You can say "there was a garden wall" but never "the wall was garden. Second, adjectives can often come after the noun they modify.Īttributive nouns must come before the noun the modify. You can't say "It was a booker fair than the last one" or "It was the most book fair I've ever been to." Attributive means "joined directly to a noun in order to describe it."Īttributive nouns can't do two things that adjectives can do:įirst, most adjectives have comparative (-er/more) and superlative (-est/most) forms.īut attributive nouns do not have comparative and superlative forms. The word detail is not an adjective because this. They are still nouns, but when they modify other nouns we call them attributive nouns. Adjective Tests The word meaningful is an adjective because this sentence is logical: It seems meaningful. In the "garden wall" example, even though 'garden' is modifying 'wall' it is still a noun.īut if a noun can do what an adjective does, why don’t we just call it an adjective? Because nouns that modify other nouns can't actually do everything that adjectives do. Look at these noun-noun pairs: wine glass, city street, coat closet, book fair, and business meeting. Many nouns can be used to modify other nouns, just like adjectives modify nouns. ![]() When they describe nouns or pronouns, adjectives typically answer the. In the sentence "There was an ugly duckling" the adjective "ugly" describes or modifies the noun "duckling." Traditionally, adjectives are defined as words that describe nouns or pronouns. An adjective is a word that describes a noun.
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