Adjective

Look at the paragraph below!

My friend, Likin, is a handsome tall boy. He always wears a long white T-shirt and a big red cap. He carries a huge blue canvas bag to school. His favorite food is crunchy red apples and he always has one in his bag. Our teacher is an English kind tall man called Mr. Bakri. He wears a smart blue suit and glasses with thick black plastic frames.

Can you identify the adjectives in the example paragraph above? How do you know if they are adjectives? How they are combined with the noun? Well, I will try to explain all these questions. Here they are:

First of all, I will tell you about the function of adjective. Its function is to describe, to give more information and to limit the noun. Other definition is to modify the noun. If it is combined with the noun, it comes before the noun. It also often takes place after linking verbs- be, become, grow and so on. For instance; ‘a handsome tall boy’ means ‘a boy is handsome and tall’. We may not say ‘a boy handsome tall’ because the adjectives ‘handsome and tall’ in that phrase is to describe the noun ‘a boy’. The adjectives ‘handsome and tall’ in that phrase are also limiting the noun ‘a boy’. We can ask ‘which boys?’ and the answer is ‘a handsome tall boy’ not ‘an ugly big boy’ or ‘other one’. Then it also gives more information about the noun ‘a boy’. We can ask ‘how is the boy?’ and the answer ‘he is handsome and tall’.

According to the example paragraph above, we can see that how it is arranged before the noun. We can put more than one adjective to modify the noun such as ‘a huge blue canvas bag’. An article ‘a’, the size ‘huge’, the color ‘blue’ and the shape ‘canvas’ are also called as the adjectives. They are used to modify the noun ‘bag’. However, it is not easy to put more than one adjective before the noun. It has rule. We may not put it as we like. Look at the table below!

1	2	3	4	5
Determiner	Size	Color	Material	Principal noun
A	huge	blue	canvas	bag

From the table above, we can see how the adjectives modify or describe the noun. To make it clearer, have a look the kinds of adjectives that can modify the noun.

Kinds of adjectives

1.       Determiners

a.       Article: a, an and the (later on we will discuss about this)

b.      Demonstrative adjective

Singular	Plural
This	These
That	Those

·         This book is very beautiful. It belongs to John.

·         These books are very beautiful. They are very beautiful books.

·         That car is new. It is a new car.

·         Those cars are old. They are old cars

.

c.       Possessive adjective (my, your, their, our, John’s, Sudimas’ and so on)  

·         John’s bike is expensive. He buys it with his own money.

·         Nevi’s sister goes to school everyday. Her motorcycle is quite new.

d.      Numeral

·   Cardinal number          : one (1), two (2), three (3), four (4), five (5) and so on

·   Ordinal number            : first (1^st), second (2^nd), third (3^rd), forth (4^th) and so on.

e.      Indefinite quantity (some, few, all and so on)

·         Some students are listening to Radio. They are interested in listening it.

·         All people in this world need money. They need it to fulfill their daily needs.

f.        Relative and interrogative adjective (what, which, whose and so on)

·         What problem do you have?

·         Whose writing is this?

2.       Descriptive Adjective

a.       Proper adjective: a French dish, an American boy, an Islamic camp, and so on.

b.      Participle adjective (interesting, bored, tired, disappointing and so on)

·         It was a very interesting journey.

·         A tired mother is taking a rest.

c.       Adjective compound

·         I found a good looking man in Teluk Pakedai yesterday.

·         It is a very heart breaking story.

Now let me continue explaining this adjective by showing you a table about the orders of adjectives before the noun. We need to pay much attention to this table because there is a rule to put adjectives before the noun. I got it when I took an English course at BEC (Basic English Course) Pare-Kediri, East Java. You can find this in Modern English. Here it is

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Determiner	Quality Character	size	Age Temperature	Participle	Shape	Color	Origin Location	Material	noun	Principle noun
The	beautiful	big	old	neglected	square	red	Jamaicaa	stone	plantation	houses

It is clear that to put more than one adjective, it should be put according to the kinds of the adjective. This table tells us how to put more than one adjective before the noun.

Well, it will be more interesting if there are some exercises to check whether you have understood or not about the order of the adjectives before the noun.

Exercises

a. Rearrange the following words based on the order of adjectives before the noun!

1.       kind-a-good looking-white-tall-big-man-interesting-Indonesian

2.       English-rich-a-girl-black-girl-fat-bored-stingy

3.       expensive-big-the-lovely-square-blue-Pontianak-bag

Good luck!

Thanks