Last weekend, my family sat around the dinner table for the first time in months. After the requisite rehashing of Covid rules, our conversation moved on to another heady, rules-based topic: grammar. (Honestly, what else would you expect when 2 generations of editors are present?)
Our specific subject was how fluent English speakers use adjectives in a specific order before a noun, often without realising that order exists. For example, we’d all be comfortable with a sentence like:
The small rectangular box housed a stunning diamond necklace.
But we’d do a double take if we heard this version:
The rectangular small box housed a diamond stunning necklace.
This phenomenon is sometimes called the royal order of adjectives. You’ll find a few variations online, but the consensus is that we order adjectives by the following categories:
Quantity | Opinion | Size | Age | Shape | Colour | Origin | Material | Purpose
Hence, in the example above, “small” (size) would always come before “rectangular” (shape), and “stunning” (opinion) before “diamond” (material).
After our dinner-table conversation, I started writing a post on the ins and outs of adjectives. How the order affects our use of commas. How we handle words from the same category … Then I found this Slate article from Katy Waldman, which discusses the subject in a pretty entertaining and comprehensive way.
Instead, I let myself wander down the different, but related, rabbit hole of reduplication. We’ll see how reduplication is related to adjective order once we’ve had a quick look at what it is.
A reduplicative is a term like so-so or higgledy-piggledy. It’s made from 2 parts where the second part repeats the first, either exactly or with a small tweak such as to the opening consonant.
In English, the reduplication process has given us a whole swathe of terms with often-playful rhymes, from willy-nilly to hoity-toity to walkie-talkie. They tend to be light-hearted and conversational, with many offering a gentle admonition or put-down.
For other languages, reduplication serves different purposes. In many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, it marks the plural form. For example, the Wiradjuri word “wagga” means “crow”, so the city of Wagga Wagga is the place of many crows. In te reo Māori, reduplication can pluralise a word or change its emphasis. In Turkish, it can transform a specific reference to a general one, again through rhyme. The morphology studies here and here have examples from both languages.
But if we return to English, we find another form of reduplication that favours alliteration over rhyme. Ablaut reduplication keeps the consonants the same and shifts the vowels.
No time for chitchat or dillydallying.
Have you seen their latest Tiktok?
Kris Kross topped the charts with the hip hop track “Jump”.
Where ablaut reduplication gets interesting is in the way the shifting vowels are ordered. Forget your A-E-I-O-Us, or even your E-I-E-I-Os. The I will come first, then A, then O. Just as you would never dallydilly, a line wouldn’t zagzig and a bell wouldn’t dong-ding-dang.
In this BBC piece, Mark Forsyth notes it’s a rule that we rarely speak about but instinctively know, just like the royal order of adjectives. And he makes another observation – that the vowel order from ablaut reduplication takes precedence over adjective order where the 2 concepts clash. He demonstrates this with help from the Big Bad Wolf of fairytale fame.
If we go back to the categories of adjectives above, we see that “Big” (size) should really come after “Bad” (opinion). But Bad Big Wolf sounds unnatural to our ears, because the A comes before the I in these alliterative words.
So we have yet another exception in the glorious hotchpotch that is the English language and its so-called grammar rules. And a fun (opinion) fact for your next dinner party.
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Text for meme image:
If the person who named Walkie Talkies named everything
Stamps – Lickie Stickie Defibrillators – Hearty Starty Bumble bees – Fuzzy Buzzy Pregnancy test – Maybe Baby Bra – Breastie Nestie Fork – Stabby Grabby Socks – Feetie Heatie Hippo – Floatie Bloatie Nightmare – Screamy Dreamy
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