
What is the rule for adjective order? - ColinWright
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1155/what-is-the-rule-for-adjective-order
======
tmoertel
How about this rule? _Order the modifiers to maximize the product of their
successive restrictive effects._ For example, we would prefer "great green
dragon" to "green great dragon" because

    
    
        ([_] - [great _]) * ([great _] - [great green _])
    

is greater than

    
    
        ([_] - [green _]) * ([green _] - [green great _]),
    

where the notation [ _x_ _] denotes the expected number of substitutions
admitted by the hole (_) in the context _x_.

Note that this ordering rule seems to do the right thing for the obvious
corner cases. For example, we would prefer "modern brick house" to "brick
modern house" because, in the second ordering, [brick modern _] is about the
same as [brick _], making the second term in

    
    
        ([_] - [brick _]) * ([brick _] - [brick modern _])
    

tend toward zero, making the preference score for "brick modern house" also
tend toward zero.

EDITED TO ADD: Just to be clear, I'm not claiming that this is the rule we
actually use when we're putting words together. I'm claiming that this is the
"true" rule, to the extent that anything can be said to be true in human
communications. What we do in our heads works out to be an approximation: We
(1) choose the modifiers that we think we need and (2) order them so that none
seems wasted. For example, when describing a modern brick house, we know that
"modern" and "brick" have to go somewhere, but putting "modern" after "brick"
makes it impotent, so we put it before. By avoiding these "zeroes," which ring
hollow to our inner ear, we make every word earn its place and indirectly seek
the product-maximizing ordering.

~~~
sev
How about in the case of:

1\. "A Chinese vegetarian lawyer"

2\. "A Vegetarian Chinese lawyer"

According to the referenced paper[1], #1 is considered awkward, but #1 follows
your ordering logic, assuming that there are more Chinese than Vegetarians.

[1] <http://www.lingref.com/cpp/wccfl/25/paper1473.pdf>

~~~
almost
#1 Would suggest to me a lawyer who is Chinese and specialises in vegetarians
someone while #2 would suggest a layer who is Chinese (or who deals in Chinese
laws) and _is_ a vegetarian.

Maybe just me?

~~~
proofofconcept
There needs to be a comma in between 'Vegetarian' and 'Chinese' in both
phrases to clarify that whichever is the former modifies 'lawyer' as opposed
to the latter.

~~~
vorg
A hyphen also helps...

A Chinese vegetarian lawyer= a lawyer, who is both ethnic Chinese and
vegetarian, where the set of vegetarian lawyers is more generally recognized
than the set of Chinese lawyers

A Chinese vegetarian-lawyer= ethnic Chinese who practises law of vegetarian
issues ("vegetarian" is a compound word, i.e. spoken quicker, at higher pitch,
and with less gap before the following word)

A Chinese, vegetarian, lawyer= an ethnic Chinese who just happens to also be a
vegetarian, ("vegetarian" is a non-restrictive phrase, i.e. spoken at lower
pitch, with a longer gap both before and after)

------
netcan
Wow!

My premature reaction was _"Nonsense. You can't just make up rules no one
knows and call them grammar"_ but then I noticed how unnatural changing the
order feels. Amazing how we have these grammar rules in our head without
knowing they exist.

~~~
kyrias
Every rule of grammar you know have been made up by someone after watching how
people speak.

