Adjective

“ An adjective expresses the quality, not of the noun or pronoun to which it is applied, but of the person or thing spoken of; and it may generally be known by the sense which it thus makes in connexion with its noun ”

“ For we must, if we are to be consistent, describe what appears to be most substantive as no more than a collection of such supposed adjectives: and thus, in the end, the concept turns out to be the only substantive or subject, and no one concept either more or less an adjective than any other. ”

“ An adjective sometimes relates to a phrase or sentence which is made the subject of an intervening verb; as, "To insult the afflicted, is impious"—Dillwyn. "That he should refuse, is not strange"—"To err is human." Murray says, "Human belongs to its substantive 'nature' understood."—Gram., p. ”

“ Function.—When we wish to assert that a thing possesses a certain quality, we do it by a predicate made up of some form of the verb be together with an adjective; as in the sentence, “The very name was uncanny.”—Page. Here the idea words are the subject noun and the adjective in the predicate; the verb was serves merely as a copula, or tie-word, necessary for the grammatical structure of the sentence, but having little, if any, meaning. ”

“ "I've got an adjective that just fits you." ”

“ In Chapter VI. we have discussed the point that in reality an adjective is psychologically a predicate: an expression like The good man containing, in fact, a statement that the man is good. There is a construction, however,—and one, too, not unfrequent,—in which the adjective contains the psychological and logical subjects ”

“ In forming our notions of what is signified by an adjective, the mind should pause to determine the meaning of such word when used as a distinct name for some object, in order to determine the import of it in this new capacity. ”

“ We say, "He is likely to come;" "He will probably come." Like as an adjective means "similar," as, "Men of like excellence;" "He looks like his grandfather;" "He was a man of like passions as we are." In the sense of "in the same manner as" like is followed by a noun or a pronoun in the objective case, and is called by some an adverb, by others a preposition: as, "He talks like her." ”

“ And the Article goes before the Adjective: except the Adjectives such and many, and others subjoined to the Adverbs so, [122] as, and how: as, “such a man;” “many a man;” “so good a man;” “as good a man as ever lived;” “how beautiful a prospect is here!” And sometimes when there are two or more Adjectives joined to the Noun: as, “a man learned and religious.”
Every Verb, except in the Infinitive or the Participle, hath its Nominative Case, either expressed or implied [59] ”

“ Possessed of an absolute belief that there exists but one way of expressing one thing, one word to call it by, one adjective to qualify, one verb to animate it, he gave himself to superhuman labour for the discovery, in every phrase, of that word, that verb, that epithet. ”

“ To determine whether a word is an adjective, first ascertain whether it names a thing, defines or describes it, or expresses its action, and you will never be at a loss to know to what class it belongs. ”

“ COMPLEX SENTENCES. THE ADJECTIVE CLAUSE. +Hints for Oral Instruction+.—A word-modifier may sometimes be expanded into a phrase or into an expression that asserts.
+T+.—A wise man will be honored. Expand wise into a phrase, and give me the sentence. +P+.—A man of wisdom will be honored. +T+.—Expand wise into an expression that asserts, join this to man, as a modifier, and then give me the entire sentence. +P+.—A man who is wise will be honored. ”

“ Every common noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and preposition is the name of a concept; for example, horse, beauty, to steal, running, over, early, yellow, grape, ocean, etc. To understand these concepts there must be somewhere a progress from the individual to the abstract, an induction from particulars to a general concept. ”

“ Adjectives are used as nouns:—We may say ‘a round table,’ or, ‘a round’ of visits; a ‘green’ tree, or to play on ‘the green;’ a ‘beautiful’ prospect, or a love for ‘the beautiful.’ And not only can we use the adjective as a noun; we may even give it a plural form. We often speak of ‘eatables and drinkables.’ A man may have a fit of the ‘dismals,’ or the ‘blues;’ or he may be anxious about his ‘goods,’ ‘moveables,’ or ‘valuables,’ &c. ”

“ Adjective and Adverbial Modifiers may consist simply of adjectives and adverbs, or of phrases and clauses used as adjectives or adverbs.
6. A Phrase is a group of words that is used as a single part of speech and that does not contain a subject and a predicate.
A Prepositional Phrase, always used as either an adjective or an adverbial modifier, consists of a preposition with its object and the modifiers of the object; as, He lives in Pittsburg, Mr. Smith of this place is the manager of the mill, The letter is in the nearest desk. ”

“ From the adjective perfect we form the verb to perfect, and from that again the noun perfection; to take a further step forward to a verb to perfection instead of returning to the verb to perfect is a superfluity of naughtiness. ”

“ For instance: in the sentence, "The work was well and rapidly accomplished," was accomplished is a verb; in this, "No man of his day was more brilliant or more accomplished," was is the verb, and accomplished is an adjective.
Exercises.
1. Bring up sentences with twenty descriptive adjectives, having some of each subclass named in Sec. 143.
2. Is the italicized word an adjective in this?—
The old sources of intellectual excitement seem to be well-nigh exhausted. ”

