Descriptors are the words most people think of when asked about adjectives; words like bright, small, new, beautiful, strong. These types of adjectives are normally gradable Describes words which may have a property to a greater or lesser extent. more...: by inflection; brighter, brightest, smaller, smallest, newer, newest, stronger, stronger, or by the use of an adverb; more beautiful, very small, extremely strong.

Descriptors are usually classified thus:

1. Colour/Hue/Brightness: amber, black, blue, bronze, brown, dark, fuchsia, green, grey, indigo, olive, orange, pale, pink, purple, red, salmon, scarlet, violet, white, yellow;
2. Size/Weight/Quantity/Extent: dense, finite, great, high, huge, large, long, low, narrow, small, tiny, wide;
3. Time/Chronology/Frequency/Age: annual, daily, early, late, monthly, new, old, permanent, recent, temporary, young;
4. Evaluative/Judgemental/Emphatic: best, drastic, good, great, important, inferior, intense, legitimate, right, simple, special, superior, utter;
5. General: accurate, appropriate, cold, elaborate, empty, feasible, neutral, open, physical, positive, random, rigid, serious, strong, superficial.

Some of these adjectives may be placeable in more than one of these categories, depending on their use in context.

Examples

• One important descriptor thing to know noun phrase (the head is "thing", postmodified with a to-clause) is that light moves very fast. (Baron 2021)

In this sentence there is just one adjective: "important". It is an attributive An adjective which is used before a noun. more... adjective (coming before the noun) and it is an evaluative descriptor.




• For large size descriptor collections noun phrase head, storing film in cold general descriptor vaults noun phrase head is much cheaper general descriptor (comparative) than copying. (Ahmad 2020)

In this sentence the adjectives "large" and "cold" are attributive An adjective which is used before a noun. more...; "cheaper" is predicative An adjective which is used after a verb. Predicative adjectives may be subject predicatives or object predicatives. more....




• Younger age descriptor kids noun phrase head have small size descriptor brains noun phrase head and have less mental classifier energy noun phrase head available postposed adjective than older age descriptor kids. noun phrase head (Wilson 2019)

There are five adjectives in this sentence. The adjectives "younger" and "older" are age descriptors (comparatives). The adjective "small" is a size descriptor. The adjective "mental" is not a descriptor; it is a classifier An adjective used mainly in writing which has a classifying function. Classifiers are normally non-gradable. There are three types: relational, topical and affiliative. more... (it restricts the reference of the noun, distinguishing it from other types of energy, and it is non-gradable). The adjective "available" general descriptor and it is a postposed adjective An adjective which follows the noun phrase it modifies instead of preceding it. more.... The structure "have less mental energy available than older kids" is an example of correlative subordination A subordinator which along with another word in the superordinate clause creates a particular relationship between the clauses. Examples are: as .... as, so .... as, as .... so, such .... as, ... more....




• This is because white colour descriptor cells noun phrase head work better when your body temperature is higher extent descriptor (comparative) than normal classifier. (Koirala 2019)

There are three adjectives in this sentence ("better" is an adverb). The adjectives "white" and "higher" are descriptors. "white" is an attributive An adjective which is used before a noun. more... adjective and "higher" is predicative An adjective which is used after a verb. Predicative adjectives may be subject predicatives or object predicatives. more.... The phrase "than normal" is a degree complement Gradable adjectives are often followed by complements in the form of comparative phrases or clauses. This helps to make a comparison more obvious or gives other information such as a result or a reason. more... of the the adjective "higher". This is a very common comparative construction. The adjective "normal" is a topical classifierThe grouping elements into various classes according to their characteristics. more.... "normal" obviously means the normal body temperature.

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