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Unit 5: Parts of Speech: Adjective and Preposition

interest, and when you simply insist on its presence without showing it to your reader — well, Notes
you’re convincing no one.

Position of Adjectives
Unlike, Adverbs which often seem capable of popping up almost anywhere in a sentence,
adjectives nearly always appear immediately before the noun or noun phrase that they modify.
Sometimes they appear in a string of adjectives, and when they do, they appear in a set order
according to category. When indefinite pronouns—such as something, someone, and anybody—
are modified by an adjective, the adjective comes after the pronoun:
Anyone capable of doing something horrible to someone nice should be punished.
Something wicked this way comes.
And there are certain adjectives that, in combination with certain words, are always “post
positive” (coming after the thing they modify):
The president elect, heir apparent to the Glitzy fortune, lives in New York proper.

5.1 Degrees of Adjectives

Adjectives can express degrees of modification:
• Gladys is a rich woman, but Josie is richer than Gladys, and Sadie is the richest woman
in town.

Notes The degrees of comparison are known as the positive, the comparative, and the superlative.
(Actually, only the comparative and superlative show degrees.) We use the comparative
for comparing two things and the superlative for comparing three or more things.

Notice that the word than frequently accompanies the comparative and the word the precedes
the superlative. The inflected suffixes-er and-est suffice to form most comparatives and superlatives,
although we need-ierand-iest when a two-syllable adjective ends in y(happier and happiest);
otherwise we use more and most when an adjective has more than one syllable.

Positive Comparative Superlative
rich richer richest
lovely lovelier loveliest

beautiful more beautiful most beautiful
Certain adjectives have irregular forms in the comparative and superlative degrees:

Irregular Comparative and Superlative Forms

good better best
bad worse worst
little less least
muchmanysome more most
far further furthest

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