Adjectives modify or affect the meaning of nouns and pronouns and tell us which, whose, what kind, and how many about the nouns or pronouns they modify. They come before the noun or pronoun they modify except for the predicate adjective which comes after a linking verb and modifies the subject.
There are seven (7) words in the English language that are always adjectives. They are the articles a, an, and the and the possessives my, our, your, and their. (The possessives are from the possessive pronoun list but are always used with nouns as adjectives.) Being only seven in number, one should memorize them so they are immediately recognized as adjectives.
Example of adjectives: The big brown beargrabbed the scared small man. The, big and brown modify the subject bear and the, scared and small modify the direct object man. Examples of a predicate adjective: The big bear is brown. The brown bear was big. Brown and bigcome after the linking verbs is and was and modify the subject bear.
Adjectives that point out which include that, this, those, these, and the articles a, an and the.
Find the adjectives that tell whichin these sentences and tell what they modify.
1. These first apples have been stepped on.
2. This money had been lost at the races.
3. That cat had those kittens.
4. A mouse can scare an elephant.
5. An answer will be found in the dictionary or a thesaurus.
Answers
1. theseand first modify apples
2. this modifies money, the modifies races
3. that modifies cat, thosemodifies kittens
4. a modifies mouse, an modifies elephant
5. an modifies answer, the modifies dictionary, a modifies thesaurus