Karl J Sherlock
Associate Professor, English
Email: karl.sherlock@gcccd.edu
Phone: 619-644-7871
One broader category of adjectives is called "Determiners" and includes a host of practical adjectives that help us "determine" other moods, senses, and attitudes about nouns.
Articles are little words that pose as cursors, pointing us to nouns. The articles are blessedly few in number, and the easiest category of grammar to memorize in the English language:
The source of the Indefinite Pronoun is an adjective that quantifies--or, counts--an indefinite number of things or persons:
Demonstrative adjectives are like Definite Articles. In fact, some grammarians identify them as such. They, too, point to nouns, but in a more demonstrative way. To be "demonstrative" means to have a penchant for demonstrating or showing. So, not only do demonstrative adjectives point to something or someone, they do so with the intent to show something. They are
The corresponding question words that ask for someone or something to be pointed out are
The word "whose" is also a possessive adjective. (See below.) The interrogative and demonstrative adjectives, when they drop the nouns they modify, become Interrogative Pronouns and Demonstrative Pronouns, respectively.
These are words that look like Personal Possessive Pronouns but are actually modifiers, not pronouns (e.g., "my prerogative" or "whose idea?"):
The word "ordinal" simply means "in order." Cardinal numbers--one, two, three, twenty-one, one million, etc.--become ordinal adjectives when they are used to describe an order or a succession:
Calendar dates are an example of ordinal adjectives becoming a kind of pronoun because they drop the the word "day" and stand on their own:
Karl J Sherlock
Associate Professor, English
Email: karl.sherlock@gcccd.edu
Phone: 619-644-7871
8800 Grossmont College Drive
El Cajon, California 92020
619-644-7000
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