adjectives, adverbs and preposotions

ADJECTIVES,ADVERBS AND PREPOSITIONS

Medical Technology CareerEnglish II

By: Blanche NúñezOctober 8th 2012

ADJECTIVES

Adjectives

Adjectives are words that describe or modify another person or thing in the sentence.

The Articles — a, an, and the — are adjectives.

For example: the tall professor the lugubrious lieutenant a month's pay

Position of Adjectives

Adjectives nearly always appear immediately before the noun or noun phrase that they modify.

Sometimes they appear in a string of adjectives, and when they do, they appear in a set order according to category. For example: the tall professor

Degrees of Adjectives Adjectives can express degrees of

modification. The degrees are known as the positive,

the comparative, and the superlative. We use the comparative for comparing

two things and the superlative for comparing three or more things.

COMPARATIVE SUPERLATIVE

Rules

COMPARATIVE Use THAN Suffix – er If the adjective of

two or more syllables ends in «y», add –ier .

Use MORE when an adjective has more than one syllable.

SUPERLATIVE Use THE Suffix –est If the adjective of

two or more syllables ends in «y», add –iest.

Use MOST when an adjective has more than one syllable.

Examples

Tom is old. He is 70. But Paul is 83. He is older than Tom.

…Joe is 120. He is the oldest.

A pocket camera is expensive... A reflex camera is more expensive than a pocket camera.

...But a digital camera is the most expensive of the three

Examples Positive Comparative Superlative

rich richer richestlovely lovelier loveliestbeautiful more beautiful most beautiful

Irregular Comparative and Superlative Formsgood better bestbad worse worstlittle less leastMuch,many, some

more most

far further furthest

Be Careful

Do not use more along with a comparative adjective formed with –er.

Do not use most along with a superlative adjective formed with -est something is more heavier or most heaviest).

The as — as construction is used to create a comparison expressing equality: She is as bright as her mother.

The Order if Adjectives in a Series

The order in which adjectives in a series sort themselves out is perplexing for people learning English as a second language.

It takes a lot of practice with a language before this order becomes instinctive, because the order often seems quite arbitrary.

The categories in the following table can be described as follows:

THE ROYAL ORDER OF ADJECTIVES

Determiner

Observation

Physical Description Origin Material Qualifier Noun

Size Shape Age Color

a beautiful old Italian touring car

an expensive antique silver mirror

four gorgeouslong-

stemmed

red silk roses

her short black hair

our big old English Sheep dog

those square wooden hat boxes

that dilapidated little hunting cabin

several enormous young America

nbasketba

llplayer

s

some delicious Thai food

School is boring, but homework is_________________ than school.

more boring

Sourcehttp://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/adjectives.htm

ADVERBS

Adverbs

Adverbs are words that modify a verb (He drove slowly. — How did he drive?) an adjective (He drove a very fast car. — How

fast was his car?) another adverb (She moved quite slowly down

the aisle. — How slowly did she move?)

Adverbs Adverbs often tell when, where, why, or under

what conditions something happens or happened.

Adverbs frequently end in -ly; however, many words and phrases not ending in -ly serve an adverbial function and an -ly ending is not a guarantee that a word is an adverb.

The words lovely, lonely, motherly, friendly, neighborly, for instance, are adjectives:

That lovely woman lives in a friendly neighborhood.

Rules Often these adverbs are formed by

adding -ly to the end of an adjective. Adjectives ending -l add -ly ; careful-

carefully. Adjectives ending -y change to -ily ;

lucky-luckily Adjectives ending -ble change to -bly ;

responsible-responsibly. Adjectives ending – ic change to –ally;

fantastic - fantastically

Kind of Adverbs Adverbs of Manner (How something happens)

She moved slowly and spoke quietly. Carefully, correctly,eagerly,easily,fast, loudly, patiently,quickly

Adverbs of Place (Where something happens)She has lived on the island all her life. Abroad,anywhere,downstairs,here,in,nowhere,out,outside,there

Adverbs of Frequency (How often something happens)She takes the boat to the mainland every day. Always, sometimes, usually, seldom,rarely, never

Adverbs of Time (When something happens)She tries to get back before dark. After, later, just, now recently, tomorrow, yesterday, soon

Adverbs of Purpose (Why something happens)She drives her boat slowly to avoid hitting the rocks. To, in order to, accidentally, intentionally, because, since, so that

Positions of Adverbs One of the hallmarks of adverbs is their

ability to move around in a sentence. Adverbs of manner are particularly flexible in this regard. Solemnly the minister addressed her

congregation. The minister solemnly addressed her

congregation. The minister addressed her congregation

solemnly.

Positions of Adverbs

The following adverbs of frequency appear in various points in these sentences: Before the main verb:

I never get up before nine o'clock. Between the auxiliary verb and the main verb:

I have rarely written to my brother without a good reason.

Before the verb used to: I always used to see him at his summer home.

Positions of Adverbs Indefinite adverbs of time can appear

either before the verb or between the auxiliary and the main verb: He finally showed up for batting practice. She has recently retired.

THE ROYAL ORDER OF ADVERBS

Verb Manner Place Frequency Time Purpos

e

Beth swims

enthusiastically in the pool every

morning before dawn to keep in shape.

Dad walks impatiently into town every

afternoonbefore supper

to get a newspaper.

Tashonda naps in her room every

morning before lunch.

In actual practice, of course, it would be highly unusual to have a string of adverbial modifiers beyond two or three (at the most). Because the placement of adverbs is so flexible, one or two of the modifiers would probably move to the beginning of the sentence: "Every afternoon before supper, Dad impatiently walks into town to get a newspaper." When that happens, the introductory adverbial modifiers are usually set off with a comma.

Sue is a (careful)___________ girl. She takes her medicines _______________.

careful

carefully

«Prepositions» Locators in

Time and Place

Prepositions A preposition describes a relationship

between other words in a sentence. Prepositions are nearly always combined

with other words in structures called prepositional phrases.

Example: You can sit before the desk (or in front of

the desk).

Prepositions of Time: at, on, in

We use at to designate specific times. The train is due at 12:15 p.m.

We use on to designate days and dates. My brother is coming on Monday. We're having a party on the Fourth of July.

We use in for nonspecific times during a day, a month, a season, or a year. She likes to jog in the morning. It's too cold in winter to run outside.

We use at for specific addresses. Grammar English lives at 55 Boretz Road in Durham.

We use on to designate names of streets, avenues, etc. Her house is on Boretz Road.

And we use in for the names of land-areas (towns, counties, states, countries, and continents). She lives in Durham. Durham is in Windham County.

Prepositions of Place: at, on, in

Prepositions of movement:To and No preposition

We use to in order to express movement toward a place. They were driving to work together.

Toward and towards are also helpful prepositions to express movement. These are simply variant spellings of the same word; use whichever sounds better to you. We're moving toward the light.

With the words home, downtown, uptown, inside, outside, downstairs, upstairs, we use no preposition. Grandma went upstairs

Prepositions of time: for and since

We use for when we measure time (seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years). She held his breath for seven minutes.

We use since with a specific date or time. He's worked here since 1970.

See the chart for others prepositions and their usage.

How to learn it?

There are hardly any rules as to when to use which preposition. The only way to learn prepositions is looking them up in a dictionary, reading a lot in English (literature) and learning useful phrases off by heart (study tips).