Adjectives: Descriptors

Descriptors: the commonest adjectives

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 gradableDescribes words which may have a property to a greater or lesser extent.: 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 importantdescriptor thing to knownoun 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 attributiveAn adjective which is used before a noun. adjective (coming before the noun) and it is an evaluative descriptor.
• For largesize descriptor collectionsnoun phrase head, storing film in coldgeneral descriptor vaultsnoun phrase head is much cheapergeneral descriptor (comparative) than copying. (Ahmad 2020)
  
  In this sentence the adjectives "large" and "cold" are attributiveAn adjective which is used before a noun. ; "cheaper" is predicativeAn adjective which is used after a verb. Predicative adjectives may be subject predicatives or object predicatives. .
• Youngerage descriptor kidsnoun phrase head have smallsize descriptor brainsnoun phrase head and have less mentalclassifier energynoun phrase head availablepostposed adjective than olderage 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 classifierAn adjective used mainly in writing which has a classifying function. Classifiers are normally non-gradable. There are three types: relational, topical and affiliative. (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 rel="tooltip" class="nowrap". The structure "have less mental energy available than older kids" is an example of correlative subordinationA 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, ....
• This is because whitecolour descriptor cellsnoun phrase head work better when your body temperature is higherextent descriptor (comparative) than normalclassifier. (Koirala 2019)
  
  There are three adjectives in this sentence ("better" is an adverb). The adjectives "white" and "higher" are descriptors. "white" is an attributiveAn adjective which is used before a noun. adjective and "higher" is predicativeAn adjective which is used after a verb. Predicative adjectives may be subject predicatives or object predicatives. . The phrase "than normal" is a degree complementGradable 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. of the the adjective "higher". This is a very common comparative construction. The adjective "normal" is a topical v. "normal" obviously means the normal body temperature.