Grammar

2.29 Identifying the class that something belongs to: classifying adjectives

The other main type of adjective consists of adjectives that you use to identify the particular class that something belongs to. For example, if you say 'financial help', you are using the adjective 'financial' to classify the noun 'help'. There are many different kinds of help, 'financial help' is one of them. Adjectives which are used in this way are called classifying adjectives.

...financial help.
...abdominal pains.
...a medieval manuscript.
...my daily shower.
...an equal partnership.
...a sufficient amount of milk.

Note that noun modifiers (see paragraphs 2.174 to 2.179) are used in a similar way to classifying adjectives. For example, 'financial matters' and 'money matters' are similar in both structure and meaning.

2.30

Here is a list of classifying adjectives:

absolute, active, actual, agricultural, alternative, annual, apparent, available, basic, central, chemical, civil, commercial, communist, conservative, cultural, daily, democratic, direct, domestic, double, due, east, eastern, economic, educational, electric, empty, female, financial, foreign, free, full, general, golden, historical, human, ideal, independent, industrial, inevitable, intellectual, internal, international, legal, local, magic, male, medical, mental, military, modern, moral, national, natural, negative, north, northern, nuclear, official, open, original, personal, physical, political, positive, possible, potential, private, professional, proper, public, raw, ready, real, religious, revolutionary, right, royal, rural, scientific, separate, sexual, single, social, solid, south, southern, standard, straight, sufficient, theoretical, traditional, unaware, urban, west, western, wooden, wrong

2.31

Adjectives such as 'British', 'American', and 'Australian', which indicate nationality or origin, are also classifying adjectives. They start with a capital letter because they are related to names of countries.

...American citizens.

Some classifying adjectives are formed from people's names, for example 'Victorian' and 'Shakespearian'. They also start with a capital letter.

...Victorian houses.

2.32

Because they place something in a class, classifying adjectives are not gradable in the way that qualitative adjectives are . Things are either in a particular class or not in it. Therefore, classifying adjectives do not have comparatives and superlatives and are not normally used with submodifiers such as 'very' and 'rather'.

However, when you want to indicate that you feel strongly about what you are saying, you can use a submodifier such as 'absolutely' with a classifying adjective. This is explained in paragraphs 2.152 to 2.153.