Adjectives

Grade Seven
 What are Adjectives?
• Adjectives are modifiers. They modify nouns or
pronouns. This means they change the image
of a noun or pronoun.

• Adjectives can be located by asking the

questions:
What kind?
Which one?
How many?
How much?
What are Adjectives?
Picture a car in your mind.
Do you have an
image in your head?
Now make it red.
What is an Adjective?
Now make it fast.
What is an Adjective?
Now make it old-fashioned.
What is an Adjective?
Now make it broken.
What is an Adjective?
Now make it green.
 What is an Adjective?
Adjectives change the meaning of a noun
by somehow changing the image of it.

That’s why they are called modifiers.

There are two kinds of adjectives:

descriptive
and
limiting.
 Descriptive Adjectives
• Descriptive adjectives
DESCRIBE!

• The add some sensory image to your sentence which allows the
reader to see, smell, hear, touch, or taste something in the
sentence.
• All of the modifiers in the earlier section of the slide show concerning
the car were descriptive adjectives. They made the car red, fast,
old-fashioned, broken, and green. Those words are all adjectives!

• Descriptive adjectives make writing much better!

 Proper Adjectives
• One type of descriptive adjective is called
the proper adjective.
• Proper adjectives are derived from, or
come from, proper nouns. This means
that they must always be capitalized.
• Proper adjectives sometimes are formed
by adding a suffix to the proper noun.
 Proper Adjectives
Examples of Proper Adjectives

Proper Noun Proper Adjective

America American
France French
China Chinese
Pennsylvania Pennsylvanian
 Proper Adjectives
Sometime proper nouns don’t change in form at all when they become
proper adjectives.
Ex. President Kennedy was a good leader. (In this sentence
President Kennedy is a person; therefore, he is a noun.)

Ex. The Kennedy Library is very large. (in this sentence Kennedy is
describing the library; therefore, it is an adjective.)
 Limiting Adjectives
• Limiting adjectives point out nouns.
• There are five kinds of them:
Articles
Possessives
Demonstratives
Indefinites
Interrogatives
 Articles
There are three articles:
a
an
the
“The” is called a definite article because it
points out nouns more specifically.
“A” and “an” are called indefinite articles
because they do not point nouns out as
specifically.
 Articles
“The” can be used before both singular and
plural nouns.
Ex. the cat, the houses

“A” and “an” can only be used before

singular nouns.
Ex. a book, an elephant
 Articles
“The” can be used before both vowels and
consonants.
Ex. the ant, the car

“A” must be used before consonant sounds.

Ex. a duck, a fossil, a uniform

“An” must be used before a vowel sounds.

Ex. an umbrella, an excuse
 Possessive Adjectives
• Possessive adjectives show ownership of
a noun.
• These words are the same as the
possessive pronouns.
• There are fourteen possessive adjectives:
my, mine our, ours
your, yours your, yours
his, her, hers, its their, theirs
 Demonstrative Adjectives
• Demonstrative adjectives point out a noun.
• They are the same words as the
demonstrative pronouns.
• There are four demonstratives:
this
that
these
those
 Indefinite Adjectives
• Indefinite adjectives point out nouns.
• They often tell “how many” or “how much”
of something.
• There are seventeen of them:
all, any, another, both, each, either, few,
little, many, more, most, much, neither,
one, other, several, some
 Interrogative Adjectives
• Interrogative adjectives are used to ask
questions.
• Three of them were also interrogative
pronouns:
which
what
whose
 Limiting Adjectives
• Many limiting adjectives have also been studied as
pronouns. How do you tell when they are pronouns and
when they are adjectives?
-If a word is a pronoun, it will be renaming a person,
place, or thing.
Ex. That is a pencil. (That is renaming the pencil;
therefore, it is a pronoun.)
-If a word is an adjective, it will be pointing out a noun.
Ex. That pencil is big. (That is pointing out a pencil,
and pencil is a noun; therefore, it is an adjective.)
 Location of Adjectives
Adjectives can be located in three places in a sentence.

1. The most common location is directly in front of the

noun it is modifying.
Ex. the big dog, the new toy
2. Another location is after a linking verb or verb of
condition. These are called predicate adjectives.
Ex. The game was interesting.
3. The final location of adjectives occurs after a noun
when it is set off by commas.
Ex. The book, well-written and suspenseful, kept my
interest.