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Adjectives are words used to modify/describe nouns in sentences. English examples of adjectives include tall, short, old, small, red, beautiful, smart, etc.

In English, adjectives mostly appear immediately before the noun or noun phrase that they modify.

For example:

1. The smart boy topped the class.

2. She denied the old man entry.

English adjectives may also come after the word they describe.

For example:

3. Kofi is tall.

4. She is beautiful.

In English, the forms of adjectives remain the same whether they modify singular or plural nouns. This should come as good news to English language learners.

Ok, enough of English adjectives. Let’s proceed to explore Twi adjectives; that’s why we’re here today.

There are different types of Twi adjectives:

Some sentential examples:

Number

Quantity

Colour

Size

Opinion

Shape

We stated earlier that English adjectives mostly appear immediately before the noun or noun phrase that they modify. From the examples above (1 – 11), it appears this is different with Twi adjectives. Indeed, Twi adjectives, unlike the English ones, mostly appear after the noun or noun phrase that they modify or describe. Here, they may appear immediately after the noun/noun phrase that they modify, or, after the main verb. Let’s take a look at examples of Twi adjectives appearing immediately after what they modify/describe.

GL: Gloss

DEF: Definite article

INDEF: Indefinite article

PERF: Perfect tense

PAST: Past tense

Now let’s check out examples of Twi adjectives appearing after the verb.

Quite often, Twi adjectives take on different forms depending on whether they appear immediately after what they modify, or after the verb. For instance, if we take the set of examples used right above (15 – 17) and move the adjectives to the positions immediately after the respective nouns, the forms of the adjectives will change. Let’s try.

Let’s look at more examples of Twi adjectives that have different forms depending on where they appear in relation to the position of the word/phrase they describe.

Twi Adjectives appearing right after what they modify

Twi Adjectives appearing after the main verb

There are certain Twi adjectives that have the same forms irrespective of where they appear in a sentence (whether they appear immediately after the noun/noun phrase that they describe or after the main verb).

Another difference between English and Twi adjectives has to do with their markedness for plurality. We stated earlier that in English, the forms of adjectives remain the same whether they are used to describe/modify a singular or plural noun. For instance, the adjective ‘small’ in the phrase “the small house” does not change in form if we change ‘house’ to its plural form ‘houses’ (the big houses).

On the other hand, there are Twi adjectives that are marked for plurality. So depending on whether they are used to qualify a singular or plural noun, these adjectives assume different forms.

Some examples:

Other Twi adjectives, just like English adjectives, maintain their forms whether or not they qualify a singular or plural noun.

Let’s end here. You’ll encounter other examples of Twi adjectives in the sentence examples we’ve used in the previous lessons, as well as what we’ll be using in future lessons. Please observe them critically when you do, noting down any peculiarity you may find.

If you don’t understand anything, you can send me an e-mail via [email protected]. You may also leave your questions in the comments section below. Thank you for reading.