The choice of a qualifying adjective can depend on subjectivity or objectivity.
A qualifying adjective is one that indicates a quality of the noun, whether concrete or abstract. For example: “The car is blue” includes a qualifying adjective ( “blue” ) that refers to a specific characteristic (the color of the “car” ). On the other hand, the expression “The car is horrible” indicates an abstract and subjective quality ( “horrible” ).
It should be noted that adjective , from the Latin adiectivus , is a type of word that qualifies or determines a noun . In addition to the qualifier, there are many others, such as the demonstrative adjective, the possessive adjective and the numerical adjective.
Adjectives fulfill their function by specifying or highlighting properties that are attributed to the noun in question. They are usually used especially when making a description , although they can also appear in other types of statements. It is a language resource that contributes to communication, as long as it is not used with ambiguity, since otherwise it affects the clarity of the message.
Examples of qualifying adjective
Let's see an example of using a qualifying adjective: "The meeting was fun." In this sentence, the adjective "fun" qualifies the event. Some synonym could have been used for the same purpose, such as “entertaining” ( “The meeting was entertaining” ).
It must be considered that there is a gradation that allows us to refer to intensity . If, in this case, you want to emphasize how the meeting in question developed, you can use an augmentative or the superlative degree ( "The meeting was very fun" , "The meeting was very fun" ).
It is important to take into account the context to understand how qualifying adjectives work. Suppose someone, upon opening the door to their house, says: "What a nice surprise!" . One possibility is that he ran into his brother, whom he hadn't seen in a while. It is also possible that he discovered the floor dirty with his dog's urine and feces: thus, the "surprise" is not really "cute" , but rather the subject resorted to rhetorical irony.
Beyond the style of a writer, overusing qualifying adjectives in a text undermines reading.
How to find it
In general, qualifying adjectives allow us to answer the question “what is it like?” the noun. In the example at the beginning of this article: “What is the car like? The car is blue” , “What is the car like? The car is horrible.”
This question can be answered with more than one qualifying adjective: “What is the car like? The car is blue, big, old and horrible.”
Types of qualifying adjective
The classification of qualifying adjectives can consist of a division into specifiers (when the quality expressed is necessary to understand the meaning of the sentence: “Tomorrow I will rehearse with the red guitar” ) or explanatory (the quality is not essential to understand the sentence, but rather the adjective is used as an expressive resource: “Right now I am looking at the majestic ocean.”
In our language , adjectives must agree with the noun in grammatical gender and grammatical number. The qualifying adjective, in its usual use, coincides with the noun (if the noun is masculine, the adjective is masculine: “The dog is cute” ). If the adjective qualifies more than one noun, it must be used in the plural ( "Carlos's children are blond" ). When the adjective qualifies several nouns of different genders, finally, it must be mentioned in the masculine ( "The pants and the shirt are modern" ) to maintain agreement.
Qualifying adjectives are common in metaphors.
The apocopes
In the Spanish language , certain adjectives have a short form, and this grammar phenomenon is known as apócope , which consists of deleting vowel sounds at the end of some words. Among the most common examples are the following:
"I have a Dutch friend", "I know he is a good man", "I'm not going through a good time", «"I adapted from the first day of work.", «Carlos is Nora's third child», «I hope to find some interesting project», "I haven't received any messages this morning.".
In each of the sentences just presented, the shortened form of one of the following adjectives is used: one , good , bad , first , third , some and none . It should be noted that both some and none have an accent, since by removing the last vowel they become acute words ending in n . On the other hand, it is interesting to note that the apocope is only used when the noun that must be modified is masculine, since in the case of feminine ones the final o must simply be changed to an a : "a Dutch friend " , "a good woman" , " no call" .
The case of qualifying adjectives like "big" and "any"
The adjective grande , for its part, represents a particular case, since it should be apocopared only in cases in which its meaning is "notable" or "admirable" , and it is placed in front of the noun it modifies, as occurs in the following examples:
"He's a great skater", "Only a great singer can do justice to this role".
If, on the other hand, the adjective refers to the size of a thing or a living being (sometimes, also to age, if it is advanced), then it should not be reduced or placed in front of the noun, but behind:
«My hometown is surprisingly big », «Your son is very big ».
Another very common adjective in everyday speech is anyone , and it also has its shortened form: any . This is used when it is placed in front of a singular noun, whether masculine or feminine:
« Anyone can understand this concept», "These are the basic specifications of any product in this family".