Adjectives

Adjectives are words that can generally fill the gap in phrases like the (very) _______ building, three _______ women. Many adjectives can also be used in the structure the building is ______.

Examples of adjectives in English include tall, small, red, intelligent, conservative, unremarkable etc.

Adjectives generally serve a "describing" purpose. However, to properly identify adjectives and account for their behaviour, various sub-categories of adjectives can be considered. For example, Jones (1996) identifies:

• Gradable adjectives (which can have comparative and superlative forms, ending in -er and -est in English, or be used in the formulae more ____ and most _____. Most adjectives are gradable.
• Classificatory adjectives such as financial, administrative, economic.
• Argumental adjectives, indicating 'participants in an action or event': ministerial, departmental.
• Intensional adjectives which do not 'describe' the thing denoted by the noun as such, but have a more 'functional' purpose, e.g. such as an equivalent to using a different tense or a modal verb (the previous/future president; he's a late starter; a potential drawback).
• Attitudinal adjectives such as bloody, blessed, damned.
• Specificational adjectives, which have a similar function to determiners but can be used alongside them (various, numerous, only, other).

In English, adjectives almost always precede the noun, thus coming between the determiner and the noun: a suitable jacket, not *a jacket suitable. However, adjectives do occasionally follow the noun, e.g. when the adjective itself is modified by another phrase: a jacket suitable for outdoor use.

Some of the above categories of adjectives cannot be used predicatively, i.e. they do not generally occur in structures such as he is ____. Compare the former president with *the president is former; that blessed pen with that pen is blessed (where 'blessed' would have a different meaning).

When several adjectives appear in a chain, speakers tend to order them in a particular way, e.g. a small provincial French town rather than ??a provincial French small town.

Note that modern analyses generally consider words like the, this, your to be determiners rather than adjectives.

Adjectives in French

Form

Unlike English, adjectives in French change their form according to the number and gender of the noun they modify. French adjectives and nouns generally share similar forms, and many of the rules for forming plural and feminine nouns apply to adjectives.

Position

Adjectives can either precede or follow the noun in French. The 'default' position is for them to follow the noun, and many adjectives always follow the noun in normal usage. On the other hand, adjectives which cannot be used predicatively (i.e. cannot be used in the structure he is _____ or il est ______) must precede the noun: le futur président vs *le président (est) futur.

Between these two extremes, the details of when a noun is placed before or after the noun is a complex matter. A rough starting point is to consider that adjectives follow the noun except for a handful of common, adjectives that tend to precede the noun:

This is a guide. In truth, there are few fixed rules about when an adjective occupies which position. The chart below outlines the properties of adjectives which tend to cause them to be placed before or after the noun.

The chart sums up the following tendencies:

• Adjectives indicating 'concrete' properties such as shape, colour, almost always follow the noun, as do adjectives indicating nationality, attitude, political persuasion.
• Argumental and classificatory adjectives follow the noun.
• Attitudinal and specificational adjectives precede the noun.
• Other adjectives can occur in either position. Many short, 'basic' nouns such as grand, petit, mauvais, bon tend to precede the noun. Adjectives which generally follow the noun can precede it to give an 'emphatic' or literary style.

As in English, adjectives which themselves appear modified in a phrase tend to follow the noun. This extends even to simple adjectival phrases such as plus grand, assez bon.

[The chart here is based on that proposed by Jones (op. cit) with some minor alterations. Most notably, I omit Jones' dichotomy of gradable vs. non-gradable adjectives as being prenominal vs postnominal, as this appears to contradict the usage mentioned in the previous paragraph.]

Ordering

It is common in English to chain several adjectives together, and as mentioned above, adjectives in sequence generally have a particular order. In French, it is less common to chain more than a couple of adjectives together. Nontheless, when several adjectives are used in sequence, the general ordering of adjectives following the noun is as follows: