Sunday, November 12, 2006

Word order: words before nouns

Word order: words before nouns
1 articles and demonstratives a, an, the, this, that, etc.
2 possessive words: my, your John’s, etc.
3 ordinal numbers: first, second, next, last, etc.
4 cardinal numbers, words of quantity: one, two many, few, etc.
5 general description, quality, or character: good, pretty, interesting, etc.
6 size, height, length: little, big, long, tall., etc.
7 age, temperature: new, young, hot, warm, etc.
8 shape: round, square, etc.
9 color, origin, location: red, American, suburban etc.
10 nouns as adjectives: stone wall, television Station
Examples:

(1) the (5) very pretty (6) little (9) Spanish (n) girl

(1) that (2) man’s (3) first (4) three (n) children

(4) many (5) important (7) new (10) radio (n) stations

(2) our (3) first (5) good (10) summer (n) weather

(4) very many (5) interesting (7) old (n) houses

(2) Tom’s (3) last (6) very big (9) European (n) car

Note: The word very precedes words in groups five to nine and the words many and few in group four.

No comments: