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Lesson Three — Adjectives

Just as nouns in Esperanto always have an –o ending, adjectives always have an –a ending.

1a	Estas	granda	libro	sur	la tablo.
1a	[There] is	[a] big	book	on	the table.

1b	La libro	sur	la tablo	estas	granda.
1b	The book	on	the table	is	big.

1c	Estas	libro	granda	sur	la tablo.
1c	[There] is	³book	¹[a] ²big	on	the table.

Sentence 1a is very simple. As before, the words “there” and “a” have been added to make the English translation grammatical. This is the simplest use of the adjective: to modify a noun directly.

Sentence 1b is another use of the adjective, called a predicate adjective, which works just as in English.

Sentence 1c is a rephrasing of 1a, with the adjective following the noun, instead of preceeding it, to emphasize the adjective. In translating, we change the sequence of words to the standard English one, and italicize the word “big” as the English way of adding emphasis.

2a	Estas	dek	malgrandaj	libroj	sur	la breto.
2a	[There] are	ten	small	books	on	the shelf.

2b	La malgrandaj	libroj	sur	la breto	estas	bluaj.
2b	The small	books	on	the shelf	are	blue.

2c	La knabo	havas	grandan	libron.
2c	The boy	has	[a] big	book.

2d	La knabino	havas	kvar	malgrandajn	librojn.
2d	The girl	has	four	small	books.

In 2a and 2b, we see that adjectives modifying plural nouns are themselves plural, and have the same –j ending, whether they modify the noun directly, or are predicate adjectives.

In 2c and 2d, we see that adjectives can have the –n ending themselves, for modifying nouns with an –n ending for being direct objects.

In general, you will see the same –n, –j, or –jn ending on the adjective as on the noun that it modifies, or both will have no additional endings. We’ll cover the few exceptions in a later chapter.

Now you have seen all four of the forms that a combination of an noun and adjective can have in Esperanto.

	Singular	Plural
Nominative — for the subject of the sentence, etc.	granda libro	grandaj libroj
Accusative — for the object of a verb, etc.	grandan libron	grandajn librojn

Questions or suggestions? Please write, and I’ll get back to you.