Adjectives include words that are primarily different parts of speech but act as adjective – nouns, as in cattle truck and parcel post; and participles of verbs, as in rising sun, working man, fallen idol and broken dream. Again, none of these forms has degrees of comparison.
Words can be joined together with hyphens to form compound adjectives:
A ten-year-old girl won first prize in the mathematics competition.
The hyphens are not needed when the words do not immediately precede the noun they modify:
First prize in the mathematics competition was won by a girl who was ten years old.
Activity 4d
Correct the misused adjectives in these sentences:
1 Of methods A and B, A is the more simpler way to follow.
2 The soprano sings good, but the most great singer I ever heard was a tenor.
Solutions 4d
1 more simpler → simpler
2 good → well; most great → greatest
4.5 Adverb
Adverbs modify – that is, they give more information about – a verb, an adjective or another adverb. They can usually be identified easily because of their -ly ending, but not always: for instance, cowardly is an adjective and fast can be an adjective or an adverb.
As with adjectives, adverbs have degrees of comparison, and their comparative and superlative formations are arrived at in much the same way as those of adjectives. The most common formation is to place more and most before the positive form of the adverb. Here are a few examples:
| Positive | Comparative | Superlative |
| quickly | more quickly | most quickly |
| beautifully | more beautifully | most beautifully |
Some adverbs have the same form as adjectives – for example, hard and fast.
This is a hard examination. (adjective)
The team worked hard. (adverb)
Tony owns a fast boat. (adjective)
The ship was stuck fast on the mud. (adverb)
Such adverbs form their comparative and superlative degrees in the same way as the adjectives:
| hard | harder | hardest |
| fast | faster | fastest |
There are irregularly formed adverbs too; for example:
| well | better | best |
| badly | worse | worst |
The following sentences show adverbs being used correctly in various situations:
Maria types quickly, but Anna types more quickly than Maria and Jack types most quickly of all. (adverbs in various degrees modifying the verb types)
This is a very fast train. (very modifies the adjective fast)
The early train travels quite slowly. (quite modifies the adverb slowly)
Her flight arrived early. (early here is an adverb modifying the verb arrived; in the previous sentence early is an adjective modifying the noun train)
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