Adjectives and Adverbs

 

Adjectives

An adjective modifies, or describes, a noun.  Adjectives can answer the following questions: which, what kind, or how many?

• Which?  Jane Austen wrote my favorite novel.
• What kind?  She always writes the most exciting stories.
• How many?  I wish every novel were as good as hers were.

Note  Articles (the, a, an) are always adjectives.

 

Adverbs

An adverb modifies, or describes, a verb, adjective, or adverb.  Adverbs can answer the following questions: how, when, or in what manner?

• Verb  Jane Austen usually always creates especially believable characters.
• Adjective  Jane Austen usually always creates especially believable characters.
• Adverb  Jane Austen usually always creates especially believable characters.

Note  Many adverbs end in the suffix –ly.

 

Practice

Identify the adjectives and adverbs in the following famous first sentences.

1. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.  (Anna Karenina)

2. I am an invisible man.  (Invisible Man)

3. This is the saddest story I have ever heard.  (The Good Soldier)

4. He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.  (The Old Man and the Sea)

5. The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.  (The Red Badge of Courage)

6. A story has no beginning or end; arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.  (The End of the Affair)

7. It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not.  (City of Glass)

8. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.  (Pride and Prejudice)

9. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.  (1984)

  

Answers

Adjectives (without articles) are bolded, and adverbs are underlined.

1. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.  (Anna Karenina)

2. I am an invisible man.  (Invisible Man)

3. This is the saddest story I have ever heard.  (The Good Soldier)

4. He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.  (The Old Man and the Sea)

5. The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.  (The Red Badge of Courage)

6. A story has no beginning or end; arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.  (The End of the Affair)

7. It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not.  (City of Glass)

8. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.  (Pride and Prejudice)

9. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.  (1984)

 

How did you do?

Practice identifying adjectives and adverbs in your own writing.

 

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