唐力力Adjective.doc

What Is An Adjective?
An adjective modifies a noun or a pronoun by describing, identifying, or quantifying words. An adjective usually precedes the noun or the pronoun which it modifies.
In the following examples, the highlighted words are adjectives:
The truck-shaped balloon floated over the treetops.
Mrs. Morrison papered her kitchen walls with hideous wall paper.
The small boat foundered on the wine dark sea.
The coal mines are dark and dank.
Many stores have already begun to play irritating Christmas music.
A battered music box sat on the mahogany sideboard.
The back room was filled with large, yellow rain boots.
An adjective can be modified by an adverb, or by a phrase or clause functioning as an adverb. In the sentence
My husband knits intricately patterned mittens.
for example, the adverb "intricately" modifies the adjective "patterned."
Some nouns, many pronouns, and many participle phrases can also act as adjectives. In the sentence
Eleanor listened to the muffled sounds of the radio hidden under her pillow.
for example, both highlighted adjectives are past participles.
Grammarians also consider articles ("the," "a," "an") to be adjectives.
An adjective is a word which acts to modify a noun in a sentence. While adjectives play a large role in many languages -- such as English -- many other languages have no adjectives at all. In English the set of adjectives is fairly well understood, though some people include other parts of speech -- such as articles like
the -- in the class of adjectives.
There are two main roles an adjective may take in a sentence, and with a few exceptions each adjective is able to take either role just as easily. The first role is to act as a predicative adjective, in which the adjective modifies a preceding noun as a predicate, linked by a verb. An example of a predicative adjective can be found in the sentence: A zebra is striped. in which the adjective striped is linked the subject of the sentence, zebr