~~~
kbenson
Tell that to the person commenting about Lojban in this thread...

~~~
kyrias
Well of course conlangs are an exception >,>

------
tokenadult
One point to bear in mind in discussing this issue is that not all natural
human languages reach the same result in ordering adjectives. For example,
speakers of Chinese (Cantonese, specifically) have to be taught English
adjective order

[http://www2.elc.polyu.edu.hk/cill/exercises/adjectiveorder.h...](http://www2.elc.polyu.edu.hk/cill/exercises/adjectiveorder.htm)

and it is generally familiar to persons who have had a strong first-year
linguistics course at a university or who have studied a modern foreign
language in depth that adjective order varies from language to language. So
the one thing we can be sure about here is that the grammatical sense of
native speakers of English (or native speakers of Chinese, etc.) does NOT
reflect some kind of underlying universal rule of human thought.

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language

[http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Grammar-English-
Language/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Grammar-English-
Language/dp/0521431468)

is an expensive reference book well informed by worldwide investigation of
English as it is actually written and spoken. It is a useful tool for informed
discussion about the interesting issues brought up by the Stack Exchange
question kindly submitted here.

------
stevenbedrick
In case anybody's interested, one of our (former) graduate students has done
some really fascinating work on computational analysis of prenominal modifiers
(adjectives, etc.). For example, her ACL paper from 2011:

Mitchell, M., Dunlop, A., and Roark, B. (2011). Semi-Supervised Modeling for
Prenominal Modifier Ordering. Proceedings of ACL 2011.
<http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/P/P11/P11-2041.pdf>

~~~
xfs
Interesting conclusion from the paper:

 _[...] for ordering prenominal modifiers, [...] a simple n-gram model
outperforms position-specific models_

This seems to imply that adjective order can be better described with common
phrases rather than a set of definite grammar rules.

~~~
XaspR8d
Thus the challenge of modern syntactic theory - to most it is clear there is
_some_ structure occurring, but attempts to quantify it are still beaten by
rather naive statistical approaches.

------
ColinWright
To add to this, a quick search produces many pages that are saying more-or-
less the same thing in more-or-less the same way. They differ a little in
detail, and a lot in presentation. Here are some:

* <http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/adjectiv/ordering.htm>

* <http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/adjectiveorder.htm>

* [http://www.gingersoftware.com/grammarbook/adjectives/order-o...](http://www.gingersoftware.com/grammarbook/adjectives/order-of-adjectives/)

* <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjective#Adjective_order>

* [http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1155/what-is-the-...](http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1155/what-is-the-rule-for-adjective-order)

* [http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/410/grammar/adjord.ht...](http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/410/grammar/adjord.htm)

* <http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/cyc/a/adj.htm>

* <http://www.myenglishteacher.net/adjectivesorder.html>

* [http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar/ad...](http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar/adjectives/order-adjectives)

~~~
Evbn
"More-or-less", or "less-or-more"?

------
twoodfin
Fascinating. As a native English speaker, I was never taught this ordering,
but swapping around the examples a bit emphasizes how "unnatural" any other
ordering sounds.

This paper linked in the comments is intriguing:

<http://www.lingref.com/cpp/wccfl/25/paper1473.pdf>

~~~
dfox
That is interesting contrast to czech (and probably other slavic languages).
In czech almost any ordering is grammatically correct and does not sound
unnatural, but the meaning is changed (usually only sightly). But because of
slightly changed meaning the whole sentence often sounds weird in itself. And
what is interesting for this contrast is that these slight changes in meaning
are not readily conveyable in english, probably because of this fixed ordering
of words and phrases in sentence.

~~~
nollidge
This is often true in English as well. See the above example of "Chinese
vegetarian lawyer" vs. "vegetarian Chinese lawyer". Both sound fine, but the
former means a lawyer who represents Chinese vegetarians or maybe a Chinese
lawyer who represents vegetarians, and the latter means a lawyer who is both
Chinese and a vegetarian.

But then look at "great Chinese lawer" and "Chinese great lawyer". The latter
doesn't make any sense.

------
computator
Here's a quiz for you:

Put the jumbled adjectives in the correct order:

    
    
      I have (CANADIAN ATTRACTIVE WRITING FOUR WOOD LONG) tables.
    

I've tried this quiz with a bunch of people who never studied grammar, and
I've found if you are a native English speaker, you'll arrive at the same
answer.

If you have doubts about the order of a certain pair of words, just try using
those 2 words alone, for example, ask yourself if "ATTRACTIVE WOOD table" is
better or worse than "WOOD ATTRACTIVE table", and the answer will be obvious.

