Adjectives
and Adverbs
We cannot describe anything without using adjectives and adverbs. These words specify item, color, size, place, time, extent, etc. Adjectives usually come before the nouns and pronouns that they modify, but they may also follow them, and they answer many questions:
What kind? Which one? How many? What color? What size?
Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. They also answer many questions:
When? Where? How? How often? How much? To what degree? Why?
Most, but not all, adverbs end in ly. The best way to recognize adverbs is to understand how they work in sentences.
We must be careful not to misuse adjectives and adverbs. Although many words in the English language can be a noun in one sentence, a verb in another, an adjective here, and an adverb there, we must be careful not to misuse some words.
Good
is an adjective. It is never an
adverb. One cannot play good.
Well
is an adverb. It is never an
adjective. One does play well.
Adjectives and adverbs are often used for comparison.
- The positive degree is the simplest form of an adjective or adverb; it involves no comparison.
- This red book is big.
- The small dog runs fast.
- The child quickly opened the present.
- The comparative degree shows a relationship between two things. To form the comparative degree, we add er to a word, or we use the word more or less with the positive form of a word.
- This green book is bigger than the red book.
- The medium dog runs faster than the small dog.
- The child opened the bigger present more quickly.
- The superlative degree shows the relationship among three or more things. To form the superlative degree, we add est to a word, or we use the word most or least with the positive form of the word.
- Yes, but this yellow book is the biggest of the three.
- The big dog runs the fastest of all the dogs.
- The child opened the biggest present most quickly.
Of course, in English some words change completely when compared. Good becomes better and best. Bad becomes worse and worst. Many becomes more and most. Be aware of changes, and keep a dictionary handy.
Do you remember my telling you that we should always strive for clarity in our writing? Trouble sneaks in occasionally when we work with adjective and adverb phrases and clauses (Do you remember the difference in a phrase and a clause?), and we create confusion for our readers. This trouble appears when we place modifiers in positions where they may be misread. Look at the following sentence:
Running down the sidewalk, the garden hose tripped Junior.
Who was running down the street? The garden hose? We know that a garden hose cannot run, but that’s what the sentence says. We need to revise the sentence:
Running down the sidewalk, Junior tripped over the garden hose.
We can also create trouble by placing any word in the wrong place. Look at the differences in these sentences.
The almost exhausted man finished the marathon. (The man is not quite exhausted.)
The exhausted man almost finished the marathon. (The man is exhausted, and he didn’t quite finish the race.
We almost won a million dollars in the lottery. (We didn’t win anything.)
We won almost a million dollars in the lottery. (We won a lot of money, but less than a million dollars.)
Be aware of the placement of words. Say exactly what you intend to say.