{"id":182,"date":"2009-09-19T08:53:43","date_gmt":"2009-09-19T12:53:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=182"},"modified":"2009-09-19T08:53:43","modified_gmt":"2009-09-19T12:53:43","slug":"mind-where-you-put-your-adjectives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/mind-where-you-put-your-adjectives\/","title":{"rendered":"Mind where you put your adjectives!"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the end of my previous blog dealing with\u00a0 <\/span>adjectives and their positions<\/span><\/a>\u00a0I said: \u201cFinally, there are some cases in which adjectives change meaning according to their position, but I will save that for a rainy day!\u201d <\/em>Well il giorno piovoso<\/strong> (the rainy day) has finally arrived after almost two months of siccit\u00e0<\/strong> (dryness), so here is that blog! The following examples illustrate how the position of the adjective can change the meaning expressed by the sentence.<\/span><\/p>\n

The adjectives\u00a0grande<\/strong> (big), buono\/a<\/strong> (good), and povero\/a<\/strong> (poor)\u00a0have a literal meaning when they follow the noun:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c8 una donna grande<\/strong> – She is a big woman <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c8 un\u00a0uomo buono<\/strong> – He is a good man<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c8 una donna povera<\/strong> – She is a poor woman (i.e. without money)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

However when these\u00a0same adjectives precede the noun they take on a more metaphoric meaning:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c8 una gran donna<\/strong> – She is a great woman (N.B. we drop the \u2018-de<\/strong>\u2019 from grande<\/strong> for\u00a0pronunciation reasons)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c8 un buon uomo<\/strong>\u00a0– He is a naive man<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c8 una povera donna<\/strong> \u2013 She is an\u00a0unfortunate woman<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here are a few more adjectives that\u00a0change meaning\u00a0according to their position:<\/span><\/p>\n

Certe notizie<\/strong> \u2013\u00a0some particular pieces of news\u00a0\/ notizie certe<\/strong> \u2013 definite news<\/span><\/p>\n

Diversi vestiti<\/strong> \u2013 several clothes \/ vestiti diversi<\/strong> \u2013 different clothes<\/span><\/p>\n

Numerose famiglie<\/strong> \u2013 many families \/ famiglie numerose<\/strong> \u2013\u00a0big families<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c8 una semplice operazione <\/strong>\u2013 it\u2019s just an operation\u00a0\/ \u00e8<\/strong> un\u2019operazione semplice<\/strong> \u2013 it\u2019s an easy operation<\/span><\/p>\n

Un\u2019unica foto<\/strong> – a single photo \/ una foto unica<\/strong> \u2013 a unique photo<\/span><\/p>\n

Una vecchia amica<\/strong> \u2013 an old friend \/ un\u2019amica vecchia<\/strong> \u2013 an elderly friend<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now have a go at translating the following sentence, paying close attention to the position of the adjectives in italics:<\/span><\/p>\n

Ieri ho visto un\u2019amica vecchia<\/em>, che \u00e8 andata dal dottore per fare un semplice<\/em> controllo. Finora, quella povera<\/em> donna non ha\u00a0ottenuto risultati certi<\/em>, ma il dottore pensa che si tratti di un caso unico<\/em>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the end of my previous blog dealing with\u00a0 adjectives and their positions\u00a0I said: \u201cFinally, there are some cases in which adjectives change meaning according to their position, but I will save that for a rainy day!\u201d Well il giorno piovoso (the rainy day) has finally arrived after almost two months of siccit\u00e0 (dryness), so…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[722],"class_list":["post-182","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-grammar","tag-italian-adjective-positions"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1649,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions\/1649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}