Where to place an adjective?

Where to place an adjective? A very good question when it comes to speaking and writing.

In English there is a strict code -unknown to many English speakers-, that covers this topic. It goes like this: opinion, size, shape, state, age, colour, origin, material + noun. Is there an equivalent rule for Spanish? The answer is yes and no.

Yes, in that one has to consider where to place the adjective. There are rights and wrongs, like in English. But no, in that in Spanish we do not go by the same rule as in English, and also in Spanish things are more flexible. We have to look at it differently. The general rule is that the adjective has to take the position just after the verb. But, in practice, this is not always the case.

Then, how to know, for sure, where to place an adjective in Spanish? First of all, we have to think that this is a matter of semantics, of what the words (in this case, adjectives) mean. Diego Marín, from the Real Academia Española, already researched this in 1976. There was a study where a considerable number of examples (1,645) from 28 contemporary Spanish writers helped to observe that the writers do tend to follow instinctively a certain order of priority, unless they wish to deviate from the usual practice for reasons of style or expressiveness. Instinct or intuition is something we can rely on, but it is better to have some guidelines to fall back on in any doubt. This is especially useful if you are studying Spanish as a second or foreign language.

The main findings of that study already pointed at some underlying pattern: (1) adjectives of similar physical qualities tend to be presented with the most visible, apparent or common first; (2) with adjectives of dissimilar physical qualities, the aspect, shape or size tends to take precedence over other sense qualities; (3) with adjectives of abstract qualities, the tendency is to place the most specific, or the negative, last; (4) when concrete and abstract qualities are combined, the former nearly always come first.

We sought a bit more clarity on this topic as this study only goes that far in covering the topic of position. Iván Lobo Benito adds to the above criteria with more information. Namely, that

There are three types of adjectives:

• a) of value, which indicate a subjective assessment: “interesting”, “good”, “splendid”, etc .;
• b) qualitative, which express an objective quality: “green”, “tall”, “brown”, etc .;
• c) classifiers, which indicate the existence of a noun within a class (as a rule of thumb, in a dictionary they are always defined as “of something” or “relative to something”). For example, heart muscle, can be translated as ‘músculo cardiaco’, or ‘músculo del corazón’, because ‘cardiaco’ is a classifying adjective. If there are different types of muscles and we are referring to those of the heart, we need this adjective: “cardiacos”.

Being aware of what type of adjective we are trying to use will help us to get their position right. An adjective expressing value, such as “interesting”, “good”, “splendid”, could be placed BEFORE the noun. However, the other two types of adjectives (qualitative and classifiers) will take positions AFTER the noun. For these latter categories the order also matter, with the classifiers taking priority over the qualitative ones.

According to the above, this will be “the formula” to remember:

adjective of value + NOUN + classifier + qualitative adjective

A couple of examples applying the formula could be:

• Una gran tradición popular = A great popular tradition
• La corrupción política desenfrenada = The rampant political corruption

One more interesting thing to add is that qualitative adjectives may be placed in the first position, before the noun, which makes them become more subjective and therefore turn into adjectives that express value, as perceived by the speaker or writer. So they loose the objectivity implied if they were placed in the last position. Notice the difference

• una casa bonita (implies an objective quality other people could or have easily agreed with)
• una bonita casa (implies subjectivity and personal opinion, that may or not be shared by others. The emphasis is on expressing one’s own perception).

I hope this can help you a bit to make decisions!

What kind of rules are there in your native language/s to position adjectives in a sentence? Share in the comments section!