GE_127

COMMUNICATION ARTS
DESCRIBING PEOPLE, PLACES,
EVENTS, AND THINGS
Maria Riva J. Ocop
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Module No. CommArts 3
Module
DESCRIBING PEOPLE, PLACES, EVENTS AND THINGS
Title
Lesson 1 Adjectives
Description of
the Lesson This lesson will reinforce your skills in describing people, places, events and things by
gaining a better understanding in the use of adjectives.

Lesson At the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

Objectives a. Identify different kinds of adjectives
b. Write series of adjectives properly
c. Use suffixes to form adjectives
d. Use comparison of adjectives in describing nouns
Lesson Proper
Activity and Read the following paragraphs below and answer the questions that follow.
Analysis
In fact, a wet or watery item like fish or chicken settles not only into one plastic bag
but into two or three. One kilo of galunggong is placed inside the first plastic bag that
is small, thin, and transparent; this is then thrust into the second plastic bag that is
bigger, thicker, and translucent, with a handle; finally, the already-twice covered
galunggong is placed inside a third plastic bag that is biggest and thickest and with a
sturdier handle. Tot accommodate a mixture of purchased items, this third one, the
“major” plastic bag needs to be strongest among three plastic bags.

1. Name at least five adjectives found in the text.

2. What is the purpose of the adjectives in the text?
3. How are these formed as adjectives?
4. If you were to use three or more adjectives, how do you position these words
in the text?
Abstraction Adjectives
Adjectives are often called picture words or descriptive words because modify or
describe nouns and pronouns.

Kinds of Adjectives
1. Descriptive adjectives
These adjectives describe a noun or pronoun by bestowing a quality/feature.
It includes quality, size, shape and color.

Example:
Jack is a nice person.
I bought a genuine product.
The fiesta was an exciting event.

When more than one descriptive adjective is used before a noun, it follows a
certain order on how it is positioned in a sentence.
 Order of Adjectives

Order
1 Opinion
2 Size
3 Physical quality
4 Shape
5 Age
6 Color
7 Origin
8 Material
9 Purpose
Examples
delicious, comfortable, kind
large, small, tall
rough, smooth
oval, round, square
young, old, middle-aged
white, black, grey
Filipino, Korean, Japanese
leather, plastic, wood
cooking, cleaning

For example:
My dog is a friendly, big, fluffy, two-year-old, grey, Siberian Husky.

2. Limiting Adjectives
These adjectives specify or limit the exact number of nouns. It answers the
questions: which one? how many? how much? Whose? These includes:
a. articles (a, an, the)
a bag, the storm, an apple
There is a bag on the table.

b. indefinite adjectives (all, few, many, several, some)

all students, several movies, some books
Several movies are released this year.

c. numerals (second, third, four, thirty-five)

five thousand shoes, first bag
Imelda has five thousand shoes.

d. demonstrative adjectives (this, that, those, these)

this city, that haircut, those singers
That haircut looks good on you!

e. possessive adjectives
• pronouns (her, my, our, your, his, their, its)
my bag, her poem, your phone
• nouns
Cinderella’s fairytale, Bob’s beer, Dad’s opinion

Where is your phone?

Her life is like Cinderella’s fairytale.

Position of Adjectives in the Sentence

An adjective can function as an attributive or predicative/ complement in a sentence.

It functions as an attributive adjective if it is placed before the noun, or pronoun it
describes.
Example:
An old bag was found in the streets.
A clean city has a good garbage disposal system.
The Filipino steak was served to the tourists.

It functions as a predicative adjective when it becomes a subject complement. A

subject complement is a word or phrase that follows a linking verb and modifies/
describes the subject.

The city is clean.

The adjective clean, found after the linking verb is, describes the subject city.

The bag left in the streets looks old.

Adjective-forming suffixes

Suffixes are letter or group of letters that are attached to the ending of the words.
This changes their meaning or function. Adjectives-forming suffixes are suffixes that
change the function of the words to become adjectives. The table below presents
these suffixes.

