Oof, okay, I'm getting back into the swing of things. Been scrambling after
coming back from vacation because of work, grad school and immigration, but
hopefully things are going to calm down a little now. Honestly, I haven't even
looked at my studies in the past two weeks! I've been doing little
translations every day but serious language studying? Not so much. The other
life priorities took, well, priority. At least I didn't catch a cold from all
the traveling!

I really meant to write a long, involved grammatical post yesterday morning,
but then walked outside to find yet another problem I needed to deal with that
came up from the day before. It's mostly worked out, I guess, but there's
still some lingering effects. So, this will be short though there are more
posts to write in the series.

## What is an Adjective?

**An adjective modifies a noun.** It describes it, explains it and defines it.
An adjective can be _definite_ , referring to only one specific instance of
the object, or _indefinite_ , referring to a general quality.

An _adjective_ is called an _īpašības vārds. Indefinite_ adjectives are
referred to as _nenoteiktie_ while _definite_ adjectives are referred to as
_noteiktie_.

Adjectives usually answer _kāds_ / _kāda_ (what kind of?) and _kurš_ / _kura_
(which one?) when doing sentence analysis.

> Questions about colors, which are generally asked in the locative, can
> sometimes be answered in nominative as well as in the expected locative.
>
> For example: Kādā krāsā ir viņas nagi? Zili. -> What color are her nails?
> Blue.
>
> We have our suspicions as to why this is, but generally, it's unimportant
> why as long as you don't get too mixed up.

## Adjectives Always Agree

This is a great, easy rule to remember: **Adjectives always agree in gender,
case and number with their noun.** This _does not imply_ that the endings of
both the noun and adjective will be identical!

**Every declinable adjective can take either masculine or feminine form.**
There's a set of endings for both indefinite and definite use.

**The indefinite adjectival endings are almost identical to the 1st and 4th
declensions.** There is no adjectival ending for the vocative case, which is
where it differs from the noun endings. They can be used with any of the six
declensions, as long as the gender, number and case match.

There are some adjectives that don't decline, like _rozā_. While it may look
like a feminine definite adjective, it's not considered to have a standard
ending, so it doesn't decline at all. This and other loanwords like it get
treated like the indeclinable nouns, they just don't change.

## How to Decline Adjectives

Even though the indefinites are easy if you already know your nouns, I've
filled in the chart here with them as a reference.

    
    
    Masculine  | indef. |  def.  | dsk: | indef.  |  def.
    Nom.  Kas? | -s, -š |  -ais  |      |   -i    |  -ie
    Gen.   Kā? |   -a   |   -ā   |      |   -u    |  -o
    Dat.  Kam? |   -am  |  -ajam |      |  -iem   | -ajiem
    Acc.   Ko? |   -u   |   -o   |      |   -us   |  -os
    Ins. Ar ko?|  ar -u |  ar -o |      | ar -iem | ar -ajiem
    Loc.  Kur? |   -ā   |  -ajā  |      |   -os   |  -ajos
    Voc.   --  |   --   |-ais, -o|      |   --    |  -ie
    
    Feminine   | indef. |  def.  | dsk: | indef.  |  def.
    Nom.  Kas? |   -a   |   -ā   |      |  -as    |  -ās
    Gen.   Kā? |   -as  |   -ās  |      |  -u     |  -o
    Dat.  Kam? |   -ai  |  -ajai |      |  -ām    |  -ajām
    Acc.   Ko? |   -u   |   -o   |      |  -as    |  -ās
    Ins. Ar ko?|  ar -u |  ar -o |      | ar -ām  | ar -ajām
    Loc.  Kur? |   -ā   |  -ajā  |      |  -ās    |  -ajās
    Voc.   --  |   --   | -ā, -o |      |   --    |  -ās