I agree. Guideline may be a better term. I'm also not sure about the best term to describe the process. Abstraction? tangability? The point is that if the speaker is having trouble grading adjectives for abstraction, the listener probably will too, so the order in such cases is less important.
Andrew Patterson.
http://www.geocities.com/endipatterson/catenative.GIF
What order is the grammatically correct one?
Moderators: Dimitris, maneki neko2, Lorikeet, Enrico Palazzo, superpeach, cecil2, Mr. Kalgukshi2
-
Andrew Patterson
- Posts: 922
- Joined: Mon Feb 02, 2004 7:59 pm
- Location: Poland
- Contact:
-
Norm Ryder
- Posts: 118
- Joined: Wed Jan 29, 2003 9:10 pm
- Location: Canberra, Australia
Hi folks
I can't say whether this will help the discussion; but for what it's worth, the Collins Cobuild English Usage suggests the following order for adjectives:
1. qualitative [opinions, size, quality, age, shape (in that order)], 2. colour, 3. classifying adjective.
It also suggests that an adjective should be placed before a noun modifier in describing the noun (eg, "the French film industry"). Would that therefore suggest "white anglophone male"? or "white male anglophone"? I guess, as Larry suggests, it depends on what you want to stress.
But where to fit 'monolingual'? Is it a 'class' or a 'quality"? I guess it depends on whether your discussion has been contrasting monolinguals and multilinguals, in which case you've been setting up two classes. But maybe in Canada the classes are anglophone and francophone, in which case the class ... or are you contrasting male and female anglophones
I guess I'd start with "monolingual white anglophone male", and ask you to justify any change on the basis of a change of emphasis.
But it looks as if no-one's giving the poor guy much of chance, anyway - so who can come up with an 'h' word for the acronym WHAM
I can't say whether this will help the discussion; but for what it's worth, the Collins Cobuild English Usage suggests the following order for adjectives:
1. qualitative [opinions, size, quality, age, shape (in that order)], 2. colour, 3. classifying adjective.
It also suggests that an adjective should be placed before a noun modifier in describing the noun (eg, "the French film industry"). Would that therefore suggest "white anglophone male"? or "white male anglophone"? I guess, as Larry suggests, it depends on what you want to stress.
But where to fit 'monolingual'? Is it a 'class' or a 'quality"? I guess it depends on whether your discussion has been contrasting monolinguals and multilinguals, in which case you've been setting up two classes. But maybe in Canada the classes are anglophone and francophone, in which case the class ... or are you contrasting male and female anglophones
I guess I'd start with "monolingual white anglophone male", and ask you to justify any change on the basis of a change of emphasis.
But it looks as if no-one's giving the poor guy much of chance, anyway - so who can come up with an 'h' word for the acronym WHAM
-
LarryLatham
- Posts: 1195
- Joined: Thu Jan 16, 2003 6:33 pm
- Location: Aguanga, California (near San Diego)
