The rule I learned in French when I studied it was “BAGS” (beauty, age, goodness, size) adjectives come first. I think I tracked the application of this heuristic in English for a while and didn’t notice any obvious contradictions, but I could easily have missed something.
Size and beauty sometimes seem to come before age: “a small, old lady” and “a pretty young thing” and size seems to come before prettiness: “a big ugly brute”
Yeah, more complicated than I’d ever considered before. great find!
French is special in that adjectives can go either before or after the noun; I don’t know what the rule is but the one you give sounds right (though you’d say “une fille mignone” for “a cute girl”, so I’m not sure it’s the whole rule—there may be a finite set of adjectives (mostly short ones?) that are allowed to go in front).
In english though, adjectives are always in front, and I don’t think the same rule works for their order: “Sad little boy” and “interesting old man” sound like a counter-examples, though your rule would work for the French translation. For most cases in English of “A1 A2 N” I can think of, the French translation is either “B A2 A1″, “A2 B A1” or (more rarely) “A1 A2 N”, which suggests that the “most important” adjective (A2) always stays closest to the noun, in French even going in front of it if it’s very close.
So the rule in English would be the opposite of the rule in French :D (except for when both adjectives go in front of the noun in French, in which case their order is the same as in English).
ETA: this was probably wrong, I could think of plenty of counter-examples to those rules.
It’s worth mentioning that the position of the same adjective in French (and other Romance languages) can vary, affecting the meaning to any degree from connotational nuance to literal denotation. A general rule taught to foreigners is that placing the adjective before the noun tends to suggest that the quality characterizes all members of the class denoted by the noun, while placing it after characterizes the individual specifically. (An example from the delightful old version of Teach Yourself French that sticks in my mind is savant professeur vs. professeur savant.)
Sometimes the adjective is placed before the noun as a kind of rhetorical flourish, as in assoluta innocenza, an Italian phrase I’ve had occasion to use.
Ah, that makes sense, though I can’t think of that many constructions where that rule works: “Un curieux animal” and “un animal curieux” mean different things (“a curious-looking animal” and “an animal that seems to feel curious”), and I think that’s a one-off rule more than an instance of a general rule.
I suspect some adjectives “naturally” go in front of the noun (those Alicorn listed), but you can put them behind it for extra emphasis; the rest always go behind. With a lot of idiomatic exceptions like “curieux” which means something different depending on whether it’s before or after the noun.
The rule I learned in French when I studied it was “BAGS” (beauty, age, goodness, size) adjectives come first. I think I tracked the application of this heuristic in English for a while and didn’t notice any obvious contradictions, but I could easily have missed something.
Good heuristic.
Can still play with it a bit within BAGS...
Size and beauty sometimes seem to come before age: “a small, old lady” and “a pretty young thing” and size seems to come before prettiness: “a big ugly brute”
Yeah, more complicated than I’d ever considered before. great find!
French is special in that adjectives can go either before or after the noun; I don’t know what the rule is but the one you give sounds right (though you’d say “une fille mignone” for “a cute girl”, so I’m not sure it’s the whole rule—there may be a finite set of adjectives (mostly short ones?) that are allowed to go in front).
In english though, adjectives are always in front, and I don’t think the same rule works for their order: “Sad little boy” and “interesting old man” sound like a counter-examples, though your rule would work for the French translation. For most cases in English of “A1 A2 N” I can think of, the French translation is either “B A2 A1″, “A2 B A1” or (more rarely) “A1 A2 N”, which suggests that the “most important” adjective (A2) always stays closest to the noun, in French even going in front of it if it’s very close.
So the rule in English would be the opposite of the rule in French :D (except for when both adjectives go in front of the noun in French, in which case their order is the same as in English).
ETA: this was probably wrong, I could think of plenty of counter-examples to those rules.
It’s worth mentioning that the position of the same adjective in French (and other Romance languages) can vary, affecting the meaning to any degree from connotational nuance to literal denotation. A general rule taught to foreigners is that placing the adjective before the noun tends to suggest that the quality characterizes all members of the class denoted by the noun, while placing it after characterizes the individual specifically. (An example from the delightful old version of Teach Yourself French that sticks in my mind is savant professeur vs. professeur savant.)
Sometimes the adjective is placed before the noun as a kind of rhetorical flourish, as in assoluta innocenza, an Italian phrase I’ve had occasion to use.
Ah, that makes sense, though I can’t think of that many constructions where that rule works: “Un curieux animal” and “un animal curieux” mean different things (“a curious-looking animal” and “an animal that seems to feel curious”), and I think that’s a one-off rule more than an instance of a general rule.
I suspect some adjectives “naturally” go in front of the noun (those Alicorn listed), but you can put them behind it for extra emphasis; the rest always go behind. With a lot of idiomatic exceptions like “curieux” which means something different depending on whether it’s before or after the noun.
Don’t forget that event-related idioms can skew meaning as well...