Adjective

In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated .mw-parser-output .smallcaps{font-variant:small-caps}adj) is word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated .mw-parser-output .smallcaps{font-variant:small-caps}adj) is word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Adjectives are one of the English parts of speech, although they were historically classed together with the nouns. Certain words that were traditionally considered to be adjectives, including the, this, my, etc., are today usually classed separately, as determiners. Adjective comes from Latin (nōmen) adjectīvum 'additional (noun)', a calque of Ancient Greek: ἐπίθετον (ὄνομα), romanized: epítheton (ónoma), lit. 'additional (noun)'. In the grammatical tradition of Latin and Greek, because adjectives were inflected for gender, number, and case like nouns (a process called declension), they were considered a subtype of noun. The words that are today typically called nouns were then called substantive nouns (nōmen substantīvum). The terms noun substantive and noun adjective were formerly used in English, but the terms are now obsolete.