Is the word she an adjective

Possessive Adjectives in English

• He is a boy.
• She is a girl.

HE is a subject pronoun.
SHE is a subject pronoun.

• His name is Alex.
• Her name is Emma.

HIS is a possessive adjective.
HER is a possessive adjective.

HE and HIS are used with a male, for example a boy or a man.
SHE and HER are used with a female, for example a girl or a woman.

• Her balloon is green.
• His balloon is blue.

We use HER for the girl and HIS for the boy.

Now they have two balloons each. How do we say this?

• Her balloons are green.

Balloons is plural but HER does NOT change.

We do not say: Hers balloons are green. No, this is NOT correct.
We say: Her balloons are green.

And for the boy we say:

• His balloons are blue.

Again, HIS does not change.

The possessive adjectives HIS and HER are sometimes confusing for people learning English.
Now we are going to practice using HIS and HER with some simple English exercises.

HIS HER Summary Chart

HIS HER Practice Exercises

Complete the sentence with HIS or HER.

1. _______ name is Susan.
2. _______ name is Frank.
3. _______ name is Steven.
4. _______ name is Angela.
5. _______ name is Daniel.
6. _______ name is Mary.
7. _______ name is Veronica.
8. _______ name is Phillip.

(The answers appear in the video)

Complete the sentences with HIS or HER.

1. He has a dog. _______ dog is small.
2. She has two cats. _______ cats are black.
3. He has a brother. _______ brother is crazy.
4. Patrick has a guitar. _______ guitar is old.
5. My mother has a car. _______ car is fast.
6. The man has new shoes. _______ shoes are clean.
7. She has a dictionary. _______ dictionary is big.
8. Maggie has a new dress. _______ dress is beautiful.

(The answers appear in the video)

Lesson tags: Possessive Adjectives

Back to: English Course > Descriptions in English

The Adjective is one of the parts of speech that describes some extra information about the noun or a pronoun in a sentence.

The adjective may be present single or multiple in a sentence that presents before a noun or a pronoun. Some articles like (a, an, the) are also called adjectives.

Many adjectives come before nouns or come along with linking verbs like feel, seen, appear, etc. Some adjectives never come before the noun, while some are placed just after the noun.

An adjective also improvises a noun or a pronoun. Some sentences contain more than one adjective. They must be assigned with commas.

Types of adjectives:

There are eight types of an adjective, depending on the place of an adjective in a sentence, meaning, and other illustrations,

1. Descriptive Adjective
2. Demonstrative Adjective
3. Distributive adjective
4. Interrogative Adjective
5. Numeral Adjective
6. Quantitative Adjective
7. Proper Adjective
8. Possessive Adjective

Descriptive Adjective:

A descriptive adjective is used to illustrate or to give some description of the qualities of a noun or pronoun of a sentence.

The list of adjectives contains more descriptive adjectives, which are also known as qualitative adjectives.

Examples:

1. Harley Davidson bikes are stylish, fast, and expensive.
   • Here, the words stylish, fast, and expensive provide extra details of the bike, called descriptive adjectives.
2. Daniel bought a beautiful flower bouquet to present her gorgeous girlfriend.
3. She is very hungry.
4. Oxford University has an attractive auditorium.
5. He came into the party with an ugly hairstyle.

Demonstrative Adjective:

The demonstrative adjective is used to demonstrate certain things, people, or animals.

This adjective is also telling the position of the noun and comes before other adjectives in the phrase of a sentence to which it is going to modify.

This, these, that, and those are demonstrative adjectives.

Where this and these are used to assign singular and plural nouns that are close to us.

And that and those are used to assign singular and plural nouns that are far from us.

Examples,

1. Those pictures were just awesome when we looked at the exhibition.
   • Here, the word “those” demonstrates the pictures and tells us that they are far away from their reach.
2. Watching these kinds of movies is nothing but wasting time.
3. These all are my office colleagues.
4. Collect all the fruits and put them on that table.
5. These cookies are nicer baked than yesterday’s cookies.

