Adjectives – basics

Adjectives modify or describe nouns and pronouns. Whereas English adjectives don’t usually change their form, Latin adjectives need to agree with their noun or pronoun in gender, number and case.

There are four types of adjectives in English and in Latin:

• demonstrative: indicates a specific noun
• descriptive: indicates a quality of a noun or pronoun
• possessive: indicates the owner of a noun
• interrogative: asks a question about a noun

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Demonstrative adjectives

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Descriptive adjectives

Descriptive adjectives describe a noun or pronoun. For example:

The third day He rose again from the dead.

Tértia die resurréxit a mórtuis.

In our English example, the adjective ‘third’ modifies the noun ‘day’. In Latin, tertia modifies die.

Descriptive adjectives are of two types: predicate and attributive. Predicate adjectives follow a linking verb and refer to the subject noun. For example:

Blessed art Thou. Benedicta tu.

In English, attributive adjectives comes before the noun they are describing. For example: I believe in the Holy Ghost.

In Latin, attributive adjectives sometimes precede the nouns they modify, but sometimes follow the relevant nouns. e.g., Credo in Spíritum Sanctum.

Adjectives of size or quantity usually precede the relevant nouns whereas adjectives of description, as in the example above, generally follow their relevant nouns.

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