3 ms·

I was a bit disappointed that this article focused on "pure" adjectives without mentioning demonstrative and possessive modifiers. I learned about adjective ord

I was a bit disappointed that this article focused on "pure" adjectives without mentioning demonstrative and possessive modifiers. I learned about adjective order differences between languages way back in the 1970s when I took my first course in linguistics. These differences can be quite striking between noncognate languages like English and Chinese. Both in English and in Chinese, most grammatical relationships in sentences are communicated by word order rather than by inflection of words. But the word order rules can differ, particularly in the order of demonstrative versus possessive modifiers of nouns (what we call "adjectives" in English). In English, it is very anomalous to say * "my that book," as the standard word order would be "that book of mine," but in Chinese it is expected to say, "我的那本書," which corresponds to the anomalous word order in English. And so on for most phrases like those contrasted between English and Chinese. One thing that gives native speakers of Chinese an "accent" in English, besides phonology, is grammar differences like that, and of course the same is true when a native speaker of English speaks Chinese as a second language.

camillomiller 12y ago
The same for Italians. We do not use nouns as modifiers, except for some specific situations. You can easily spot an Italian (or some other romance-language native speaker) for his/her resistance to adjectivization. That, and the over-abundant use of terms derived from Latin (wouldn't have "latin-derived terms" sounded more anglosaxon?).
devonkim 12y ago
I was thinking something similar but along a different line of thought using English alone. Possessive modifiers behave differently than other "pure" adjectives and whether it's anaphors. 1) Jim's red barn 1a) My red barn 2) Red Jim's barn (Not awkward like in the headline example, but the meaning has changed completely) 2b) * Red my barn (invalid, period. even if my -> mine - I can do this word order in Korean or Japanese easily due to more explicit case marking) We have to start using some syntactic movement to make the construct syntactically acceptable and semantically natural and equivalent, but doing so makes it possible to be free with word order: 3) Jim's barn that is red 3a) My barn that is red 4) Red barn that is Jim's 4a) Red barn that is mine (my -> mine) 5) Barn that is red and Jim's 5a) Barn that is red and mine 6) Barn that is Jim's and red 6a) Barn that is mine and red The preferences aren't as clear-cut to me as in the headline clause, but we'd rather keep the possessive separate from the pure adjective (3-4 > 5-6, higher is more natural). Using only "pure" adjectives, it looks like the semantic binding preference still sticks though: 7) Big red barn => 7a) Red barn that is big 7b) Big barn that is red 7c) Barn that is red and big 7d) Barn that is big and red Naturalness: 7b > 7a and 7d > 7c. And since 7d > 7b, we have 7d > 7c >= 7b 7a. I'm thinking 7b > 7c but wasn't quite sure because both sound awkward and comparing two mildly awkward clauses is probably not valid here. But hopefully other native speakers roughly agree on the precedence of awkwardness with me and understand why this article is just the tip of the iceberg.

camillomiller 12y ago

The same for Italians. We do not use nouns as modifiers, except for some specific situations. You can easily spot an Italian (or some other romance-language native speaker) for his/her resistance to adjectivization. That, and the over-abundant use of terms derived from Latin (wouldn't have "latin-derived terms" sounded more anglosaxon?).

devonkim 12y ago

I was thinking something similar but along a different line of thought using English alone. Possessive modifiers behave differently than other "pure" adjectives and whether it's anaphors. 1) Jim's red barn 1a) My red barn 2) Red Jim's barn (Not awkward like in the headline example, but the meaning has changed completely) 2b) * Red my barn (invalid, period. even if my -> mine - I can do this word order in Korean or Japanese easily due to more explicit case marking) We have to start using some syntactic movement to make the construct syntactically acceptable and semantically natural and equivalent, but doing so makes it possible to be free with word order: 3) Jim's barn that is red 3a) My barn that is red 4) Red barn that is Jim's 4a) Red barn that is mine (my -> mine) 5) Barn that is red and Jim's 5a) Barn that is red and mine 6) Barn that is Jim's and red 6a) Barn that is mine and red The preferences aren't as clear-cut to me as in the headline clause, but we'd rather keep the possessive separate from the pure adjective (3-4 > 5-6, higher is more natural). Using only "pure" adjectives, it looks like the semantic binding preference still sticks though: 7) Big red barn => 7a) Red barn that is big 7b) Big barn that is red 7c) Barn that is red and big 7d) Barn that is big and red Naturalness: 7b > 7a and 7d > 7c. And since 7d > 7b, we have 7d > 7c >= 7b 7a. I'm thinking 7b > 7c but wasn't quite sure because both sound awkward and comparing two mildly awkward clauses is probably not valid here. But hopefully other native speakers roughly agree on the precedence of awkwardness with me and understand why this article is just the tip of the iceberg.