I also found it fascinating that there are 720 possible ways to order the
adjectives (because 6x5x4x3x2x1 = 720), but just one sounds correct.

~~~
computator
Spoiler: The answer is
<http://decode.org/?q=SbheNggenpgvirYbatPnanqvnaJbbqJevgvat>

(Rot 13 encoded. See the _blue_ text -- for some reason my eye doesn't
immediately see the decoded text.)

~~~
semiel
Interesting! I actually get a slightly different answer:

<http://decode.org/?q=SbheYbatNggenpgvirPnanqvnaJbbqJevgvat>

No one you've tried it on has produced my version?

~~~
anatoly
I reached your answer (but I'm not a native speaker).

------
corysama
When coding, I frequently find myself wishing that English used noun-
adjective-adjective ordering. It works so much better for organizing sub-
categories into nice, sortable, searchable trees. I sometimes try to use naa
naming in my code, but it's a constant struggle to not accidentally fall back
to aan out of life-long habit.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
French mostly does this, though there are a defined set of exceptions, i.e.
adjectives for beauty, age, good/bad and size go before the noun. Of course,
the exceptions also have exceptions: the placement of some adjectives that
normally go before the noun depends on whether the meaning is literal or
figurative.

~~~
Gmo
Yes, a good example is with "grand":

* un grand homme = a great man

* un homme grand = a tall man

Something which can be funny is when you want to talk about a great man who is
tall (e.g. Charles De Gaulle)

------
JohnMM
Determiners (the, an, that...) Observation (pretty, nice, awesome...) Size and
Shape (big, huge, great(usually)...) Age (new, young, fourteen years old,
antique...) Color (blue, black, pale...) Origin (French, American, Asian...)
Material (woolen, jade, metallic) Qualifier -- this one can seem tricky. It's
an adjective that has become part of a set phrase with the noun. Like "book
cover" or "rocking chair". Those have to stay right next to the noun or it
messes up the phrase (a rocking blue chair has a wobbly leg; a blue rocking
chair is doing what it should). A "great dragon" is very dangerous and
amazing, not just big.

There are also a few English phrases with postmodifiers, like 'mother-in-law'
or 'attorney general', but they are few, and you learn them one at a time.

It isn't really logical, and every language has, more or less, its own order,
but English is more firm in its adherence to its set order than most. It just
sounds right to us!

------
contingencies
[ok, so not strictly on adjective order, but i felt like sharing]

HOMAGE TO THE SYNONYM (On reading of Dhana~njaya's Namamala in K.A.
Nilakanta Sastri's A History of South India) Kovalam Beach, Kerala 12th June
2011

I felt it strange to read today some news of writers past, Their time was one
of heterogeneity; sectarian views surpassed. [Though sectarianism has now
taken hold; and o ffered much up to Shiva. Jains, Buddhists and  Ajivikas:
all gone, save bits in literature.]

The passage that stirred interest, perhaps it's not of note, But an ancient
`lexicon of synonyms' - what type of person wrote? Well in those times of
philosophy, many literate were courtiers Those commissioned men could run
amok; quite di fferent to what's taught here! [Though of freedoms known back
in the past, we've not yet lost a single; For words remain like cocktails; a
great joy to mix and mingle.]

To reflection's fruit: the synonym, it's sacred to the core, Turning
misconceptions of inequitability, it's something of a door. It has been said,
with few against, that language has a mid: "The verb to be" (or is/was/will
be, in our poor contorted chit).

Yet my subject's not, as etymology'd posit, mere beast of straight assignment,
But another way to subtlety, word choice and thought alignment.

Its operands, once affixed, are viewed in context and kind, Just as yoga
might work limbs and flesh: en-route to still the mind.

Younger, I gave a speech on her: those notions of 'to be', Through an ancient
Chinese philosophical school - Logicians, mon cheri!