“ The energic attribute, which aids in forming the verb, may be a real movement or action, as going, coming, living, working, etc., or merely a qualitative Being, as a being beautiful, good, mortal, or immortal. In the former case, we have a real attributive verb, in the latter a substantive verb, in which an attribute is considered as at rest, hence as an adjective. ”

“ An Adjective noun is one that is applied homonymously [26] to proper or appellative nouns, and signifies either praise or blame. It is derived from three sources, from the soul, the body, and external things: from the soul, as sage, licentious; from the body, as swift, slow; from external things, as rich, poor. ”

“ Adjectives sometimes belong to verbs in the infinitive mood, or to a part of a sentence; as, "To see is pleasant; To be blind is unfortunate; To die for our country is glorious."
4. Adjectives are often used to modify the sense of other adjectives, or the action of verbs, and to express the quality of things in connexion with the action by which that quality is produced ”

“ Whatever one wishes to say, there is only one noun to express it, only one verb to give it life, only one adjective to qualify it. Search, then, till that noun, that verb, that adjective are discovered; never be content with “very nearly”; never have recourse to tricks, however happy ”

“ There is often a doubt in the mind of the speaker whether to use the adjective or the adverb, and too frequently he reaches a wrong decision. When the limiting word expresses a quality or state of the subject or of the object of a verb, the adjective must be employed ”

“ Adjectives express the qualities which distinguish one person or thing from another; in one form they express quality without comparison; in another, they express comparison between two, or between one and a number taken collectively,—and in a third they express comparison between one and a number of others taken separately. ”

“ Adjective would then give up his beautiful, useful, graceful, and other adjectives that are made from nouns.”
“No, no,” said the Judge; “I will have no giving up. When a word is once made it is made for good, and instead of blaming those who take their neighbour’s words to make new ones for themselves, I consider that they are very much to be praised. Critics, untie Mr. Adjective’s hands. Mr. Adjective, I am glad to hear you are so clever in making new words, and I give you full permission to make as many more as you can, by borrowing either from43 Mr. Noun or from any other Part-of-Speech. ”

“ Notice another example of this willingness to dispense with inflection, of this endeavour on the part of the speakers of a language to reduce its forms to the fewest possible, consistent with the accurate communication of thought. Of our adjectives in ‘en’, formed on substantives, and expressing the material or substance of a thing, some have gone, others are going, out of use; while we content ourselves with the bare juxtaposition of the substantive itself, as sufficiently expressing our meaning. ”

“ ADJECTIVES—CHOICE AND ARRANGEMENT. Words denoting quality form a very large and important group. Our knowledge of things about us is a knowledge of their qualities. A writer's style is, to a large extent, determined by his use of adjectives. We therefore recommend special drill in the choice and the use of adjectives. The exercises given below may serve as suggestions to the teacher. Groups of adjectives like the following may be presented, the pupils being required to join them to appropriate nouns:—
Some Qualities learned directly through the Senses. ”

“ A worser evil awaits us. 6. The most principal point was entirely overlooked. 7. That form of expression is more preferable.
+Caution+.—When an adjective denoting one, or an adjective denoting more than one, is joined to a noun, the adjective and the noun must agree in number.
+Remark+.—A numeral denoting more than one may be prefixed to a singular noun to form a compound adjective; as, a ten-foot pole (not a ten-feet pole) , a three-cent stamp.
+Direction+.—Study the Caution and the Remark, and correct these errors:—
1. These kind of people will never be satisfied. 2. ”

“ In these cases, the active form is used in a passive sense, and not vice versâ. ‘A walking-stick’ does not mean a stick that walks, but a stick to be walked with. Nor is a ‘drinking cup’ one that drinks, but one to be drunk out of.
This difference of subjective and objective meaning may be especially observed in that class of adjectives which ends in ‘able’ or ‘ible;’ such as, ‘portable,’ ‘pliable,’ ‘visible,’ ‘legible,’ &c. [73] Most of these words have a passive or objective sense. ”

“ When another Substantive is added to express and explain the former more fully; as, “Paul the Apostle;” “King George:” where they are both in the same case; and the latter is said to be put in Apposition to the former.
8th Phrase: When the quality [101] of the Substantive is expressed by adding an Adjective to it: as, “a wise man;” “a black horse.” Participles have the nature of Adjectives; as, “a learned man;” “a loving father.”
9th Phrase: An Adjective with a Verb in the Infinitive Mode following it: as, “worthy to die;” “fit to be trusted.” ”

“ When adjectives indicate a quality they have three forms called degrees indicating the extent or amount of the quality possessed by the noun especially as compared with other objects of the same sort, a big man, a bigger man, the biggest man. ”

“ But there are certain adjectives in which it conveys a positive or intensive meaning, i.e. the very opposite to the negative. When we say that some one’s health was ‘invigorated,’ we do not mean that it was weakened; but, on the contrary, that it was very much strengthened. Instead of depriving the word of any of its meaning, the ‘in’ here adds force to its positive signification. Some of this class are, ‘intense,’ ‘infatuated,’ ‘inveterate,’ ‘invaluable;’ [74] but most of them are used in a negative sense. ”

“ There is nothing particular to be remarked of the manner in which adjectives of plenty, or want, or those signifying an affection of the mind, are connected with the objects they connote, by prepositions ”