<tangent>Not a native English speaker here, my focus stopped at the subtitle "Robotic private spacecraft touched down about 250 miles from its intended landing site on Thursday". It feels odd to read "robotic private spacecraft" instead of "private robotic spacecraft" but I can't explain why.</tangent>
You are likely aware of the English language's feature of multiple adjectives (that are modifying the same noun) needing to appear in a certain order to sound "correct". So for example "yellow big balloon" sounds wrong but "big yellow balloon" sounds right. This is because SIZE is supposed to come before COLOR in standard English phrases.
In this case, "robotic" and "private" could be similar enough in category to be confusing. In the Order of Adjectives[0], "robotic" is in the TYPE category, near the bottom of the list, and "private" seems to fit in that same category at first glance. By that interpretation, either "robotic private" or "private robotic" works.
What if instead of "private" it said "Californian"? That would make it an ORIGIN, and "Californian robotic spacecraft" becomes the obvious choice — otherwise, you'd think they were talking about a spacecraft belonging to robots from California. ;)
So if we interpret "private" as an ORIGIN, your "private robotic spacecraft" sounds better. That would have been my choice as well.
“Private” isn’t describing the spacecraft per se, but the ownership of the spacecraft. “Privately-owned robotic spacecraft” is the “full” phrase, of which we elide part of the adjective.[0] Here, “privately-owned” is ORIGIN in that list, which puts it before TYPE.
[0] “Privately owned”, while on its own an adverb and verb, is functioning as a singular adjective in the larger phrase.
The spacecraft is privately owned, as the company is private, but I don't know that I would say that it is privately funded. NASA paid tens of millions of dollars, not just for delivering a payload (paying for a product/service), but for development of the lunar hopper, Grace, which was an award/grant.
Having been raised in the states, I was a little shocked when I purchased a small book on English grammar. It explained a lot of tenses and proper arraignments of sentences I never knew. [which is clear from the things I just wrote. :)]
I found them learning another language (Spanish) gave me tools and categorizations for English that I didn't have and never applied before--at least not on a conscious level.
>So for example "yellow big balloon" sounds wrong but "big yellow balloon" sounds right.
I'm a native English speaker and wasn't even aware of this adjective ordering rule, until I read about it recently. I had internalised it, but wasn't consciously aware of it. I feel so sorry for anyone trying to learn English as a foreign language!
I am not a native English speaker (or English native speaker, ;)), but I've been using it forever...but didn't know there was an official adjective ordering.
Native speaker. I don't think it's truly "official" and it's not typically formally taught. "Elements of Eloquence" by Mark Forsyth is frequently cited as an early source of the "rule". IMHO It seems to be more of an organic property of the language.
Every grammatical property of every natural language is organic. Only the constructed languages have the opportunity to have inorganic grammar, but most of them borrow their grammar from some other natural language.
This is an over-simplification at best. Some features of English grammar and spelling were planned changes - yes, based on other languages, but with particular agenda in mind. Generally grammatical changes were to conform English to Latin grammar: the stricture that one should avoid a split infinitive was introduced for this reason. Spelling in mediæval times was often changed to reflect the semantics and Latin or Greek roots rather than pronunciation - a good example being the change from "det" to "debt", introducing a silent "b". Later, some spellings were changed for political reasons, e.g. replacing "tire" (the iron rim binding a wooden wheel together) with "tyre" to disguise the derivation from French.
In brief, then, English does have some similarities with con-langs.
The order of adjectives was never taught in K-12. It seems to be followed naturally by native English speakers without much thought until the order isn't followed. Then it sounds weird but most native speakers wouldn't be able to tell you why.
It was not. It woke me up in English 1A in college. Almost all native English speakers it comes naturally because it sounds right, and you can hear it in non-native speakers. Fresh in college I went to another non-native county. I was not facile.
afaik Grammar is an attempt to systematize how native speakers speak, descriptive rather than prescriptive and so on. Tho maybe with writing there’s a feedback loop, and more instances where corrections are in order than colloquial speech.
