The Adjective. Degrees of Comparison.

In linguistics, an adjective is a describing word, the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified. Adjectives are one of the English parts of speech, although historically they were classed together with the nouns. Certain words that were traditionally considered to be adjectives, including the, this, my, etc., are today usually classed separately, as determiners. Given occurrence of an adjective can generally be classified into one of three kinds of use: Attributive adjectives are part of the noun phrase headed by the noun they modify; for example, happy is an attributive adjective in " happy people". Predicative adjectives are linked via a copula or other linking mechanism to the noun or pronoun they modify; for example, happy is a predicate adjective in " they are happy" and in " that made me happy." Nominal adjectives act almost as nouns. One way this can happen is if a noun is elided and an attributive adjective is left behind. In the sentence, " I read two books to them; he preferred the sad book, but she preferred the happy", happy is a nominal adjective, short for " happy one" or " happy book".

Degrees of comparison of adjectives Most descriptive adjectives can show degree of quality or quantity by forming two degrees of comparison: the comparative degree and the superlative degree. These degrees are formed from the positive degree, which is the usual form of adjectives. The comparative and superlative forms can be simple (bigger, biggest) or compound (more attentive, most attentive). The comparative degree and the superlative degree are formed by adding the suffixes ER and EST to the positive form of the adjective or by using MORE and MOST before the positive form of the adjective. The choice of ER, EST or MORE, MOST depends mostly on the number of syllables in the adjective.

Irregular adjectives:

Positive Form -These are the simple adjectives that simply describe the noun without comparing it to another - big, sweet, clean, etc. ex: She has a big black dog.

Comparative Form - These are used when we are comparing two nouns and need to show which noun possesses the adjective or character in a greater or lesser amount, when compared with the other. - bigger, sweeter, cleaner, etc. ex: I have a big dog but hers is bigger.

Superlative Form This form is used when three or more nouns are being compared and we need to show that one or more of the nouns posses the adjective or characteristic to the highest amount possible. We usually add ‘the’ before the superlative form. - biggest, sweetest, cleanest, etc. ex: She has the biggest dog in the colony.