Their language one of ambiguity and subtleties aplenty, Compare our Indo-Aryan
pauper writ, with so few words for "empty"!

And of languages designed now for an audience of machines, They cannot seek to
replicate our great linguistic genes. Of Daoists we did not take heed:
fighting nature, reaping pain

Now as never we need a champion, to help disembark this train. "Without
further ado!" I shall then move for a humble nomination Of the synonym as an
ailment for our present day conflagration.

------
RyanMcGreal
> A big, modern brick house (NOT a modern, big brick house)

Not unless it's a modern house with big bricks, anyway.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
I think you would hyphenate big-brick in that case, as, taken together, they
are a single adjective of house.

------
kevinpet
I remember something in David Friedman's writing to the effect of how no
layman ever argued with him about anything in physics (where he has his
degree) but everyone feels qualified to argue with him on economics (what he
is professor of). I think linguistics is similar. I only took a couple
courses, but I frequently see people offering up opinions as if their
instincts were a valid counter argument to well established science (like
whether people have a conscious grasp of the grammar of their native
language).

------
wam
A subject near and dear to my heart. In college I was briefly obsessed with
cross-linguistic adverb ordering.

I wish middle school science included some linguistics. The empirical data are
already in our heads, so it's a great vehicle for teaching the scientific
method -- look at data, make a hypothesis, check its predictions against other
data (no equipment needed!) and refine it until it encompasses the counter-
examples.

------
dhimes
My view: The more "important" the adjective is to the description, the nearer
the noun it goes. I'm not sure where I learned this, but if, for instance, I'm
trying to describe a building to somebody, and in my opinion the thing that
will help him distinguish it is it's size, but it also happens to be red, I
would say

"the red big building."

On the other hand, if the most important distinction is its color, I would say

"the big red building."

~~~
ColinWright
Just as a data point, to me, it doesn't matter which of those adjectives you
think is more important, I think "the big red building" sounds _much_ more
natural than "the red big building." The latter sounds flat-out wrong to me.

~~~
itsybitsycoder
What about:

A: What building do I need to go to? B: The big one. A: Which big one? I see a
red one and a green one. B: The _red_ big building.

~~~
ColinWright
I wouldn't say that. I've just tried saying out loud to a friend, and they
also said it was weird. I would definitely say "The big _red_ building," or
even leave out "big" entirely - it's already been specified.

It's worth knowing that I'm a pure mathematician, and I frequently come out
with utterances that others find odd, purely on logical grounds. It's
plausible that there are circumstances in which I would violate these
rules/guidelines/suggestions/baseless musings/whatever.

That's not one of them.

~~~
pekk
Why do we privilege individual judgements that something seems "weird,"
particularly when it would be perfectly understood?

It's as if linguistics is often modeling syntactic rules which reflect
something other than natural communication as it actually occurs.

------
drucken
English object-noun adjectival order (left to right): Quantity > Quality >
Size > Measure > Shape > Age > Color > Origin > Material > Purpose.

Easy to remember because the stronger an adjective is tied to what the noun
_is_ , the closer it is to the noun. This is why, for example Age is closer
than Shape.

------
snake_plissken
I ponder this often because the order of words changes the interpretation and
my understanding of writing:

"green great dragon" - the dragon is green and happens to be great

"great green dragon" - the greatness of the dragon comes from the fact that
it's green

~~~
rafcavallaro
Snake Plisken? I thought you were dead!

Seriously, in English "green great dragon" is simply wrong - there's no
semantic distinction here. Size before color, so it's "great green dragon."
Just in case anyone is wondering "great" has the literal (non metaphorical)
meaning "large in size."

~~~
vacri
A great dragon is distinct from a komodo dragon or, from a eurocentric view, a
Chinese dragon. 'A green great dragon' makes perfect sense used in the
appropriate context.

------
barumrho
At Starbucks, whenever I ask for "Grande Iced Americano", they repeated the
order by saying "Iced Grande Americano". It's interesting to see that I am not
the only one confused about the ordering.