I am a native English speaker. I didn't know either.
I think it is a weird phrase to say 'robotic private spacecraft' as well. It would be much better to say 'privately funded unmanned spacecraft' or 'robotic spacecraft launched by a private company'. Much less chance of confusion.
Right but this is because grammar is simply difficult (no matter the language), in fact, majority of native speakers struggle at writing simple essays or fail at basic literature courses..
not a native English speaker (or English native speaker
As a non-native speaker who was never taught it, for some reason I pick the difference naturally. English native speaker sounds like as e.g. opposed to American or maybe Irish to me, and it actually adds vagueness to what language we’re talking about. Cause there are English native speakers of French.
While native English speaker sounds like exactly native speakers of English regardless of origin.
I think it’s a feature of languages in general, and there’s not as much of an official ordering, but rather an ordering that performs default binding of meanings. In hard cases you fallback to prepositions, in light cases you just employ order.
I don't think most native English speakers know that, either. I only learned about it by hearing people explain it as an aspect of English to non-native speakers; it was not something anyone taught me in school, it's not something I've ever heard anyone mention in the context of proofreading or writing advice, and I couldn't actually tell you how it works - though I'm sure I must be using it instinctively.
"I first tried to write a story when I was about seven. It was about a dragon. I remember nothing about it except a philological fact. My mother said nothing about the dragon, but pointed out that one could not say “A green great dragon,” but had to say “a great green dragon.” I wondered why, and still do." - J. R. R. Tolkien
Vocal language is not a solved problem and hopefully never will be. I think it is important that we all maintain our respective languages. Let them flow and change and never fetter them. Co-opt words, phrases and more as you like but cherish your roots.
Mr T invented an "Elvish" script and language and I think he also did so for Dwarves too. I'm pretty sure he was a prof at Oxbridge with a focus in languages, mostly English.
Most English native speakers never notice adjective order as being a thing.
It is a thing and I suspect Prof Tolkien learned that dimension comes first and colour second. I don't know why we insist on this but it is pretty deep!
It's strangely intuitive, unlike English spelling. People going around getting it right all the time without even knowing it.
Not unique to English, either: Wikipedia has examples in Tagalog where the order is almost the same (apart from a clause inserted in the middle of the second sequence).
It’s more emergent than official. It’s not something I think is ever taught in school and yet everyone intuits it with high accuracy.
Even crazier is that we intuitively mix this rule with another implicit rule, where “I” sounds go before “A” sounds go before “O” sounds in similar words, so “big, bad wolf” violates the normal adjective ordering rule but would sound weird any other way because of… reasons.
You use the word intuit as a verb where I would go old school and use "understands it intuitively". You slap a letter s on the end to make the word sound correct to your ear. I will eventually use the word intuits in the same way you do but it will jar for a while. However it is concise and conveys the same meaning as "understand intuitively".
As you say, language is insane.
Now, adjective ordering. I think there is an "official" order but native speakers are not formally taught it because it is largely innate for us. It is likely something taught as a very advanced language feature because you can mix up the order and it still works.
I think a few experiments are in order:
Dark satanic mills. Jolly green giant. Large blue marble. Long winding road. Darling buds of May. Big fat Greek wedding. OK it looks like:
* Emotive (jolly, happy, sad)
* Quantitative (big, small, fat, tall, short)
* Colour
* Shape (winding)
* Other adjectives - needs some work
* Noun
This is going to need more work but there is a bit of a pattern. What I've picked up as emotive probably includes other classes of adjectives
> I would go old school and use "understands it intuitively"
I wonder if this is a regional difference. The OED claims that intuit as a verb has been in continuous use since the 1860s (at least) and I've heard it used as a verb my entire life (various areas in the US).