Distributive Adjective:

Distributive Adjectives are generally used to point to a particular group or individual and are used with singular nouns. It is used to modify nouns.

It contains E-type adjectives that are accompanied by nouns or pronouns in a sentence.

• Each, every, neither, and either are four distributive Adjectives.

Examples,

1. Each student has to take part in cultural events.
   • Here, the word “each” is used to distribute them into single ones.
2. There were two washing machines, but neither worked properly.
3. I will be happy with either decision. 
4. Every bogie of a train is filled with coal.
5. The monkey divides the piece of bread and gives them to each cat. 

Interrogative Adjective:

Interrogative adjectives are adjectives that tend to ask questions or to interrogate nouns or pronouns and to modify them as well in a sentence.

There are three interrogative adjectives, “what, which, and whose,” respectively.

These adjectives no longer function like adjectives if the noun or a pronoun does not present just after these words in a sentence.

Other wh- type or question words can not be considered adjectives because they don’t modify the nouns or pronouns, respectively.

Examples,

1. Which bracelets do you like the most?
   • Here, “which” becomes an interrogative adjective because it asks to specify the noun “bracelet”.
2. What location type are you looking to go to?
   • In this question statement, the noun “location” comes after the word “what,” which makes this word an adjective.
3. What is the exact location?
   • But in this question statement, the noun is absent after the word “what,” which does not make this word an adjective.
4. Whose ambition is to become an astronaut?

Numeral Adjective:

A numeral adjective determines the number of nouns present in any sentence.

Numeral Adjectives are of three types:

1. Definite Numeral Adjectives(cardinal and ordinal):
   • Definite numeral adjectives contain two types, Cardinal numeral adjectives, and ordinal numeral adjectives.
2. A cardinal numeral adjective is used to count anything in numbers. (one, two, three, four, etc.)
3. The ordinal numeral adjective is used to mention the order or position of anything. (first, second, third, etc.)

1. Indefinite Numeral Adjectives:
   • Indefinite numeral adjectives are words that witness the presence or absence of anything like some, few, more, many, all, no, etc. 
2. Distributive Numeral Adjectives:
   • The distributive numeral adjectives are such adjectives that are used to distribute like each, neither, either, every, etc. 

Examples,

1. Mark purchased five Bugatti cars from the showroom. (Cardinal)
   • Here, five tells us about the number of cars present.
2. The second part of this movie is mind-blowing. (Ordinal)
3. Some people can never understand french. (Quantitative)
4. All the money you have can never buy happiness. (Indefinite)
5. Every living thing needs energy. (distributive)

Quantitative Adjective:

The quantitative adjective is used to explain the noun ( person or thing )and its quantity in a sentence. Sometimes a numeral adjective is also called a quantitative adjective though it specifies the numbers.

The quantitative type of adjective belongs to the question statement category like “how much or how many,” respectively.

• Little, more, much, few, all, large, small, tall, thirty, fifty, etc. are quantitative adjectives.

Examples,

1. I want many chocolates to eat. (how much)
   • Here, “many” indicates the number of chocolates.
2. Among all, some of them are Spanish, a few are Turkish, and the rest are Afrikans. (how many)
3. He played the guitar for the very first time. (how many)
4. There are 206 bones in a human skeleton. (how many)
5. Two boys are seriously injured in an accident. (how many)

Proper Adjective:

A proper adjective is an adjective that gives extra information related to a proper noun of a person, thing, animal, or object.

Though it refers to a particular person of existence and hence needs to be capitalized.

Examples, 

1. Australian kangaroos are very healthy.
   • Here, the word “Australian” represents Australia, which is a proper noun.
2. People called them Astronomers who study Astronomy.
3. African people are very hard workers.
4. I tasted different types of food, but Indian food has the best taste.
5. The highest currency in the world is the Kuwaiti Dinar.

