I'm writing the following sentence: I don't know the answer, but what I do know is that these 'triggers' – be they visual, auditory or olfactive - evoke inspiration, a sense of being and of belonging. I guessed at 'olfactive' being the adjective of 'olfactory', but both OpenOffice Writer and the text editor on this forum underline this word in red. Am I getting my parts of speech mixed up? It is the adjective I'm looking for, yes?
Yup, I'm with @Steerpike. You do want the adjective, but you already have it. "...be they visual, auditory, or olfactory..."
Ah! Thank you both. It's rather shameful to be so unfamiliar with my parts of speech, but I've always struggled in that area.
No, I suppose not. Tell me to give you a noun and I'd be just about okay. "Name an object," I'd tell myself. But ask me for a verb or adjective, or god forbid one of the more complex ones, and I'd be red-faced. Even now, on the back of this thread and knowing that 'olfactory' is an adjective, I don't really understand what makes it so.
English is a complex language. I remember my English and literature instructors even struggling to recall and explain some of the seemingly endless rules about parts of speech and grammar. This is a fantastic forum for getting answers.
I think that has more to do with poor teaching of grammar to native speakers than it has to do with the complexity of the language. When it comes to complexity, English can't compare with many other languages. However, it is also a common phenomenon that native speakers often suck at explaining the grammar of their own language regardless, simply because they almost never study it to the same depth as non-native speakers, because they simply don't have to, unless they're a language teacher or translator. This struggle to explain the grammar of your own native tongue isn't unique to English and has nothing to do with whether the language is complex. 9 times out of 10 a non-native speaker will have a better grasp of grammar than the native speakers themselves. (and I mean native speakers of any language, not just English)
