Adjective is any of a class of words that modifies a noun or other substantive, as by describing qualities of the entity denoted, stating its limits or quantity, or distinguishing it from the others.
The word beautiful in she is a beautiful woman.
Position
Most adjectives go in two main places in a sentence, attributive position (before a noun) and predicative position (after a copular verb, as be, seem, appear, look, sound, smell, taste, feel, become, get)
E.g.: the word new in the following sentences:
- attributive position: The new student doesn’t know my name yet
- predicative position: She is a new student
Attributive adjective is possible to come after a noun it modifies in a few cases, as follows:
- in older English, as grand in He came from his palace grand
- in some fixed phrases, as the bold typed words in Secretary General, Poet Laureate, God Almighty, court martial, President elect, Attorney General
- in a relative clause, as available in he will buy all the tickets available (which are available)
- in an expression of measurement, as high in five meters high
When some adjectives come before a noun, they have to be put in a particular order.
a beautiful old brick house (not an old beautiful brick house)
It’s very rare to find a long list of adjectives, but it’s important that whatsoever adjectives are used be placed in the proper order.
Table 1 order of adjectives before the noun
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| Determiner | Quality Character | Size | Age | Participle | Shape | Color | Origin | Material | Noun | Modified Noun |
| The | Beautiful | Big | Old | Neglected | Square | White | Spanish | Stone | brick | House |
The beautiful big Spanish house
Adjective without nouns
a. The + Adjective
The old, the poor, the young, etc are adjectives used in the way without nouns they modify. In this way, adjectives are always plural. The old means the old people, the poor the poor people, the young the young people—not the old person or an old or the olds.
These expressions cannot be used without the, and with a possessive -‘s.
We can’t say the government is really concerned about poor, but the poor; the poor’s problems, but the poor people’s problem.
These expressions sometimes are used without the after quantifiers like more and many.
Many old stay at that retirement home.
b. The + Origin
Adjectives of nationality ending in –sh or –ch as Spanish, British, French, Dutch are used without nouns after the.
The Dutch occupied Indonesia for more than three hundreds years.
In this case, the Dutch means the Dutch people.
We can’t say a Dutch, but a Dutchman.
