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An adjective (abbreviated adj.) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase.Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main parts of speech of the English language, although historically they were classed together with nouns. [1]
With the adjective as a modifier in a noun phrase, the adjective and the noun typically receive equal stress (a black bird), but in a compound, the adjective typically takes primary word stress (a blackbird). Only a small set of English adjectives function in this way: [37] The colour words black, blue, brown, green, grey, red, and white
So can those ending in -ch / -tch (e.g. "the French", "the Dutch") provided they are pronounced with a 'ch' sound (e.g. the adjective Czech does not qualify). Many place-name adjectives and many demonyms are also used for various other things, sometimes with and sometimes without one or more additional words.
Adjective phrases containing complements after the adjective cannot normally be used as attributive adjectives before a noun. Sometimes they are used attributively after the noun , as in a woman proud of being a midwife (where they may be converted into relative clauses: a woman who is proud of being a midwife ), but it is wrong to say * a ...
In noun phrases such as the boy actor, words like boy do not fall neatly into the categories noun or adjective. Boy is more like an adjective than a noun in that it functions as a pre-head modifier of a noun, which is a function prototypically filled by adjective phrases, and in that that it cannot be pluralized in this position (*the boys actor).
The adjectival noun term was formerly synonymous with noun adjunct but now usually means nominalized adjective (i.e., an adjective used as a noun) as a term that contrasts the noun adjunct process, e.g. the Irish meaning "Irish people" or the poor meaning "poor people". [citation needed] Japanese adjectival nouns are a different concept.
Recognizing postpositive adjectives in English is important for determining the correct plural for a compound expression. For example, because martial is a postpositive adjective in the phrase court-martial, the plural is courts-martial, the suffix being attached to the noun rather than the adjective
In English, prototypical nouns are common nouns or proper nouns that can occur with determiners, articles and attributive adjectives, and can function as the head of a noun phrase. According to traditional and popular classification, pronouns are distinct from nouns, but in much modern theory they are considered a subclass of nouns. [ 2 ]