English Grammar: possessives and adjectives.
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Possessives

This possessives page brings together information about

1. possessive nouns
2. possessive adjectives
3. possessive pronouns
4. questions
5. reciprocal pronouns  
6. We use a noun with ’s with a singular noun to show possession:
7. We are having a party at John’s house.
   Michael drove his friend’s car.

Possessives: nouns

We use s’ with a plural noun ending in -s:

8. This is my parents’ house.
   Those are ladies’ shoes.
9. But we use ’s with other plural nouns:
10. These are men’s shoes.
    Children’s clothes are very expensive.
11. We can use a possessive instead of a noun phrase to avoid repeating words:

Possessives: adjectives

Can you match these possessive adjectives to the right personal pronouns?

its, your, my, their, our, her, his

We use possessive adjectives:

• to show something belongs to somebody:

That’s our house.
My car is very old.

• for relations and friends:

My mother is a doctor.
How old is your sister?

• for parts of the body:

He’s broken his arm.
She’s washing her hair.
I need to clean my teeth.

Possessives: pronouns

Can you match these possessive pronouns to the right personal pronouns and possessive adjectives?
 

yours, mine, theirs, ours, hers, his, its

We can use a possessive pronoun instead of a noun phrase:

We can use possessive pronouns after of.

We can say:

Susan is one of my friends.
or
Susan is a friend of mine.
but not 
Susan is a friend of me

or

I am one of Susan's friends.
or
I am a friend of Susan's.
but not 
I am a friend of Susan

Possessives: questions

We use whose to ask questions:

Possessives: reciprocal pronouns

"each other's" and "one another's"

We use the reciprocal pronouns each other and one another when two or more people do the same thing. Traditionally, each other refers to two people and one another refers to more than two people, but this distinction is disappearing in modern English.

1. Peter and Mary helped one another.
   = Peter helped Mary and Mary helped Peter.
2. We sent each other Christmas cards.
   = We sent them a Christmas card and they sent us a Christmas card.
3. They didn’t look at one another.
   = He didn't look at her and she didn't look at him.

We also use the possessive forms each other’s and one another’s:

They helped to look after each other’s children.
We often stayed in one another’s houses.

NOTE: We do not use reciprocal pronouns as the subject of a clause.

Adjectives

We use adjectives to describe nouns.

Most adjectives can be used in front of a noun…:

They have a beautiful house.
We saw a very exciting film last night.

or after a link verb like be, look or feel:

Their house is beautiful.
That film looks interesting.

Adjectives: -ed and -ing

A lot of adjectives are made from verbs by adding -ing or -ed:

-ing adjectives:

The commonest -ing adjectives are:

If you call something interesting you mean it interests you.
If you call something frightening you mean it frightens you.

I read a very interesting article in the newspaper today.
That Dracula film was absolutely terrifying.

-ed adjectives:

The commonest –ed adjectives are:

If something annoys you, you can say you feel annoyed. If something interests you, you can say you are interested.

The children had nothing to do. They were bored.

Order of adjectives

Sometimes we use more than one adjective in front of a noun:

He was a nice intelligent young man.
She had a small round black wooden box.

Opinion adjectives:

Some adjectives give a general opinion. We can use these adjectives to describe almost any noun:

Some adjectives give a specific opinion. We only use these adjectives to describe particular kinds of noun:

Food: tasty; delicious
Furniture, buildings: comfortable; uncomfortable
People, animals: clever; intelligent; friendly

We usually put a general opinion in front of a specific opinion:

Nice tasty soup.
A nasty uncomfortable armchair
A lovely intelligent animal

Usually we put an adjective that gives an opinion in front of an adjective that is descriptive:

a nice red dress; a silly old man; those horrible yellow curtains

We often have two adjectives in front of a noun:

a handsome young man; a big black car; that horrible big dog

Sometimes we have three adjectives, but this is unusual:

a nice handsome young man;
a big black American car;
that horrible big fierce dog

It is very unusual to have more than three adjectives.

Adjectives usually come in this order:

We use some adjectives only after a link verb:

Some of the commonest -ed adjectives are normally used only after a link verb:

annoyed;  finished;  bored; pleased; thrilled

We say:

Our teacher was ill.
My uncle was very glad when he heard the news.
The policeman seemed to be very annoyed

but we do not say:

We had an ill teacher.
When he heard the news he was a very glad uncle 
He seemed to be a very annoyed policeman

A few adjectives are used only in front of a noun:

We say:

He lives in the eastern district.
There were countless problems with the new machinery.

but we do not say:

The district he lives in is eastern
The problems with the new machinery were countless.

Comparative and superlative adjectives

We use comparative adjectives to describe people and things:

This car is certainly better but it’s much more expensive.
I’m feeling happier now.
We need a bigger garden

We use than when we want to compare one thing with another:

She is two years older than me.
New York is much bigger than Boston.
He is a better player than Ronaldo.
France is a bigger country than Britain.

When we want to describe how something or someone changes we can use two comparatives with and:

The balloon got bigger and bigger.
Everything is getting more and more expensive.
Grandfather is looking older and older. 

We often use the with comparative adjectives to show that one thing depends on another:

When you drive faster it is more dangerous
> The faster you drive, the more dangerous it is.
When they climbed higher it got colder
> The higher they climbed, the colder it got.

Superlative adjectives:

We use the with a superlative:

It was the happiest day of my life.
Everest is the highest mountain in the world.
That’s the best film I have seen this year.
I have three sisters, Jan is the oldest and Angela is the youngest . 

Intensifiers

Intensifiers:

(Intermediate)

We use words like very, really and extremely to make adjectives stronger:

It’s a very interesting story
Everyone was very excited.
It’s a really interesting story.
Everyone was extremely excited

We call these words intensifiers. Other intensifiers are:

We also use enough to say more about an adjective, but enough comes after its adjective:

If you are seventeen you are old enough to drive a car.
I can’t wear those shoes. They’re not big enough.

Intensifiers with strong adjectives:

Strong adjectives are words like:

enormous, huge = very big
tiny = very small
brilliant = very clever
awful; terrible; disgusting; dreadful = very bad
certain = very sure
excellent; perfect; ideal; wonderful; splendid = very good
delicious = very tasty

We do not normally use very with these adjectives. We do not say something is "very enormous" or someone is "very brilliant". 

With strong adjectives, we normally use intensifiers like:

The film was absolutely awful.
He was an exceptionally brilliant child.
The food smelled really disgusting.

Mitigators

Mitigators are the opposite of intensifiers. When we want to make an adjective less strong we use these words:

fairly - rather - quite

By the end of the day we were rather tired.

The film wasn’t great but it was quite exciting.

and in informal English: pretty

We had a pretty good time at the party.

We call these words mitigators.

Mitigators with comparatives:

We use these words and phrases as mitigators:

a bit - just a bit - a little - a little bit - just a little bit - rather - slightly

She’s a bit younger than I am.
It takes two hours on the train but it is a little bit longer by road
This one is rather bigger.

We use slightly and rather as mitigators with comparative adjectives in front of a noun:

This is a slightly more expensive model than that.
This is rather bigger one than that.

Adjectives as intensifiers:

We use some adjectives as intensifiers:

absolute
total  - complete
utter  - perfect
real

We say:

He’s a complete idiot.
They were talking utter nonsense.

… but we do not say:

The idiot was complete.
The nonsense they were talking was utter.

Noun modifiers

We often use two nouns together to show that one thing is a part of something else:

the village church; the car door; the kitchen window; the chair leg;
my coat pocket; London residents

We can use noun modifiers to show what something is made of:

a gold watch; a leather purse; a metal box

We often use noun modifiers with nouns ending in -er and -ing:

an office worker; a jewellery maker; a potato peeler; a shopping list; a swimming lesson; a walking holiday.

We use measurements, age or value as noun modifiers:

a thirty kilogram suitcase; a two minute rest; a five thousand euro platinum watch; a fifty kilometre journey;

We often put two nouns together and readers/listeners have work out what they mean. So:

1. an ice bucket = a bucket to keep ice in
2. an ice cube = a cube made of ice
3. an ice breaker = a ship which breaks ice
4. the ice age = the time when much of the Earth was covered in ice.

Sometimes we find more than two nouns together:

London office workers; grammar practice exercises

Position of noun modifiers

Noun modifiers come after adjectives:

The old newspaper seller
A tiring fifty kilometre journey