Thread: Affliction
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Old 04-17-26 | 04:02 PM
  #1785  
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From: Malvern, PA (20 miles West of Philly)

Bikes: 1986 Alpine (steel road bike), 2009 Ti Habenero, 2013 Specialized Roubaix

Originally Posted by badger1
We pick that 'knowledge' (of syntactical rules) up instinctively during language acquisition, in the same way that we 'learn' that in English determiners (e.g. definite and indefinite articles) precede their nouns, hence 'the dog' is 'English', 'dog the' is not. We don't need to know consciously that English has that syntactical rule, but it does and we -- especially if English is our first language -- do 'know' it and simply follow it. We can't say 'why' 'dog the' is wrong, necessarily, but we know that it is. The nerdish among us find it interesting to understand 'why'!

So, the order of adjectives when two or more precede a noun? Basically, 'general to particular'; 'opinion to fact', etc. It is much more complex*, but that's in essence why we hear -- or should hear -- 'her amazing new black bike' as ok, but 'her black new amazing bike' as somehow 'wrong' or 'awkward' -- again, especially if English is our first language. As with your examples: 'black big dog' or 'suede old coat' would just sound 'off'.

In large part 'learning grammar' just is bringing those syntactical rules that govern the use and order of words in a language (any language) to consciousness, so to speak.

*If further interested in adjective order in English, here's a useful chart from Cambridge: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/gra...oogle_vignette
Thanks for the info. I expect similar reason explains when/why we use articles (both definite and indefinite) and when we skip them. My wife’s native language does not use any articles. Her English is VERY good (with a slight and very cute accent), but even after living here speaking English for 40+ years, she still sometimes misuses (or skips) an article. When she asks me to explain why, I usually shrug and say “that’s how we do it.”
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