What is Predicate Adjective? Predicate Adjectives Examples Sentences and Definition

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Predicate Adjective

Predicate adjectives are a topic under the adjectives. First, we need to understand what is an adjective to be able to understand the rest of the topic.

Adjectives

Basically, words that describe nouns are called adjectives. I want you to think simple. Let’s say “What a beautiful dress!”, see the dress is the noun here, and the word beautiful is what describes the noun. So, beautiful is an adjective in this example.

Let’s continue,

I saw a fast car like in the movies today!

We need a describer, and a noun to be able to make an adjective. Okay, I think you got this!

Let’s look at the adjective rules:

Since pronouns are words used instead of nouns, they can be described by adjectives. For example, you can say “She is strong, passionate, and inspiring. I admire her!”
Adjectives come before the nouns they describe whether singular or plural. Let’s see: “a good place, amazing artworks”
More than one adjective can describe a word: “Are you remember the ugly naked man in the Friends?
Adjectives generally describe nouns, but sometimes they also describe verbs. However, these verbs are limited to “be, get, become, seem, appear, look, smell, sound, taste, feel.” For example: “You look shining today!”, “What are you cooking? It smells incredible!”

Now, we are getting deeper. We learned that most of the adjectives come before the nouns and make adjective phrases. However, adjectives also come as predicates after verbs “such as be, seem, look”.

Easy recipe = This recipe is easy.
A depressed boy = The boy looks depressed.
A confused person = You seem confused about the issue that we’re talking about.

Predicative Adjectives

Let’s talk about the main topic since we all understand adjectives. Some adjectives are used only as predicates. We cannot put these adjectives before nouns. The most commonly used of these adjectives are: asleep, awake, alike, afraid, alive, alone, ashamed, glad, pleased, sorry, upset, elder.

For instance, you can say “The little kid is afraid.” You can also say “The little kid who is afraid of the ongoing war.” But no, you cannot say “afraid boy”. There is no proper explanation about it but you need to know that this phrase is not correct.

Instead of saying afraid boy, you might use “frightened or scared boy.”

Let’s continue with other examples:

“She is asleep, don’t wake her up.” You are able to use that phrase, but again, you cannot say “asleep girl”.
She seems awake.
I’m alive!
He is alone.

So, what you exactly need to know is the main difference between “lonely” and “alone” is a little bit different. Let’s say that you feel lonely. And also, you are alone. What you need to remember to yourself is that “if you are lonely”, that is a feeling whereas if “you are alone” that is a state of being.

Basically we can say “lonely” is the feeling of sorrow or grief caused by not having someone around for you. On the other side, “alone” defines exactly the condition that you are being. That is the actual situation of not having someone around you, but also not feeling sad about it. Because “alone” states the fact.

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