Tag: Adjectives

Possessive Determiners

Possessive Determiner

A determiner used in front of a noun to express possession or belonging, e.g. my book, his coat, our house, your car, its colour, their culture.

The possessive determiners in English are my, your, his, her, its, our and their.

Possessive Determiners are sometimes called Possessive Adjectives or Possessive Pronouns.

They are called Possessive Adjectives as they are used with nouns and do the work of adjectives, e.g.

This is my pen.

 Those are your pens.

That is his pen.

In the following sentences the words in italics are Possessive Pronouns:-

This notebook is mine.

Those notebooks are yours.

That notebook is hers.

That plan of yours is wonderful.

Adjectives

Adjectives: Describing Words

Read the following sentences:

  1. The elephant is a large animal.
  2. The giraffe is a tall animal.
  3. Thomas lives in a big house.
  4. Jimmy is an active dog.
  5. The baby has curly hair.
  6. Vani has two pencils.
  7. Reena is wearing a pink dress.
  8. I like red tomatoes.
  9. It is a wet day.
  10. Rocky is wearing a dirty dress.

 

The above sentences have a number of nouns/pronouns. The sentences also have some describing words.

 These describing words tell us something more about these nouns/pronouns.

The words large, tall, big, active, curly, two, pink, red, wet, dirty are describing words. They tell us something about the size, colour, number and quality of a noun or pronoun.

Words which describe something are called adjectives. All describing words are Adjectives.

Describing words describe persons, animals or birds, places or things etc.

 

Notice that adjectives usually come before a noun; as,

  1. A pink flower
  2. Black shoe
  3. Sour grapes
  4. Ripe mangoes
  5. Old man
  6. Smart boy

 

But sometimes adjectives are placed after a noun; as,

  1. The clouds are white.
  2. The sky is blue.
  3. The knife is sharp.
  4. The tea is hot.
  5. An ice-cream is cold.  
  6.  The food is tasty.