{"id":6413,"date":"2014-07-02T09:56:35","date_gmt":"2014-07-02T09:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=6413"},"modified":"2016-07-27T09:31:00","modified_gmt":"2016-07-27T07:31:00","slug":"adjective-order-in-italian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/adjective-order-in-italian\/","title":{"rendered":"Adjective Order in Italian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear readers, your questions really do help us to focus on what\u2019s important to you as students of Italian, so please keep them coming. Here\u2019s an interesting one that arrived a few days ago from a reader called Patsy:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCould you give me any advice on adjective order in the case of multiple adjectives? It doesn\u2019t sound right to just say the adjectives together as you would in English and sounds better if one goes before the noun and one after but I\u2019m not sure why or what the rule is.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

When I read this question, my mind immediately went to one of Francesco Petrarca<\/strong>\u2019s most famous poems which starts with the following words:<\/p>\n

\u201cChiare, fresche et dolci acque,
\nove le belle membra
\npose colei che sola a me par donna\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cChiare, fresche e dolci acque,
\ndove immerse le belle membra
\ncolei che unica sembra degna di essere la mia signora\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cClear, fresh and sweet waters,
\nin which the only one who seems to me to deserve to be my lady
\nimmersed her beautiful limbs\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n
\"Petrarca\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Francesco Petrarca. Photo (CC) Biblioteca de la Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias del Trabajo<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

The opening line of Petrarca\u2019s Canzone 126, written around 1340, clearly shows that it\u2019s normal to put several adjectives in a row in Italian. In this particular case, the fact that all the adjectives are positioned before<\/span> the noun acque<\/strong> (waters) signifies that they are all equal in importance. Let\u2019s see what happens if we reposition one of adjectives, fresche<\/strong>, after the noun acque<\/strong>. In this case we have: \u201cchiare e dolci acque fresche\u201d<\/strong> (Sorry, Francesco, no offence meant!<\/em>). But by putting the adjective fresche<\/strong> after the noun acque<\/strong> we give it a greater emphasis, and therefore imply that it\u2019s fundamental to the understanding of the noun. Acque fresche<\/strong> means that the waters are intrinsically fresh, and the fact that they are \u201cchiare e dolci\u201d<\/strong> (clear and sweet) is just lesser detail that could be omitted.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n
\"Petrarca<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Early ms. transcription of the first few lines of Francesco Petrarca’s sonnet “O cameretta che gia\u0300 fosti un porto”Photo (CC) <\/strong>kladcat<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

However, this is only valid for adjectives that belong in the same category. In the above case\u00a0 chiare<\/strong>, fresche<\/strong>, and dolci<\/strong> are all aggettivi qualificativi<\/strong> (qualifying adjectives*<\/span>). If we mix different types of adjectives, then there are some rules to follow:<\/p>\n

aggettivi dimostrativi<\/span><\/strong> (demonstrative adjectives*<\/span>), i.e. questo<\/span><\/strong> (this), and quello<\/span><\/strong> (that), go in front of<\/span> any other adjective, e.g. Come si chiama questo<\/span> piccolo paese?<\/strong> (What\u2019s the name of this<\/span> little village?); mi piace quella<\/span> vecchia casa l\u00ec <\/strong>(I like that<\/span> old house over there)<\/p>\n

aggettivi possessivi<\/span><\/strong> (possessives adjectives*<\/span>), i.e. mio<\/span><\/strong> (my), tuo<\/span><\/strong> (your, sing.), suo<\/span><\/strong> (his\/her), nostro<\/span><\/strong> (our), vostro<\/span><\/strong> (your, plural) and loro<\/span><\/strong> (their) go in front of<\/span> the noun, but after<\/span> questo<\/strong> and quello<\/strong>, e.g. quando \u00e8 cominciata<\/strong> questa<\/strong> tua<\/span> passione per gli aerei?<\/strong> (when did this passion of yours<\/span> for aeroplanes begin?); mi d\u00e0 tanto fastidio<\/strong> quella<\/strong> sua<\/span> abitudine di mangiarsi le unghie<\/strong> (I really dislike that habit of his<\/span> of biting his nails)<\/p>\n

Then there are adjectives which always follow the noun<\/span>, such as colours<\/span> and nationalities<\/span>, e.g. ti piace questo maglione rosso<\/span>? <\/strong>(do you like this red<\/span> jumper?), Lucia \u00e8 laureata in letteratura francese<\/span><\/strong> (Lucia ha a degree in French<\/span> literature).<\/p>\n

For a complete list of types of adjectives and their position you can refer to this post: adjectives and their position<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Spero che queste mie poche semplici righe vi siano utili!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Dear readers, your questions really do help us to focus on what\u2019s important to you as students of Italian, so please keep them coming. Here\u2019s an interesting one that arrived a few days ago from a reader called Patsy: \u201cCould you give me any advice on adjective order in the case of multiple adjectives? It…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":6430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[351049,722],"class_list":["post-6413","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grammar","tag-italian-adjective-order","tag-italian-adjective-positions"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6413","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=6413"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12180,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6413\/revisions\/12180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}