A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

Sometimes, two or more attributive adjectives co-occur within the same noun phrase, establishing a complex nominal expression. The relative order of multiple adjectives in LIS appears to be sensitive to the semantic class they belong to. For the sake of simplicity, we take into consideration the distribution of the following semantic classes of independent lexical adjectives: provenance, colour, size, and quality.

         When a provenance adjective and a colour adjective co-occur, the most common relative order is: provenance + colour (for example, china red).

         vase china red

         ‘Red Chinese vase’ (Bertone, 2009: 17)

It should be noted that some signers prefer to express provenance with a possessive phrase (china poss, for more details on this construction see SYNTAX 4.2), rather than an independent adjective (china). In this case, the sign order tends to be reversed: the colour adjective precedes the possessive construction expressing provenance.

         vase                                       red                                    china                                  poss₃

         ‘Red Chinese vase’

When a size adjective and a colour adjective co-occur, the most common relative order is: colour + size (for example, RED BIG).

         vase red big   

         ‘Big red vase’ (recreated from Bertone, 2007: 78)

When a size adjective and a quality adjective co-occur, the most common relative order is: size + quality (for example, big old).

         vase big old   

         ‘Old big vase’ (recreated from Bertone, 2007: 78)

To sum up, the unmarked order of LIS attributive adjectives is: (noun +) provenance + colour + size + quality.