Adjective and adverb

1. Adjectives and Adverbs

2. OBJECTIVES
At the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
1. Explain adjectives and adverbs;
2. Give adequate examples of types of adjectives and adverbs;
3. Compose different sentences using adjectives and adverbs.

3. Adjectives
Adjectives are words that describes or give information about nouns or
pronouns
For example:
• The grey dog barked (Adjective_ grey) describes the noun dog
The form of an Adjective does not change. It does not matter if the noun
being modified is male or female, singular or plural, subject or object. Some
Adjectives give us factual information about the noun – age, size, colour
e.t.c. (fact adjective- can’t be argued with). Some Adjectives show what
somebody thinks about something or somebody – nice, horrid, beautiful
e.t.c (opinion Adjectives – not everyone may agree)

4. Types of Adjective
1. Qualitative Adjectives: colour, size, smell
2. Interrogative Adjectives: which, whose, what
Other types are treated as determiners these days.
3. Numeric Adjectives: six, one hundred and one
4. Quantitative Adjectives: more, all, some, half, more than enough
5. Possessive Adjectives: my, his, their, your
6. Demonstrative Adjectives: this, that, those, these

5. ADVERBS
An adverb is a word or an expression that modifies a
verb, adjectives, another adverb, preposition or
sentence.

6. Types of Adverb
There are three types of adverb. They are:
1. Adjunct
2. Disjunct
3. Conjunct

7. Adjuncts
An Adjunct means ‘something adjoining’ or ‘added on’, but not part of the whole if refers to a word or word
group that qualifies or completes the meaning of another word or other word and is not, itself a main
structure element in its sentence.
Adjunct is optional or secondary elements in a construction. An adjunct may be removed without the
structural identify of the rest of the construction using affected.
Example: She told me the news joyfully
‘She told me the news’ is a perfectly good sentence. Why Adjuncts at all? The answer is that adjuncts like
joyfully make what we say more interesting and informative.
Multiple Adjuncts
There can be more than one adjunct in a sentence. You can find adjuncts by stripping down the sentence to
its base components usually subject, verb and object. Everything else then is an adjunct.
Example: Eventually she found the money on the table near the wall clock.
• The basic sentence here is ‘She found the money’. How many adjuncts are there?
• Two adjuncts: ‘On the table’ and ‘near the clock’

8. Conjuncts
A conjunct serves the purpose of introducing a new sentence in a series and link it logically
with what has been said before. They include: nevertheless, moreover, yet, consequently,
besides, as a result, in any case, on the other hand, considering all that, to conclude, all
things considered, that is to say, what is more, what is more important etc. Example of a
conjunct:
• However, things turned out much worse than expected.
(‘however‘ relates what is said to contrast it with previous information about the speaker’s
expectations.)
Conjuncts can appear initially before a negative statement.
e.g. Therefore, he couldn’t come.
A disjunct is a type of adverbial that expresses information that is not considered essential to
the sentence it appears in, but which is considered to be the speaker’s or writer’s attitude
towards, or descriptive statement of, the propositional content of the sentence.

9. Disjuncts
A disjunct is a type of adverbial that expresses information that is not considered essential
to the sentence it appears in, but which is considered to be the speaker’s or writer’s
attitude towards, or descriptive statement of, the propositional content of the sentence.
Disjuncts express the speaker’s or the writer’s attitude or approach to the statement
he/she is making. They include: (a) single-word adverbs such as briefly, certainly, frankly,
generally, honestly, perhaps, personally, really, probably, certainly, maybe, fortunately,
actually, briefly; (b) phrases: in a few words, in short of course, to my surprise, in other
words (c) non-finite clauses: speaking frankly, to tell you the truth, to cut a long story
short, the finite clauses if I may say so if you don’t mind my pointing it out.
For example:
Fortunately, we managed to get there on time.
“Fortunately” shows us that the speaker was pleased about the result of the action.
More generally, the term disjunct can be used to refer to any sentence element that is not
fully integrated into the clausal structure of the sentence. Such elements usually appear
peripherally (at the beginning or end of the sentence) and are set off from the rest of the
sentence by a comma (in writing) and a pause (in speech).

10. GUIDED PRACTICE
Identify the adjuncts in the following sentences and state what type of
adjunct
1. He was sleeping on the bed in his mother’s room
2. Her mother visited him last Friday
3. Sorrowfully she left the room
4. On 25th December he traveled to Port Harcourt to see his cousin
5. Owing to his eye problem, he couldn’t take his examination last
week Tuesday

11. INDEPENDENT PRACTICE
1. Differentiate between pronoun types and adjective (determiner)
types.
a. Possessive adjective and possessive pronoun
b. Demonstrative adjective and demonstrative pronoun
c. Interrogative adjective and interrogative pronoun
2. Write in sentence form THREE examples each of disjunct and
conjunct.