grammaradjectives

Grammaradjectives is a term used in linguistics to describe adjectives whose core function is to encode or label grammatical categories or features. In this sense, a grammaradjective is an ordinary adjective whose meaning concerns grammar rather than a property of the noun itself.

Common examples arise in noun phrases that name grammatical categories, such as past tense, singular number, definite article, or gender. In these phrases, words like past, singular, definite, and gendered apply to the noun or to the category rather than to physical qualities of the object. Grammaradjectives can also appear in languages that permit adjectives to mark or reflect morphosyntactic properties exposed in noun or verb forms.

Functionally, grammaradjectives serve as descriptive labels in grammars, teaching materials, and typological surveys. They help identify and organize features such as tense, aspect, mood, number, case, gender, and definiteness. They may occur in attributive position, as in past tense or singular number, and less commonly in predicative positions within grammatical statements, such as “the tense is past.”

The notion is primarily a descriptive tool rather than a distinct syntactic class present in all languages. Its usefulness lies in clarifying how languages encode grammar through adjectives in discourse, analysis, and computational tagging. In education and natural language processing, grammaradjectives aid in labeling features for classification, parsing, and cross-linguistic comparison.

See also: adjective, grammar, morphology, syntax, linguistic description, typology.