Possessive Adjective:

A possessive adjective is an adjective that shows the possessive nature of the noun of a person or place in any sentence.

Possessive adjectives also function like possessive pronouns.

• First-person: My, ours.
• Second-person: Yours.
• Third-person: His, hers, its, their, whose.

Examples, 

1. My computer is working in better condition.
   • Here, “my” belongs to me shows some possession quality.
2. Their black Mercedes Benz car looks more attractive than this one.
3. Whose father is an Ex-Army man?
4. Is this band yours?
5. Both sisters have their own cupboards for clothes.

Degrees of Adjectives:

In the English language, An adjective has three degrees to give some extra and detailed information about some nouns or pronouns like person, place, things, objects, or even ideas, respectively.

These degrees are only applicable to descriptive adjectives as it has a tendency to illustrate the qualities of nouns or pronouns.

The three degrees of Adjectives are,

1. Positive degree.
2. Comparative degree and 
3. Superlative degree.

For example,

• Hard, harder, hardest.
• Much, more, most.
• Good, better, best.
• Large, larger, largest.
• Beautiful, more beautiful, most beautiful.
• Bad, worse, worst.
• Tall, taller, tallest.
• Thin, thinner, thinnest, etc.

Positive degree:

A positive degree shows a correlation between the adjectives and the adverbs in a normal adjective form.

There is no comparison shown between adjectives and adverbs that are called a positive degree.

Examples,

1. She looks pretty in this dress.
2. He bought a phone which is thin in size.
3. She ordered a large bucket of KFC for the treat.
4. The climate is hot today.
5. This metal sheet is hard enough to withstand the load we expected.

Comparative degree:

A comparative degree is a degree of adjective that applies to compare two things, either they are of the same origin or different.

It also compares one noun with another noun in a sentence. 

Comparative degrees have a suffix -er.

Examples,

1. Their goals are faster than our team’s.
2. She is more beautiful than her elder sister.
3. Today she looks happier than on other days.
4. Your handwriting is better than mine.
5. This swimming pool is deeper than that one.

Superlative degree: 

The superlative degree is an adjective that compares the quality or quantity of any person, place, thing, or object among three or more to show either the least quality or highest degree.

The superlative degree has a suffix -est.

Examples,

1. Seedan is one of the bravest men in his battalion.
2. Usain Bolt made a world record for the fastest athlete in the Olympics.
3. She is the most beautiful girl on our campus.

We all have our favorite color. Your favorite might be blue. Your friend Nick might consider green to be his favorite color. Your other friend Akari might say that red is her favorite color. Or maybe they agree with you and both have blue as their favorite color, too. Regardless of who likes what, we all have a favorite that belongs to us.

In our colorful example above, we used adjectives to say who had a particular color as their favorite. If you know a bit about grammar, you already know that adjectives are words that modify or describe nouns and pronouns. However, we used a specific type of adjective to describe who liked each color: possessive adjectives.

What is a possessive adjective?

A possessive adjective is an adjective that modifies a noun by identifying who has ownership or possession of it. For example, in the sentence Andrew lost his keys the word his is a possessive adjective that indicates the keys belong to Andrew. The most commonly used possessive adjectives are my, your, his, her, its, our, their, and whose. In order, these adjectives correspond to the pronouns I, you, he, she, it, we, they, and who.

As their name suggests, possessive adjectives are often used to express possession or ownership. For example, the sentence Gregory put his hat on the table uses the adjective his to express the idea that Greg owns the hat. We can also use possessive adjectives to refer to figurative things that someone has, as in Ally described her dream to me.

Possessive adjectives are also used to refer to people who have a relation to someone or something. For example, the sentence Vince and Helena are with their parents uses the possessive adjective their to express that the parents are related to Vince and Helena; they don’t “own” their parents, but their parents are something they have.

