Re: off topic: Grammer Question

[John junja@xxxxxxxx]

A book a friend lent me says the order is not
tightly fixed. There's a tendency to put the most
precise specifier nearest the noun.
One possible ranking:

- determiner
- opinion
- dimensions
- age
- shape
- colour
- place of origin
- material
- purpose

Examples given:
- a Chinese silk wedding dress (which happens to
leave it open whether it's the silk or the dress
which is Chinese).
- some short blue denim jeans
- an awful old stair carpet

It's certainly something which is taught to learners.
The order in French is slightly different, though
off the cuff I can't say just how.
John


marc@xxxxxxxx wrote:
> Hello XYWriters
> My mother is writing an English Grammer guide, targeting 10 - 15 year olds. It
> was a request from a family member who felt that there was insufficient focus
> placed on grammatical education.
> The guide is a small (about 30 pages) condensed booklet that covers most of the
> building blocks of English grammer.
> However, in the course of writing it, we have a wee question regarding the
> order of adjectives...
> Consider the following sentence
> "He knocked on the big green door"
> while it is the same as "He knocked on the green big door", this is not the way
> you would articulate it.
> What gramatical rules govern the order of adjectives? Are there any?
> (alphabetical?!?!) or is it basically a case of language knowledge? (if so, how
> is it taught?)
> Sorry for the off topic subject, but I'm very interested to hear your views.
> If anyone is interested in 'proof-reading' it, I can arrange a copy to be
> emailed to you.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Marc