"The OED claims that intuit as a verb has been in continuous use since the 1860s"
That's a fair source but I went to a pretty posh school in Oxfordshire! Oxford was about 90p return away by bus from Abingdon in the mid to late 1980s. I studied English to O (Ordinary) level (both language and literature) and bagged a pair of Bs.
I might also point out that I also attended schools in Devon, Manchester and multiple places in West Germany (UK Army brat).
Obviously, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and I have only my own recollections to go by but I have never knowingly heard intuit as a verb. I have only ever seen it written by Americans (for a given value of America)!
English adjective order is further complicated by the vowel order. For example "tick tock" sounds correct, while "tock tick" sounds wrong. English is a beautiful mess.
Furthermore, (and not really applicable in this case), you can bring an adjective to the front out of order for emphasis - so yellow big car would mean there were plenty of big cars, but the yellow one in particular. In spoken English there would be heavy vocal emphasis on yellow, and in written yellow would likely be italicized, just to make double sure.
Indeed, this doubled potential meaning of private means that “private robotic spacecraft” is one that is privately-owned, but “robotic private spacecraft” means that there’s something private about the spacecraft, like it’s naked or on antidepressants or maybe it just doesn’t like talking to the press.
In other languages (e.g. German) you can "fine-tune" the order and hierarchy of the attributes with a comma.
private, robotic spacecraft (with comma) -> private and robotic are attributes to spacecraft, the order could be changed but as in english you have an order that is more likely used
private robotic spacecraft (without comma) -> the attribute private refers to a robotic spacecraft
If you would like to emphasize that this is a private (and not public) robotic spacecraft you would use the version without comma.
That's fascinating and makes me ponder my interactions (in English) with Germans.
I believe even though this trait does not feel proper in written English, it's somewhat common in spoken English, if you interpret the comma as a stulting of rhythym and tone.
A rational reference, but there are no hard and fast rules.
Perhaps more importantly, in well written English superfluous words are removed - thus 'private robotic spacecraft' becomes 'private spacecraft', since all spacecraft are by definition at least partly autonomous.
In the domain of moon spacecraft particularly, doesn’t there remain a clear distinction to be drawn between manned and unmanned spacecraft, given the power of the “man on the moon” trope in English-speakers’ imagination?
“Private spacecraft tips over on moon” would mean something rather different if a modern-day Neil Armstrong were inside at the time.
If anything, the fact that it’s just a machine matters more to me than who paid for it.
Manned or unmanned could indeed be more relevant adjectives than 'robotic'. Except that, as is well known to all here, the era of manned lunar exploration is well and truly over.
opinion, size, age or shape, colour, origin, material, purpose
It is sometimes difficult to classify adjectives this way, but "private" is probably opinion and "robotic" is probably purpose, so you are correct, "private robotic spacecraft" is probably correct.
The problem with English, of course, is that you can figure out what someone means, even if they jumble all their words up, most of the time.
I wonder if the standard of English composition has been reducing in journalism, over the past few years.
Evaluative > general property > age > color > provenance > manufacture > type
[There's plenty of elaboration on what kinds of descriptors fit into each category. For example, artisanally handcrafted goes in the "manufacture" category, and the label "manufacture" makes sense for it, but the label "material" doesn't.]
CGEL also correctly notes that this order only applies when all descriptors are being coordinated in parallel; if that isn't the case, the innermost descriptors must appear on the right, joining the head of the phrase.
> In the absence of special factors, a modifier of size precedes one of colour: a large black sofa represents the preferred order while a black large sofa is very unnatural. But this constraint can be overridden, as in [ii]: the context here is one where it has already been established that I want a large sofa, so that now only the colour is at issue. Black is thus interpreted restrictively, picking out a subset of the large sofas, and in this context in can precede large.
> while a new cotton shirt, say, is normally preferred over a cotton new shirt, the latter is not ungrammatical. It is admissible, for example, in a context where there has been talk of new shirts, and the concern is with different kinds of new shirt.
