F) Step VI: The head comes last. It is the actual thing that is qualified by the adjectives.

Hope you followed the steps.
Now, let's examine the following examples:

▪︎ A generous small old brown man
▪︎ A beautiful big new light-green racing car
▪︎ A big round table

FUNCTIONS OF ADJECTIVES

1. Attributive Function:
This occurs when they pre-modify nouns. i.e. appear between the determiner and noun head,

Example,
▪︎The Federal Ministry warns against Aids.
▪︎Natural medicine is in high demand.
▪︎My humble son travels tonight.
▪︎It's an exciting story

2. Predicative Function:
This functions when the adjective follows the verb as a complemente.

Example,
▪︎Joy is beautiful
▪︎Tobacco smoking is dangerous
▪︎National theatre is the right place
▪︎It is very simple

Conclusion

That is the end of the lesson presented in this contest. I believe you have learned something in this lesson as usual. Please drop your questions and suggestions at the comment section. I am inviting @manuelhooks, @kesybliss and @goodybest to take part in this contest. I will be glad to hear from you and don't forget to read lesson 1 & 2 below.

• Effective Communication and Language Skills: Lesson 1 (Word Class)
• Effective Communication and Language Skills: Lesson 2 (Verbs)