Smarter than a fifth grader?

Question

How many adjectives in this sentence? (Explain answer)

Spencer takes good care of his hairy dog.

I originally said three: Good, His, Hairy. My sister feels that although 'his' is a possessive pronoun acting as an adjective, it is necessary to the sentence and does not count.

Answer 1

The answer is THREE. Look in a dictionary, for crying out loud.

Obviously, some grammatically-challenged producer thinks that a possessive pronoun can't be an adjective. WRONG.

An adjective is a word that modifies a noun. "His" in the sentence modifies the noun, "dog." That makes it an adjective.

Webster's Third New International Edition--page 1072--lists three definitions for the word; the second definition is an adjective ('adj' in italics). Webster's says that 'his' is an adjective--anyone got a better source to cite?

"Good" is an adjective because "care" is a noun. In Webster's--page 339--the first entry for "care" is listed as a noun (italic 'n'). The fifth definition of this first entry is "CHARGE, SUPERVISION, MANAGEMENT :[ . . . ] : CUSTODY.

If you graph the sentence, "care" has to end up in the DO slot for the graph to be readily intelligible. For "care" to be a verb, "of his hairy dog" would have to be an adverbial phrase. To be an adverbial phrase, it would be answering the questions: how, where, when, condition, or reason; it doesn't. The prepositional phrase answers the question, "What?" The prepositional phrase is, therefore, not adverbial, and hence, cannot be describing a verb--which word would you link it to in a graph? Care.

Answer 2

Ok this should be easy. We hopefully know a noun is a person, place or thing. e.g. dog, chair, table, Paris, Spencer... so we all agree that dog is a noun. An adjective describes a noun so hairy is an adjective. Now what is a verb... and action run, fall, sit or to care... If the show is correct with 2 then "his" describes the ownership of the noun so is an adjective.

Answer 3

There are only 2 adjectives in the sentence "Spencer takes good care of his hairy dog." They are "his" and "hairy."

Good is an adverb modifying the verb "takes care of."

Yes, one *should* learn to use a dictionary.

The contestant's answer was, "I think that good and hairy are adjectives so I'm going to say that there are two adjectives in that sentence."

The host of the show hinted at the qualified correctness of the answer when he said "But the important part of that was two, which is right."

Answer 4

good describes the care, hairy describes the dog. An adjective will describe something. She is "very" pretty (very). Care and dog are nouns. An adjective modifys (or helps describe) a noun. He was "terribly" poor. Terribly is the adjective, poor the noune.

Answer 5

There are 2 adjectives in this sentence. the word Good and Hairy. Adjectives usually describe something in the sentence. Below are more examples.


the tall professor
a solid commitment
a month's pay
a six-year-old child
the unhappiest, richest man

Answer 6

Look at the sentence
Spencer takes care of dog

hairy adjective
his pronoun
good adverb

Answer 7

Good and hairy are your adjectives because they are the words used to "describe" care and dog.

Answer 8

Three! The show is wrong!
The word "his" is a posessive adjective in this sentence
since it describes a noun. The same word, "his", can be a
posessive pronoun if it takes the place of a noun.
Eg. "My eyes are brown and his are blue"-pronoun "his"
"His eyes are brown and mine are blue"-adjective "his"

Answer 9

There's only two. "Good" describes care, while "hairy" describes the dog. "His" is a possessive pronoun, like you said. I love doing grammar! ;D

Answer 10

2, adjective "word that describes another". Good describes care and hairy describes dog