When deciding which possessive adjective to use, you need to figure out which pronoun you would use to identify the same person or thing that owns or has the noun you are modifying. For example,

• The mother bird was building ____ nest.

In this sentence, we want to modify nest with a possessive adjective. The nest belongs to the mother bird. Because the bird is female, we would use the pronoun she. The possessive adjective used with she is her. So, our sentence should read:

• The mother bird was building her nest.

Need a refresher on pronouns? You can review all the types of pronouns here.

List of possessive adjectives

As mentioned earlier, the most common possessive adjectives are:

• my
• your
• her
• his
• its
• our
• their
• whose

However, you may see other possessive adjectives in addition to these. Every personal pronoun has a possessive adjective that goes along with it. For this reason, you may see other potential possessive adjectives such as hir and xyr that a person may use if they choose not to use the gendered pronouns he or she.

Gender-neutral and nonbinary possessive adjectives

In the above list of possessive adjectives, the words her and his are unique in that they are used to specify a person’s (or animal’s) gender. While these are quite common adjectives, there are plenty of other possessive adjectives available that don’t carry any kind of association with a particular gender.

Learn more about how nonbinary and transgender identities are paving a way through the language of gender.

It is important not to misidentify someone, even accidentally, by carelessly using gendered language when it isn’t needed. Luckily, there is an easy way to ensure your speech and writing is inclusive of all gender identities: you can use gender-neutral language. If you don’t know which possessive adjective is best to use—or would prefer not to use a gendered pronoun at all—the word their is just what you need.

The adjective their can be (and is increasingly) used as a singular gender-neutral or nonbinary substitute for the gender-specific adjectives her and his. (Other terms are also used in this way, but their is the most common.) It can be used when you don’t want or need to specify someone’s gender. It can also be used when referring to a person who identifies as nonbinary. In this case, it’s always important to use the adjectives (and pronouns) that the person prefers.

To learn more, explore in-depth resources about the adjective their and gender-neutral language.

Where do you include a possessive adjective in a sentence?

Unlike many other adjectives, possessive adjectives can only be used directly in front of the noun that they modify:

✅ Correct: We went to my house.
❌ Incorrect: This house is my.

✅ Correct: The lions hunted their prey.
❌ Incorrect: I want to give the lions this toy because I know it is their.

Possessive adjectives and possessive pronouns

We can’t use possessive adjectives as a subject, object, or as a subject complement. Instead, we need words known as possessive pronouns. Because they are pronouns, these words can be used in places that possessive adjectives can’t. The possessive pronouns that correspond to each pronoun and possessive adjective are:

• I : my : mine
• you : your : yours
• she : her : hers
• he : his : his
• it : its : its (Note: In general, it is preferred not to use its by itself as a pronoun.)
• we : our : ours
• they : their : theirs
• who: whose : whose

You’ll notice that the words his and whose are both the possessive adjective and possessive pronouns used for the words he and who, which makes these two slightly easier to use than the others.

Possessive adjectives and determiners

Unlike nouns and verbs, the different categories of adjectives are often less defined. For example, many style guides or sources of grammar advice consider possessive adjectives to actually be a class of words known as determiners, in which case they may be referred to as possessive determiners or even just possessives.

Unlike many other adjectives, possessive adjectives can act similarly to pronouns in that they can replace possessive nouns. For example, the sentences I found Fred’s cat and I found his cat have the same meaning. Additionally, possessive adjectives cannot be turned into superlative or comparative adjectives. Something can be slower than something else but something can’t be “our-er” or “my-er” than something else.

While these qualities may support classifying possessive adjectives as a different figure of speech, we consider words like my, your, and our to be adjectives rather than determiners. Not every style guide will take this approach, however, so don’t be surprised if you see words like these classified differently.

Possessive adjective examples in a sentence

The possessive adjective is in bold in each of the following sentences.