------
acheron
There's a song (I think the band is Mumford and Sons?) called "White Blank
Page", which always reminded me of Tolkien's "green great dragon", mentioned
in the second answer there.

------
dllthomas
In a number of the cases, it's not so much "awkward" as "means something
else". Consider the difference between "first 50 dates" and "50 first dates".

------
grey-area
This question is fascinating but absurd - word order varies to provide
emphasis or poetry (adjectives are particularly flexible in this respect),
living languages are not constructed on a rational basis but organically in
use, and different speakers may well differ on word order without one of them
being correct in any meaningful sense.

------
jpwagner
a similarly fascinating topic:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expletive_infixation>

------
michaelochurch
This is more opinion than fact, as someone who's written professionally but
doesn't understand the grammar of his natural language at any deep level: I
don't think there are rules, only guidelines, just as there are no firm rules
on when to split an infinitive or end with a preposition (those are usually
bad style, but there's nothing grammatically wrong with them, and sometimes
they're right thing to do.)

In fact, often there are semantic distinctions that ordering betrays, which
obviates hard-and-fast rules:

* "A vegetarian Russian lawyer", to me, suggests _an attorney of Russian law_ who is also a vegetarian.

* "A Russian, vegetarian lawyer" suggests a vegetarian lawyer _of Russian descent_. Ethnicity isn't as important as what kind of law is being practiced, so in this case it's looser-binding and farther from the noun.

I tend to put appearance-related (especially size) adjectives earlier, because
it replicates an order of perception. "Big red coat." First, you see something
(~5 ms) large (a blob, until it's processed) and then color (~10 ms) comes in,
and finally (~50 ms) you focus on its purpose-- it's a coat.

Numbers always come first, for the same reason, even though the way we process
small numbers (discrete, under 7) is different from the way we process large
ones (continuous, 25+). Size usually comes second. However, there's an art to
it, because presentation order also betrays order of impression. "Fat kids, of
whom there were nine." You're focusing on them being fat, not how many there
are. (You wouldn't say "fat nine kids" because that might suggest an age of
9.)

It seems, to me, like the pattern for appearance-related, concrete adjectives
is to go first-to-last by perceptual ordering ("big red bike") but to go
least-to-most by importance ordering for abstract concepts ("the new great
thing").

~~~
zeidrich
When I read "A Russian, vegetarian lawyer" I think of some strange Russian
practitioner of vegetarian law, or a defendant of vegetarians. On the other
hand, the first statement implies the correct idea that he's a lawyer who is
Russian and a vegetarian.

Context is important. You're talking about a lawyer. Why does the fact that
he's a vegetarian need description at all?

When I read a statement like that, I guess I compose it right to left. Big red
bike would be (Big (Red Bike)) the lawyer would be (Vegetarian (Russian
Lawyer)) Where Big modifies the Red Bike, and Vegetarian modifies the Russian
Lawyer.

The statement in the article with Tolkien and "Great Green Dragon" vs. "Green
Great Dragon" would be the same sort of scenario. Are you clarifying the color
of the Great Dragon, or are you modifying the size of the Green Dragon. Does
"Great Dragon" have some significance past just it's size? You would say
"Smiling great white shark", you would never say "Great smiling white shark".

Aural perception and reading perception are going to be different too. You can
especially add pauses to emphasize relationships. "A Russian ...
vegetarian(emphasis) ... lawyer" might clarify that you're speaking about a
Russian man who is a vegetarian and a lawyer, and that you're maybe drawing
attention to some contrast or contradiction because he is vegetarian.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
But that doesn't explain why (Big Bike) is fine, and so is (Red Bike) but (Red
(Big Bike) seems somehow wrong - odd or forced, and would only be used in some
special case.

The only explanation is that we use internal, unnoticed rules for which order
these adjectives occur in.

------
kelvin0
Most irrelevant HN post ever? Please stop wasting everyone's time.

