The Order of Adjective

Order of Adjective

In prenominal modification in English sometimes more than one adjective or other noun modifier is used before the headword at the same time. The order of Adjective may be summarized in the diagram below, which is based on The Key to English Adjective I published by Collier-MacGeorge E. Wishon and Julia Buruk:

Note:

Art= article
Poss: possessive
Dem: demonstrative
Adj: adjective

There are three classes of determiners.

Next, here are the classes of determiners.

1. Class 1:
   article: a, an, the
   possessive: my, the man’s, etc
   demonstrative: this, that, these, those
2. Class 2: ordinals (first, second, next, last, etc), only, some
3. Class 3:
   quantifiers (some, any, much, a lot of, lots of, a great deal of, a little, little, no, more, less, all, all the, enough, and most)
   enumerators (many, a lot of, lots of, some, any, a few, few, more, fewer, several, all, enough, most, both, no)

Examples:

1. All information from the authority was convincing.
   (All shows the whole class indicated by the noun and its modifier)
2. Was all the water (which was stored in the reservoir) purified?
   >(All the shows part of the class)
3. All this work is satisfactory.
   >(All can be followed by a demonstrative)
4. He demanded all your money.
   (All can be followed by a possessive)
5. All (of) these girls and boys are my children. (Of here is optional)
6. Both girls are pretty.
7. Both the girls are pretty.
   >(Both can be followed by the)
8. Both your girls are pretty.
   >(Both can be followed by a possessive)
9. Both this girl and that girl are pretty.
   >(Both can be followed by a demonstrative)

The word other usually follows a quantifier, enumerator or an adjective like various, myriad.

The two other men got away.
Few other children did not turn up.
His numerous other paintings were also on display.
Their myriad other paintings were sold.

The intensifier very is usually placed before a descriptive adjective of there is one:

His very mysterious new young friend rarely called him.

Notice that the noun modification contains two words which both refer to the age. The word new should precede the word young because young is more definitive than new. The quality of being young is less likely to change than the quality of being new. As an intensifier the word very gives an intensive meaning. However, it vis not the only meaning that the word very has. In the following sentences the word very means exactly:

He spent his very last four dollars on books.
The very first person I met at the meeting was the chairman.
These very three children he was looking for were hiding behind the hut.

In this sense the word very is placed after the article the, a possessive or a demonstrative.

We should be wise enough in dealing with present participles, past participles and nouns ending in -ed which function as adjectives. A more definitive adjective is put closer to the headword than a less definitive one is.

Some frightened swimming creatures were in the river.
The man held a short handled cutting spade.
She is a nice little middle-aged lady.

Sometimes it is very difficult to determine which adjective is more definitive in meaning than the other and thus more than one construction is possible one.

It’s a hot shining day.
It is a shining hot day.

He was a large well-made smooth-faced man.
He was a large smooth-faced well-made man.

When two categorizing adjectives are used to modify the same noun headword at the same time, and one of them refers to nationality, usually this nationality comes first.

The man was an important English realistic writer.
Again the participle of definitiveness holds because there are Spanish realistic writers and there are also some French realistic writers. Some more examples of prenominal modification in which there is more than one categorizing adjective are presented below:

We carried out an imaginative local social experiment.
This is the main international educational test.
The gradual international economic growth was the result of their efforts.

We should notice that between two adjectives in a sequence of adjectives we have discussed there is no comma. Thus in speech a sequence of adjectives can be distinguished from a series (not ordered) of adjectives by listening to the stress and pauses. When we have a series of adjectives, each of them is said with loud stress and there are pauses. In writing the pauses are represented by commas.

Exercise

Use the first sentence in each of the following paragraphs as the basis of one sentence. Complete the sentence by combining all of the information from the rest of the sentences. Do not add any clauses to the basic sentence.

no. 1 – 3

1. The businessman lives near the market. His house is rather small. It’s made of bricks. The bricks are yellow. I mean in our town. He’s the most successful.
The most successful businessman lives in a rather small yellow brick house near the market in our town.

2. Two elephants walked up the path. They were both white. They were big and fat, too.

• The path was narrow.
• The path was near a river.
• The river was considered holy.

>The two big fat white elephants walked up the narrow path near a holy river.

3. Nine students organized a party for the professor. The party was very successful. The students were from the second year. They were from the English Department.
The nine second year of English Department students organized a very successful party for the professor.

no. 4 – 5

4. The book used to belong to my grandfather. He came from Sulawesi. The book is covered in leather. It’s brown. You took it from the bookcase. The bookcase is near the window. The bookcase is narrow.
>The book covered in brown leather from the narrow bookcase near the window used to belong to my grandfather from Sulawesi.

5. The storage of fuel is a result of the war. It is only one of the results. This storage exists all over the world. The result was unforeseen. The war was in the Middle East. It was the latest war.
The storage of fuel existing all over the world is only one of the unforeseen results of the latest war in the Middle East.
The world storage of fuel is only on e of the unforeseen results of the latest war in the Middle East.