Example #1 

• We looked everywhere for my dog. (The possessive adjective my modifies the noun dog to indicate that it belongs to me.)

Example #2

• Their team was a lot better than our team. (The possessive adjectives their and our modify the word team to indicate who is represented by each team.)

Example #3 

• Whose soda is this? (The possessive adjective whose modifies the noun soda. Whose is also an interrogative adjective so it is often used in questions to ask who the owner of an item is.)

Possessive adjective rules & best practices

Grammatically, the main thing to watch out for when it comes to possessive adjectives is that you don’t accidentally use them as nouns. Don’t use possessive adjectives as subjects, objects, or subject complements. You must use a possessive pronoun instead:

❌ Incorrect: This backpack is my.
✅ Correct: This backpack is mine.

❌ Incorrect: His cat is older than your.
✅ Correct: His cat is older than yours OR His cat is older than your cat.

Another useful thing to remember is that the possessive adjective their can be used to refer to a single person. Although their and they usually refer to multiple people or things, they can also be used to generally refer to a single person:

• The banker sat in their chair.
• Each person is responsible for their own property.

Because it isn’t a gendered word, their is a useful word to use if you don’t know how a person identifies themself:

• I am meeting someone named Alex who agreed to sell me their extra ticket.

Rather than grammatical errors, the most common mistakes people make when it comes to possessive adjectives has to do with spelling. In particular, the following four errors are especially common:

Its and It’s: The word it’s is a contraction of “it is.”

• The toy danced until its battery ran out.
• It’s a really nice day outside today.

Your and You’re: The word you’re is a contraction of “you are.”

• Tomorrow is your birthday.
• You’re my best friend.

Whose and Who’s: The word who’s is a contraction of “who is” or “who has.”

• Whose idea was this?
• Who’s going to come to the store with me?

Their, They’re, and There: The word they’re is a contraction of “they are.” The word there is a commonly used word with many meanings, but it isn’t used as a possessive adjective.

• My kids are doing their homework.
• The painters couldn’t make it today, so they’re coming tomorrow instead.
• I looked for Brian at his house but he wasn’t there.

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What is an Adjective

An adjective is a word that describes or modifies a noun. In simple terms, it is a describing word. They describe qualities such as size, color, type, and number.

An adjective can be used after or before a noun. The adjectives that follow the noun are known as predicate adjectives. The adjectives that precede the noun are known as attributive adjectives.

Here, step by step we will explain how to identify an adjective in a sentence.

Step 1: Identify the Nouns

Since an adjective’s main task is to modify a noun, adjectives are always placed before or after a noun. So it is important to identify the noun first.  Just look for words that name people, places, or things.

Jane bought a new dress.

Her bag is red.

Rita slept in my old room.

Twelve students passed the final exam.

Step 2: Look at Nearby Words

Now that you have identified the nouns check if there are any words nearby that describe or modify the nouns.

Note: Attributive adjectives are placed directly in front of the noun. But, predicative adjectives are not placed directly after the noun. When the adjective follows the noun, there is always a state verb between them.

Jane bought a new dress.

Her bag is red.

Rita slept in my old room.

Twelve students passed the final exam.

Step 3: Use Questions to Recheck

Adjectives answer the following questions about the noun:

• Which?
• What kind of?
• How many?

See if the words you have identified as adjectives answer any one of these questions. If they can answer these questions, they are without a doubt adjectives.

Jane bought a new dress.

 What kind of dress? a new dress

Her bag is red.

What kind of bag? a red bag

Rita slept in my old room.

Which room? my old room

Twelve students passed the final exam.

Which exam? final exam

How many students? twelve students

Comparative vs Superlative Forms

Adjectives can also occur in the form of comparatives and superlatives. Comparative and superlative adjectives are easier to identify because of their unique structure.

Comparative adjectives take the ending er or use the word more before the adjective.

Jean is prettier than her sister.

She is more beautiful than her mother.

Superlative adjectives take the ending est or use the word most before the adjective.

Jane is the prettiest girl in the room.

She is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

Examples of Adjectives

You can use the above-explained methods to identify the adjectives in the following sentences.

1. The pretty girl is riding her bicycle.
2. Fifteen students were absent from class.
3. The short girl laughed at the new teacher.
4. The old professor has two daughters.
5. What is the shortest route to the maternity hospital?
6. Gladys is a rich woman.

Adjectives:

1. pretty
2. fifteen
3. short, new
4. old, two
5. shortest, maternity
6. rich

About the Author: Hasa

Hasa has a BA degree in English, French and Translation studies. She is currently reading for a Masters degree in English. Her areas of interests include literature, language, linguistics and also food.

Adjectives in English! What is an adjective? The following lessons provide you with different types of adjectives and explain how to use them in English sentences with ESL printable infographic.

What are Adjectives?

Adjectives are words that are used to describe (what kind of?) nouns and pronouns and to quantify (how much of?) and identify (which one?) them. In a nutshell, Adjectives are what define nouns and give them characteristics to differentiate them from other nouns. For example:

• He was wearing a blue shirt.

Here ‘blue’ is an adjective as it is describing the noun ‘shirt’ by answering the question ‘what kind of shirt?’

• There are seven rooms in the house.

Here ‘Seven’ is also an adjective as it’s telling the quantity/the number of the noun ‘rooms’, answering the question ‘how many rooms?’.

There are different types of adjectives based upon their effect on a noun and what do they tell about the noun. There are five categories of adjectives:

Adjectives of Quality

What are adjectives of quality?

These adjectives are used to describe the nature of a noun. They give an idea about the characteristics of the noun by answering the question ‘what kind’: Honest, Kind, Large, Bulky, Beautiful, Ugly, etc. For example:

• New Delhi is a large city with many historical monuments.
• Sarah is a beautiful woman.
• I’d like you to give me an honest answer.
• I feel really fat and ugly today.
• He carried a very bulky package on the bus.

Adjectives of Quantity

What are adjectives of quantity?

These adjectives help to show the amount or the approximate amount of the noun or pronoun. These adjectives do not provide exact numbers; rather they tell us the amount of the noun in relative or whole terms: All, Half, Many, Few, Little, No, Enough, Great, etc. For example:

• They have finished most of the rice.
• Many people came to visit the fair.

Adjectives of Number

What are adjectives of number?

These adjectives are used to show the number of nouns and their place in an order. There are three different sections within adjectives of number; they are:

Definite Numeral Adjective

Those which clearly denote an exact number of nouns or the order of the noun.

• One, Two, Twenty, Thirty-Three, etc. also known as Cardinals.
• First, Second, Third, Seventh, etc. also known as Ordinals.

Indefinite Numeral Adjective

Those adjectives that do not give an exact numerical amount but just give a general idea of the amount.

• Some, Many, Few, Any, Several, All, etc.
  E.g.: There were many people present at the meeting.

Distributive Numeral Adjective

Those adjectives that are used to refer to individual nouns within the whole amount.

• Either, Neither, Each, Another, Other, etc.
  E.g: Taxes have to be paid by every employed citizen.

Demonstrative Adjectives

What are demonstrative adjectives?

These adjectives are used to point out or indicate a particular noun or pronoun using the adjectives: This, That, These and Those.

• That bag belongs to Neil.
• Try using this paintbrush in art class.
• I really like those shoes.
• These flowers are lovely.

Interrogative Adjectives

What are interrogative adjectives?

These adjectives are used to ask questions about nouns or in relation to nouns, they are: Where, What, Which and Whose.

• Where did he say he was going?
• What assignment did I miss out on?
• Which is your favorite author?
• Whose pen is this?

