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Adjective, Noun and Possession order Topic is solved

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misterjaytee
Great Britain

Adjective, Noun and Possession order

Post by misterjaytee »

I'm no language expert, so excuse me if I have the wrong linguistic terms here.

I'd like some guidance on the order of adjectives describing a noun when the noun belongs to something (e.g. in English, I'd typically expect Possession, Adjective then Noun, e.g. My blue shirt).

On English to Greek Duolingo Unit 5 (and beyond), something like the wool scarf (i.e. a scarf made of wool) is Το μάλλινο κασκόλ. But My wool scarf (the scarf belonging to me), in Duolingo comes out as Το μάλλινο μου κασκόλ (which looks like the wool belongs to me followed by the word for scarf).

This probably needs a native Greek speaker to answer this, but is Duolingo correct, or should the phrase be Το μάλλινο κασκόλ μου (The wool scarf belonging to me)?

Phil682961

Re: Adjective, Noun and Possession order

Post by Phil682961 »

Both το μάλλινό μου κασκόλ and το μάλλινο κασκόλ μου are correct and fine here. (Note the extra stress that appears in the first one, since μου can't have two unstressed syllables before it - this is a consequence of the fact that a word can't end in three unstressed syllables, and the possessive "sticks" so tight to its preceding word that this rule applies to the combination of adjective+possessive).

For some adjectives, the order can make a difference. For example, "my favourite scarf" is better as το αγαπημένο μου κασκόλ rather than το αγαπημένο κασκόλ μου. That one is slightly different semantically: "my wool scarf" is equivalent to "my scarf that is [made of] wool", whereas it doesn't make sense to say "my scarf that is favourite": the concept of 'favourite' can't be divided from whose favourite it is.

A relevant thread on the archived old forum.

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misterjaytee
Great Britain

Re: Adjective, Noun and Possession order

Post by misterjaytee »

Thanks, that makes sense now

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