The adjective is a mobile element of the sentence. If it’s used in the attributive function, it can be placed both before and after the substantive, which it accompanies.
But its collocation is not indifferent: it can depend on personal expressive choices, but it can also depend on precise rules and its position has an influence on the meaning of it and of its substantive. It can be said that:
We can give some simple examples:
La bambina prese la bambola vecchia
La bambina prese la vecchia bambola
are two different sentences, that should be translated in the same way into English:
The child took the old doll.
The sentences, however, have different meanings:
In the first one, the adjective was placed after the substantive to indicate that the child chose the old doll among all the dolls she could choose.
In the second one, the adjective was placed before the substantive; it indicates nothing at all, it explains that the doll is old, without comparing it with other dolls.
Una ragazza bella
Una bella ragazza
should be translated with:
A beautiful girl
In the first sentence we want to highlight the quality of beauty of this girl, in the second one, we want only to describe the girl.
Un caffè amaro
Un amaro caffè
should be translated with:
A bitter coffee
In the first sentence we say only that there was no sugar in the coffee; in the second one we don’t say that the coffee had no sugar, but we describe that the situation in that moment was so bad that the coffee seemed us bitter!
Le popolazioni primitive dell’Africa
Le primitive popolazioni dell’Africa
should be translated with:
The primitive populations of Africa
In the first sentence we talk about the populations, which today live in Africa in primitive conditions; in the second one we talk about the populations which lived in Africa in the prehistory.
Some adjectives take different meanings according to the positions they have with their substantives:
Un uomo bravo → an able man
Un brav’uomo → a honest man
Una notizia certa → a sure new
Una certa notizia → any new
Una domanda semplice → a simple question
Una semplice domanda → only a question
Cara Laura → Dear Laura
Laura cara → is an expression more precise, that can be ironical.
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Grammatical explanation
For a stranger these differences are difficult to understand and to use, especially for speakers of Germanic languages, who put the adjective always before its substantive. However Italians use the positioning of adjective with great freedom and understand the meaning by sense. It’s a way of understanding that Italians have innately and it’s very difficult to understand and learn for an English or Dane or German or Swedish people, etc. |
However, some kinds of adjectives are placed always in determinate positions:
These adjectives are placed exclusively or preferable after their substantive:
- adjectives indicating nationality or belonging to a category
- adjectives indicating form, material, or colour
- adjectives formed from participles
- altered adjectives
- adjectives followed by a complement of the same adjective
- adjectives modified by an adverb (except by adverbs più and bene)
These adjectives are placed exclusively or preferable before their substantive:
- adjectives with function of epithet
- when you want to highlight the adjective from the sentences and underline that its quality is strictly linked with the concept expressed by the substantive, it has so an ornamental function.
The position of two or more adjective with a substantive is something different from the Germanic languages.
• The adjectives are placed one before and one after the substantive, more frequently, when one expresses a generic concept and the other one a specific concept. Here the previous rules has their value. This position is very used also in other cases, because it separates the two adjectives without creating a long and monotonous list before or after the name.
• Both adjectives are placed before their substantive, if they both express a generic feature.
• Both adjectives are placed after their substantive, if they both express a specific feature.