Ranking Hoteleria

Adjectives

Definition

Adjectives are words that describe or modify another person or thing in the sentence. The Articles — a, an, and the — are adjectives.

• the tall professor

• the lugubrious lieutenant

• a solid commitment

• a month's pay

• a six-year-old child

• the unhappiest, richest man

If a group of words containing a subject and verb acts as an adjective, it is called an Adjective Clause. My sister, who is much older than I am, is an engineer. If an adjective clause is stripped of its subject and verb, the resulting modifier becomes an Adjective Phrase: He is the man who is keeping my family in the poorhouse.

Before getting into other usage considerations, one general note about the use — or over-use — of adjectives: Adjectives are frail; don't ask them to do more work than they should.Let your broad-shouldered verbs and nouns do the hard work of description. Be particularly cautious in your use of adjectives that don't have much to say in the first place: interesting, beautiful, lovely, exciting. It is your job as a writer to create beauty and excitement and interest, and when you simply insist on its presence without showing it to your reader — well, you're convincing no one.

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

I. Determiners — articles and other limiters. See Determiners

II. Observation — postdeterminers and limiter adjectives (e.g., a real hero, a perfect idiot) and adjectives subject to subjective measure (e.g., beautiful, interesting)

III. Size and Shape — adjectives subject to objective measure (e.g., wealthy, large, round)

IV. Age — adjectives denoting age (e.g., young, old, new, ancient)

V. Color — adjectives denoting color (e.g., red, black, pale)

VI. Origin — denominal adjectives denoting source of noun (e.g., French, American, Canadian)

VII. Material — denominal adjectives denoting what something is made of (e.g., woolen, metallic, wooden)

VIII. Qualifier — final limiter, often regarded as part of the noun (e.g., rocking chair, hunting cabin, passenger car, book cover)

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 gorgeous long-

stemmed red silk roses

her short black hair

our big old English sheepdog

those square wooden hat boxes

that dilapidated little hunting cabin

several enormous young American basketball players

some delicious Thai food

Adverbs

ADVERBS

Definition

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?)

As we will see, 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.

If a group of words containing a subject and verb acts as an adverb (modifying the verb of a sentence), it is called an Adverb Clause:

• When this class is over, we're going to the movies.

When a group of words not containing a subject and verb acts as an adverb, it is called an adverbial phrase. Prepositional phrases frequently have adverbial functions (telling place and time, modifying the verb):

• He went to the movies.

• She works on holidays.

• They lived in Canada during the war.

And Infinitive phrases can act as adverbs (usually telling why):

• She hurried to the mainland to see her brother.

The senator ran to catch the bus.

Prepositions are short words (on, in, to) that usually stand in front of nouns (sometimes also in front of gerund verbs).

Even advanced learners of English find prepositions difficult, as a 1:1 translation is usually not possible. One preposition in your native language might have several translations depending on the situation.

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).

The following table contains rules for some of the most frequently used prepositions in English:

Prepositions – Time

English Usage Example

• on  days of the week  on Monday

• in  months / seasons

 time of day

 year

 after a certain period of time (when?)  in August / in winter

 in the morning

 in 2006

 in an hour

• at  for night

 for weekend

 a certain point of time (when?)  at night

 at the weekend

 at half past nine

• since  from a certain point of time (past till now)  since 1980

• for  over a certain period of time (past till now)  for 2 years

• ago  a certain time in the past  2 years ago

• before  earlier than a certain point of time  before 2004

• to  telling the time  ten to six (5:50)

• past  telling the time  ten past six (6:10)

• to / till / until  marking the beginning and end of a period of time  from Monday to/till Friday

• till / until  in the sense of how long something is going to last  He is on holiday until Friday.

• by  in the sense of at the latest

 up to a certain time  I will be back by 6 o’clock.

 By 11 o'clock, I had read five pages.

English Usage Example

• in  room, building, street, town, country

 book, paper etc.

 car, taxi

 picture, world  in the kitchen, in London

 in the book

 in the car, in a taxi

 in the picture, in the world

• at  meaning next to, by an object

 for table

 for events

 place where

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