-AL adjective suffix

Compared to looking at the -able suffix endings which were very advanced vocabulary.  We mean beyond what most general English classes would need to learn.  The ‘-al’ suffixes are all around the B levels or intermediate.  Therefore this list is a good list of adjectives for students to learn that are around intermediate.

We found that 80% of the words that end with ‘-al’ are adjectives.  These are the big exceptions to the rule which are around the 20% margin:

SEVERAL (DA2)

There are many that could be either an adjective or a noun:

these overlap adjectives or nouns most often: GENERAL (JJ_NN1) (RR22) FINAL (JJ_NN1) TOTAL (JJ_NN1) POTENTIAL (JJ_NN1) INDIVIDUAL (JJ_NN1)  INITIAL (JJ_NN1) CRIMINAL (JJ_NN1) OFFICIAL (JJ_NN1)

(NN1_JJ) JOURNAL CAPITAL (NN1_JJ@) POTENTIAL (NN1_JJ)  INDIVIDUAL (NN1_JJ)

Singular Nouns that don’t fit the -al rule much:

GOAL (NN1) MATERIAL (NN1)  HOSPITAL (NN1) DEAL (NN1)  METAL (NN1) ANIMAL (NN1) TRIAL (NN1)  CAPITAL (NN1) FESTIVAL (NN1) MEAL (NN1)  TOTAL  (NN1) SIGNAL (NN1)   APPEAL (NN1) REMOVAL (NN1) RENTAL (NN1) APPROVAL (NN1) TUTORIAL (NN1) MEMORIAL (NN1)

Verbs that don’t for sure: DEAL (VVI)

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