[Returning to that earlier example, you'd always expect an artisanally handcrafted Belgian waffle and not a Belgian artisanally handcrafted waffle because "Belgian waffle" is its own idea. "Belgian" and "handcrafted" are not parallel; this is a Belgian waffle that is handcrafted, not a waffle that is handcrafted and also Belgian.]
I was surprised to learn that ESL classes emphasize descriptor order so heavily. It is a real rule of fluent English usage. But the only thing that can happen if you get it wrong is that other people notice you're foreign, so in almost all cases learning the ordering has zero value to the student. Almost all students are obviously foreign by many, many different tells, and aren't hoping to pass for native.
I don't know a lot about language stuff like this, but the conversation here interested me. Your comment gave me an in on more reading, so I googled your acronym, because it was unfamiliar to me. I got 2 prominent results. Wikipedia gave me a disambiguation page.
>Does it matter to you?
It matters to me because I wanted to know what you were talking about... Maybe follow up with some more learning myself. Sorry.
I'll try to learn the acronyms for fields I'm not familiar with prior to getting interested in them next time.
I love reading from it, but you might want to know that it's an 1842-page reference work, so reading the whole thing for fun might take a while. Mostly I use it if I want to look up how it treats some phenomenon that's caught my interest.
So far I've always been able to find a discussion of whatever it was that I wanted to look up, which is a testament to both the quality of the treatment and the quality of the index.
I'm curious how that would apply in this case Imagine a restaurant that sells french fries. They offer two kinds of fries, one with physically large fries (like steak fries) and the other with physically small fries (like shoestring fries). They call these "large" fries and "small" fries.
You can order a large quantity of fries or a small quantity of fries, giving 4 possible orders: large large fries, large small fries, small large fries, and small small fries.
If an order of large small fries asking for a large quantity of the shoestring fries or a small quantity of the steak fries?
I think I'd expect it to mean a large quantity of the shoestring fries.
As a native English speaker, "I'll have a large small fries" pretty clearly means a large quantity of small type fries to me. It's the kind of thing you'd say sort of jokingly, but I don't think anyone would really struggle with understanding it.
Regardless of the “rules” of English, or any other language, clarity comes first. So you’d probably find different adjectives, or possibly even invent new ones.
Perhaps something like “jumbo fries” or “mini fries” or something more creative.
Otoh, if you cut out some - "old american spaceship" sounds fine to me, where "american old spaceship" does not (or it makes it sound like "american old" is a brand name)
I'll grant that it definitely sounds ambiguous, but I actually think the phrasing "robotic private spacecraft" is more correct in the end.
I think this is a fair analogy: suppose we were talking about a "private detective". If we were writing a sci-fi book, we might talk about a "robotic private detective", but "private robotic detective" would sound odd.
Now, I'll grant that "private detective" has a lot more cultural weight than "private spacecraft", but I think it's fair to say that at least the word "private" is playing a nearly identical role in both phrases. With that in mind, I think "robotic private spacecraft" makes sense.
I suppose you could take this argument one step further and resolve the ambiguity by asking which distinction (robotic/non-robotic, private/public) the article writer thinks is more notable and placing that first.
At least I think that's the right term (I hunted around for one that fits). So, is private spacecraft also a compound? Is it idiomatic? Maybe. Another example is little black dress, where "my new little black dress" sounds right and "my little new black dress" seems to refer to a different kind of garment.
The article uses "robotic mobile probes," which also seems out of order.
I (native english speaker) would order it as "mobile robotic probes". But if I were writing it, I'd say "robotic probe", "surface probe", or "mobile probe". In this case, robotic and mobile mean the same thing, so using both is redundant.
And although I would order it as "private robotic spacecraft", I don't think that's correct. The spacecraft is robotic, but it's not private. It might be privately-operated, privately-owned, or privately-funded (each has a slightly different connotation). But private by itself means that a private company is somehow responsible for the mission.
So if I were writing it, I'd use something like "privately-funded robotic spacecraft" or "robotic spacecraft operated by private company XYZ".