Suffix Meaning Examples

-able, -ible, -ble bearable, reversible,
capable of being
saleable
-ac, -ic archaic, angelic, historical
-al pertaining to magical, identical,
supernatural
-ful grateful, beautiful,
abounding in
purposeful
-ious, -uous, -eous courageous, delicious,
full of continuous
-ose verbose, frondose, jocose
-some awesome, brightsome,
like, full of
tiresome

Examples in sentences:

The singer’s angelic voice moved the audience to tears.

How should one live a purposeful life?
This hoodie is reversible!
Love is a continuous cycle of happiness and sorrow.
Please refrain from submitting verbose reports.
Such awesome people! I like them.

Degrees of Adjectives

Adjectives have three degrees of comparison. These are the positive, comparative,
and superlative degrees.
Positive degree takes the form of normal adjectives. They are not compared to
anything.
The turtle is a slow animal.

Comparative degree is used to compare two people, places, events, or things. The
word then usually follows the comparative degree.
The starfish is slower than the turtle.

You can also use more or less in comparative degrees.

Suzzie is more admirable than Lancey.

Brioche is less scrumptious than this baguette.

Superlative degree compares more than two things to show which is the least or
greatest. It usually uses the word the before the superlative adjective.

Sloth is the slowest animal in the planet.

Suzzie is admirable. Lancey is more admirable. Daisy is the most admirable.
Cloro’s brioche is the least scrumptious one I have ever tasted.

Rules in degrees of comparison

Should you use -er and -est or more and most?

You use -er and -est if it is a one-syllable adjective such as small, big, large or cute. Use
also -er and -est also if it is a two-syllable adjective ending in -y. However, you must
change -y to i and add -er or -est.

You use more and most (or less and least) if the adjective has two or more syllable
such as beautiful, courageous and gracious.

The table below will help you remember the rules:

Rule Positive Comparative Superlative

One-syllable Small ____+er ____+est
adjectives Large smaller smallest
Cool larger largest
cooler coolest

Two-syllables Lovely change "y" to "i" + change "y" to "i" +

adjectives Pretty er est
ending in -y lovelier loveliest
prettier prettiest
Adjectives Tender more/less ____ most/least ____
with two or Intelligent more intelligent most intelligent
more syllables handsome less charming least charming

Warning!
Be careful with the redundant use of comparison degrees like most prettiest. It is a
grammatical error.
 Remember:

There are also irregular adjectives that do not follow the rules in making comparison
such as good, bad, and worse. Just remember their comparative and superlative
degrees. Below are the most common irregular adjectives used in daily conversation.

Positive Comparative Superlative

good better best
bad worse worst
far* further furthest
far** farther furthest
old *** elder elder
ill worse worst
in inner innermost
out outer outermost
northern more northern northernmost
southern more southern southernmost
western more western westernmost
eastern more eastern easternmost

*Considered as irregular adjective although it uses -er and -est because it adds -th and
changes “a” to “u”/ refers to extent
** Considered as irregular adjective although it uses -er and -est because it adds -th
/refers to distance
*** Considered as irregular verb although it uses -er and -est because it changes “o”
to “e”/ used to describe people

Absolute Adjectives
These adjectives cannot be compared because they describe a state, which cannot be
changed. Below are some.

chief, dead, empty, equal, full, final, square, perfect, complete, absolute, basic, entire,
omnipotent, primary, whole, obvious, certain, immortal, universal, right, eternal

Application Answer the activity sheet titled Exercises for Adjectives found in Moodle.

Metacognition Think about your daily conversations. In what cases did you use adjectives and why
did you use it?
References Sebastian, E. L., Cayao, E. A., Asuncion, R. P., & Reyes, S. E.
(2013). English proficiency 1 (2nd ed.). C & E Publishing.
Baraceros, E. L. (2013). English grammar for college freshment.
Rex Book Store, Inc.
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