Adjectives are used with nouns to make the meaning more specific and tell you more about the noun. If you use the noun ‘bear’ it can mean any animal of that species. As soon as you say ‘a large, brown bear’ you have given two of its attributes (colour and size). A noun is said to be modified by its adjectives.
Adjectives have two main features:
- Most adjectives can go before a noun; this is known as their attributive use.
a tall girl
green grass
four badly behaved little boys
- Most adjectives can also go after a link verb such as be or seem; this is known as their predicative use.
The roses are yellow.
The girls are getting tall.
These books seem really interesting.
Any word that can go into both of these positions is a normal adjective.
When used predicatively (after a link verb), an adjective can either describe the subject of a sentence,
The room is green.
The film was really funny.
or the object of the sentence.
Anna painted the room green.
The children drove him mad.
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