What is adjectival agreement?

Adjectival agreement in languages refers to the grammatical practice where adjectives change their form to match the gender, number, and sometimes case of the nouns they modify. This is a common feature in Romance and Germanic languages.

In French, for example, the adjective "petit" (meaning "small") changes to "petite" when describing a feminine singular noun, like "voiture" (car) becoming "une petite voiture." In the plural form, it becomes "petits" or "petites," depending on gender, as in "de petits chiens" (small dogs).

In Spanish, a similar pattern occurs: the adjective "rojo" (red) changes to "roja" for feminine singular nouns, like "una casa roja" (a red house), and to "rojos" or "rojas" for plural forms, as in "unos coches rojos" (red cars).

In German, adjectives depend on gender, number, and the case of the noun. For instance, "klein" (small) changes according to these factors: in the nominative case, it's "ein kleiner Hund" (a small dog) for masculine singular, "eine kleine Katze" (a small cat) for feminine singular, and "kleine Kinder" (small children) for plural.

These examples illustrate how adjectival agreement ensures that adjectives harmonize with the nouns they describe, contributing to grammatical consistency and clarity in communication.