In some instances, we find that we need to use more than one adjective to describe a noun in a satisfactory manner. In these cases, commas are used to separate the adjectives but some series of adjectives do not require a comma. Therefore, we need to know the difference between Coordinate and Non-coordinate Adjectives:

Coordinate Adjectives

Are those words which can be re-arranged in the series easily and are still grammatically sound. This kind of series makes use of commas. This series can also insert ‘and’ between them and still be correct.

• She was a kind, generous, loving human being.
• She was a generous, loving, kind human being.
• She was a loving, kind and generous human being.

Here we can see that all three sentences are grammatically correct. In this case, the adjectives only need to be separated by commas.

Non-coordinate Adjectives

These are those adjectives which cannot be rearranged in the series. These do not use commas to separate the adjectives. Also, this kind of series does not make sense if we insert ‘and’ between them.

• She has two energetic playful dogs.
• She has playful two energetic dogs.
• She has energetic and playful and two dogs.

Here we see that only the first sentence makes sense and is grammatically correct. The second and third ones are incorrect. Hence, the sentence uses non-coordinate adjectives and does not need commas.

Comparative and Superlative Adjectives

When we want to compare two or more nouns using adjectives, we use the comparative and superlative forms of the adjective to show the comparison between the nouns.

E.g. Honey is sweet, sugar is sweeter but victory is the sweetest.

In this sentence, we are comparing the three nouns using the positive, comparative and superlative forms of the word ‘sweet’.

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Order of Adjectives

There are certain rules regarding the placement of different kinds of adjectives in a sentence. The general order of adjective is:

1. Determiners
2. Observations/Quantity and Opinion
3. Size
4. Age
5. Shape
6. Colour
7. Origin
8. Material
9. Qualifier

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Types of Adjectives | Infographic

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Adjective Quiz

What is an adjective? Adjectives are words that describe nouns or pronouns.

That definition will only be helpful if you know what nouns and pronouns are! 

• Nouns are words that name people, places, things, or ideas. (mother, vase, road)
• Pronouns are words that can take the place of nouns. (she, it, anyone)

The adjectives in the following examples are in bold. They come right before the nouns that they are modifying.

 bright sun            yellow ducks             sixteen candles             Caroline’s book

Let’s use a sentence diagram to see what adjectives do. Sentence diagrams are pictures of sentences. The way that the words are arranged in the picture helps us see how each word is related to the other words in the sentence. 

Since adjectives modify nouns, we diagram them on slanted lines underneath the nouns that they are modifying. Can you tell what the adjective are in the sentence diagram below?

When we look at that sentence diagram, we can easily see that the adjectives the and yellow are modifying the noun duck.

Learn more about diagramming adjectives here. 

What are the adjective questions?

Did you know that there are certain questions we can ask that help us find adjectives? It’s true! We call these the adjective questions.

Knowing the adjective questions will help you know for sure whether any word is acting as an adjective.

Adjectives answer at least one of these adjective questions.

1. Which one? (yellow, the, that)

2. What kind? (furry, plastic, special)

3. How many? (sixteen, several, many)

4. Whose? (Caroline’s, his, its, John’s)

Adjective or Pronoun?

Some words can be either adjectives or pronouns depending on how they’re acting in the sentence. How are you going to tell the difference?

Well, what is an adjective? It’s a word that describes a noun or pronoun, right? So, if a word describes a noun or pronoun, it’s an adjective. If a word takes the place of a noun instead of describing it, then it is a pronoun.

Adjective	Why?
Both pens fell on the floor.	Both describes the noun pens, and it answers the adjective question, Which ones?
Gee, Martha, this pie is delicious!	This describes the noun pie, and answers the adjective question, Which pie?

Pronoun	Why?
Both of us are going to the movie.	Both is not describing a noun.
Is this my piece?	This does not describe a noun.

What are comparative & superlative adjectives?

Many adjectives can have different degrees. By this I mean that something can have more or less of an adjective’s quality. For instance, you may find the weather in California to be hot, Tahiti’s weather to be hotter, and the Sahara Desert’s to be the hottest.

