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Grammar in Context: Coordinate Adjectives
Piri Thomas uses several adjectives to contrast
the appearances of Antonio and Felix in the first
sentence of “Amigo Brothers.”
Antonio was fair, lean, and lanky, while
Felix was dark, short, and husky.
Sometimes, to make their descriptions clear and
effective, writers need to use more than one
adjective to modify a noun or pronoun. When
this happens, the adjectives are called
coordinate adjectives.
Punctuation Tip: When more than one
adjective modifies a noun or pronoun, the
adjectives are separated by a comma. “Felix
walked the dark, quiet streets.” But, when the
first adjective modifies the second adjective and
not the noun or pronoun, the two adjectives are
not separated. “Felix wore dark red socks.”
Grammar in Context
WRITING EXERCISE
Possible Responses:
1. In the ring, they acted like fierce,
real opponents.
2. The day before the long, difficult
fight, both boys were tense.
3. Felix let fly a series of low, quick
jabs.
4. Antonio displayed his famous,
fancy footwork.
Connect to the Literature
Possible Responses:
. . . his face being pounded into raw,
wet hamburger
. . . eyes cut, jagged, bleeding
. . . crumble slowly to the canvas,
a broken, bloody mess
Copyright © McDougal Littell Inc.
WRITING EXERCISE Insert coordinate adjectives
to modify the underlined nouns. Choose
adjectives that would fit the descriptions in
“Amigo Brothers.”
Example: Original Antonio and Felix were
friends.
Rewritten Antonio and Felix were good, close
friends.
1.
2.
3.
4.
In the ring, they acted like opponents.
The day before the fight, both boys were tense.
Felix let fly a series of jabs.
Antonio displayed his footwork.
Connect to the Literature Look on page 366 for
two or three examples of coordinate adjectives.
How do these help create the mood of the story?
Grammar Handbook
See p. R91: Elements in a Series.