Adjectives can be used to describe physical characteristics, opinions, origins, and purposes of nouns. They typically precede nouns and are ordered with opinion adjectives first, followed by size, age, shape, color, material, origin, and purpose. While this order is recommended, it is not absolutely necessary and the order can be adjusted based on what aspect you want to emphasize.
plant breeding methods in asexually or clonally propagated crops
Adjectives diana
1. ADJECTIVES
Adjectives can be used to describe lots of things, from physical size, age, shape, color,
material, to more abstract things like opinion, origin and purpose.
We can use adjectives together to give a detailed description of something.
Adjectives that express opinions usually come before all others, but it can sometimes
depend on what exactly you want to emphasize.
Position 1st* 2nd* 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th
Opinion Size Age Shape Colour Material Origin Purpose
Nice Small Old Square Black Plastic British Racing
Ugly Big New Circular Blue Cotton American Running
You might swap adjectives that express an opinion and an adjective based on fact
depending on what you wish to emphasize:
For example:
"She had a long, ugly nose." emphasising the length of her nose.
"He was a silly, little man." emphasising that the man was silly.
This is just for fun as you wouldn't normally see so many adjectives in one description.
For example:
"She had a big, ugly, old, baggy, blue, stripey, cotton, British, knitting bag."
Does it matter if you get it wrong? Well outside of exams and tests, it won't kill you, but
people reading or listening to you will find it odd if you mix up the order.
(Network, 2012)
2. POSITION OF ADJECTIVES
Adjectives usually go before the nouns they modify.
She is a nice girl. (Here the adjective nice modifies the noun girl and goes before
it.)
He is an intelligent boy.
That was a clever idea.
When two or more adjectives come before a noun, they are usually separated by commas.
A large, round table
A short, fair, pretty girl
Note that we do not put a comma after the last adjective in the series.
When the last two are adjectives of color, they are usually separated by and.
A black and white cow (NOT black white cow)
Red and blue socks
When two or more adjectives come in the predicative position, we use and between the
last two.
It was hot and sultry.
The boy was handsome, smart and polite.
The clouds looked white and fluffy.
Sometimes we put an adjective after the noun for the sake of emphasis.
3. There lived an old man strong and wicked. (More emphatic than ‘There lived a
strong and wicked old man.’)
In phrases such as those given below, the adjective always comes after the noun.
Time-immemorial
Heir-apparent
God Almighty
President elect
In lines of poetry, too, the adjective is sometimes put after the noun.
O men with sisters dear! (Instead of ‘O men with dear sisters’)
(Grammar, 2012)
Bibliografía
Grammar, E. (29 de Abril de 2012). English Grammar.Obtenidode EnglishGrammar:
http://www.englishgrammar.org/position-adjectives/
Network,L.(2012). Learn English Grammar.Obtenidode LearnEnglishGrammar:
http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/adjectiveorder.html