7.2 Inflecting Adjectives

Adjective inflection is relatively straight-forward.

We will use the paradigm word טוֹב to illustrate

• An adjective is either masculine or feminine
• An adjective is either singular or plural (dual nouns take plural adjectives)

An adjective will match the gender and number of the noun that it modifies or for which it substitutes

• This is a big difference from nouns, which can change number but never gender
  • Note that for irregular nouns, the adjective will not necessarily match the exact ending
  • נָשִׁים טוֹבוֹת - even though “נָשִׁים” has the irregular -im ending, the adjective טוֹבוֹת remains the regular feminine plural
• An adjective will use expected gender and number endings as shown in the graphic above
• The Lexical Form of an adjective is the MS
  • The MS form is usually endingless
  • The MS can be Seghol+Hei as in יָפֶה, which is MS for pleasing, beautiful.

Note that unlike טוֹב, most adjectives undergo vowel changes when the inflectional endings are added.

The good news is you already know what to do. Adjectives follow the same rules as nouns.