Adjectives

Words in a sentence whose job is to describe the nouns.

A. Kinds: There six kinds of adjectives:

1. Adjectives of quality, which answer to the question, "What kind of noun?" E.g, 'a good man,' 'a dreadful day.'

2. Adjectives of quantity, which answer to the question, "How much?" "How many?" E.g., 'twelve disciples,' 'no bread,' 'many trees.'

3. Demonstrative adjectives, which answer to the question, "Which?" E.g., 'Those boys,' 'that house.'

4. Possessive adjectives, which answer to the question, "Whose?" E.g., 'our Father,' 'her husband.'

5. Interrogative adjectives, which asks questions, e.g., "Whose palace is this?"

6. The identical adjective, i.e., 'same,', e.g., "It is the same person . . ."

B. Usage: Adjectives may be used attributively or predicatively.

1. It is used attributively when it simply describes an attribute of the noun, e.g., 'ravenous wolf,' 'expensive nard.' Something else needs to be said about the nouns to give the phrases complete sense.

2. It is used predicatively when it makes a complete predication about the noun, e.g., 'the stone was heavy,' 'Zaccheus is short.' Each of these phrases is a complete sentence.

C. Degree: Some adjectives are also characterized by comparative degree, e.g., tall, taller, tallest. These are, respectively, called positive, comparative, and superlative. (There is a fourth, though not often systematized as such, and that is the elative, which describes an intensification of the positive, e.g., "the havest of fish was very great.") Degree is, of course, expressed differently in different languages. In Hebrew, e.g., the comparative is expressed by the preposition min, 'from', e.g., "the serpent was wicked min-any of the wild animals." The superlative is then expressed by several different other ways. 'Most holy' (qodesh qadashim), e.g., consists of the noun 'holiness' stringed together with the plural form of the same noun.

In English adjectives are unchangeable; 'red' is always 'red' whether it is applied to "him," "her," or "they". In Hebrew and Greek, however, adjectives have to agree with their respective nouns in gender and number (i.e., a masculine noun carries only masculine adjective/s, and a singular noun only singular adjectives). In Greek they also have to agree in their case.

It is important to distinguish between the form and the function of an adjective. An entire clause, e.g,, can serve as an adjective. E.g., the clause "called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God" serves in place of an adjective; it describes who/what Paul is.

☰ For more on the adjective in the Greek Language, see Ted Hildebrandt, Mastering New Testament Greek Textbook (p53).