Where to Place an Adjective in a Sentence

Three types of placement adjectives exist. Attributive adjectives come before the noun they modify. A clear day is an example of this type.

Predicate adjectives, the second type of adjectives, follow a linking verb. These adjectives include seemed, are, am, is, was, were, and looked. I was famished after dinner is an example of this type of adjective.

Finally, postpositive adjectives follow immediately after a pronoun or noun. The phrase tickets available provides an example of a postpositive adjective.

The Position of Adjectives in a Sentence

To ensure that you have a properly formed and grammatically correct sentence, it is important to position the adjectives in the correct place. We are now going to take a look at where the adjective should be placed within a sentence in order to make it sound as authentic as possible.

An attribute adjective is placed before the noun it is modifying. Lets take a look at some examples of this.

• She is a pretty girl.
• This is my green dress.
• Today, we will have heavy rain.
• Ants have tiny legs.
• It is a hot day.

You can also have a predicative adjective which is placed after the noun which it is modifying. Here are some examples to demonstrate this.

• This sandwich is tasty.
• The boy is tall.
• My cats eyes are yellow.
• The cake is not healthy.
• My daughter is beautiful.

There is also the opportunity to place an adjective after certain verbs in order to modify them. This does not apply to all verbs, so lets take a look at some examples verbs which can be modified with an adjective. It is worth noting that when using an adjective to modify a verb, the verb should come before the adjective, it will not sound correct if placed the other way around. The following verbs can be modified with an adjective.

• appear
• become
• go
• get
• turn
• feel
• keep

Here are some examples of these verbs being modified with an adjective.

• I feel amazing after my spa day.
• He has become lazy having not had a job for weeks.
• The dog appears aggressive.

You can also use an adjective after the verbs to smell, to taste, to sound and to look. Lets take a look at some examples of the adjective placement for these verbs.

• That pizza tastes fantastic.
• The music sounds good.
• It looks stunning.
• That smells awful.

Adjectives Without A Noun

It is possible to use an adjective as a standalone word without a noun. This can be seen in an example such as the following. He is rich the adjective here is being used with the pronoun he, however this can be used on its own as simply describing something as rich. You might also use an adjective on its own in a sentence such as the following, The largest must go at the back.

Adjectives In Pairs

You might wish to use more than one adjective in order to give you sentence a very descriptive feel. For example, you might say This is a large, red car. or I am a clever, thoughtful person.