Order of adjectives

You have words - now what do you do with them?
Perry Lassiter
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Order of adjectives

Postby Perry Lassiter » Thu Sep 08, 2016 12:11 am

What do you think? How correct is this?

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-37285796
pl

bnjtokyo
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Re: Order of adjectives

Postby bnjtokyo » Thu Sep 08, 2016 10:06 am

We all heard that on the first day of our first linguistics class: "Yet the ability to carry out the simplest conversation requires profound knowledge that speakers are unaware of . . . . [It] is parallel to knowing how to walk without understanding or being able to explain the neurophysiological control mechanisms that permit one to do so." etc. pg. 4, Fromkin, V and Rodman, R. 1983. "An Introduction to Language." Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Also see the discussion of the Wug Test (1958) in the Wikipedia article on Jean Berko Gleason

Having said that, I have not previously seen such a long list for the preferred (non-marked) order of the adjectival semantic categories that can modify a noun.

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Slava
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Re: Order of adjectives

Postby Slava » Sun Jan 01, 2017 10:47 am

Very interesting. I've seen such order lists, and in general agree. One way to alter the order, though, is by using commas. If you break the sentence up, you put more of an accent on the various parts.
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