What is "adjectives"

Usage examples of "adjectives".

However, I tend to think that passive participles do behave like normal adjectives in this regard.

Tolkien changed the rules for how the plural form of adjectives is constructed.

English makes no such distinction its adjectives do not change but it is not surprising that Tolkien built adjectival agreement in number into Quenya, since this was to be a highly inflected language.

The assumption that the ending -va appears in the variant form -wa after consonants is supported by this fact: The suffix -va is in origin a mere adjectival ending, found in some common adjectives as well, and in such cases it is seen to appear as -wa following a consonant e.

Since we have only a handful of words that Tolkien explicitly identified as adverbs, but plenty of adjectives, it would be nice if we could pin down a Quenya adverb-former like the English ending -ly.

There are adjectives for all sorts of qualities, quite useful if you want to say that someone or something is big, small, holy, blue, silly, rotten, beautiful, thin, nauseous, tall, wonderful, obnoxious or whatever the occasion demands.

When compared to the plethora of shapes that a noun can have, Quenya adjectives are quite restricted in form.

The vast majority of Quenya adjectives end in one of two vowels -a or -ë.

We have many attested examples of adjectives being used attributively like this.

Adjectival agreement in number: Quenya adjectives must agree in number with the noun they describe.

This may support the theory that adjectives don't have a special dual form, either.

In early sources, adjectives in -a form their plural form by adding the ending -r, just like nouns in -a do.

This way of forming plural adjectives was still valid as late as 1937 or slightly earlier.

In this poem, adjectives in -a form their plurals by means of the ending -i.

Later, Tolkien however introduced one more complication: Adjectives in -a had plurals in -ai in archaic Quenya only.