Do you see how there are different degrees of the adjective hot? We’ve just used the comparative and superlative forms of the word hot to show this adjective’s different degrees.

Comparative Adjectives

Use the comparative form when you’re comparing two things. In the examples below, we’re comparing Richard Branson and his neighbor.

Richard Branson is richer than his neighbor.

Richard Branson is more adventurous than his neighbor.

Most comparative adjectives end in -er (richer, happier, taller) or begin with more (more beautiful, more peaceful, more spontaneous).

There are also irregular comparatives which do not follow this -er or more pattern (better, less, worse).

Superlative Adjectives

Use the superlative form when you’re comparing three or more things. In the examples below, we’re comparing good old Richard with his neighbor AND Tim Ferriss.

Out of Richard, his neighbor, and Tim Ferriss, Richard is the richest.

Out of Richard, his neighbor, and Tim Ferriss, Tim is the most adventurous.

Most superlative adjectives end in -est (richest, happiest, tallest) or begin with most (most beautiful, most peaceful, most spontaneous). 

But, just like comparative adjectives, there are some irregularities (best, least, worst). In the charts below, positive simply means the form of the adjective before it is in its comparative or superlative form.

Neither Comparative Nor Superlative

Some adjectives can’t change degrees. For example, a woman is either pregnant or she isn’t. There is no pregnanter or pregnantest. Your best buddy might be your main man, but you don’t have a mainer or mainest man.

Feeling overwhelmed? Just remember the answer to the question, What is an adjective? (It’s a word that describes a noun or pronoun, remember?) That’s the most important thing to remember.

Articles, Proper Adjectives, & Predicate Adjectives

There are many different kinds of adjectives, and we’ll explore three of them below: articles, proper adjectives, and predicate adjectives. 

What are articles?

Articles are special kinds of adjectives.* (By the way, what is an adjective? Do you remember? Good.) 

* Please note that when people categorize words into nine parts of speech, they say that articles and determiners are in their own category. Here at Grammar Revolution, we categorize words into eight parts of speech, and we say that articles are a subcategory of adjectives. 

There are only three articles in the English language. That’s easy! They are the, a, and an.

• The = Definite Article

The article the is called a definite article.

That’s because it points out a definite, or specific person, place, or thing.

If I say Read the book., I’m not referring to any old book. I’m referring to a specific book.

• A & An = Indefinite Articles

The articles a and an are called indefinite articles. That’s because they don’t point out specific people, places, or things.

If I say Read a book., you could read any book that you wanted to read.

Use a before words that begin with consonant sounds and use an before words that begin with vowel sounds.

So, you would say a game (g is a consonant sound), but an ant (a is a vowel sound).

It seems kind of funny, but articles answer the adjective question, Which one?

What are proper adjectives?

Proper adjectives start with capital letters just like proper nouns. In fact, proper adjectives are made from proper nouns.

They normally answer the adjective question, What kind?

Proper Noun	Proper Adjective
America	American cars
English	English grammar
Mexico	Mexican food

What are predicate adjectives?

Predicate adjectives are a bit tricky because they involve linking verbs. Go ahead and read about them, but don’t lose any sleep over memorizing this stuff right now. 

Predicate adjectives come after linking verbs and describe the subject of the sentence.

I feel happy.

Happy describes the subject I, and it comes after the linking verb feel.

This banana is ripe!

Ripe describes the subject banana, and it comes after the linking verb is.

When we diagram predicate adjectives, we don’t put them on a slanted line under the noun that they modify. We actually put them on the same line as the subject and the verb. This is because the predicate adjective is an important part of the sentence. We need the predicate adjective in order for our sentence to make sense. 

Between the linking verb and the predicate adjective, we draw a slanted line that points back toward the subject to show that the predicate adjective is describing the subject. You can learn more about diagramming predicate adjectives here.