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Adjectives/Pre-modifiers & Word Order - Func. Grammar

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The basic idea is that the most objective adjective is placed the closest to the noun it modifies, e.g. a sweet 3-year-old child ("3-year-old" is a more objective description than "beautiful"), a beautiful windy day.

Sometimes, especially when both adjectives are similar in terms of being objective or subjective, we place the adjective that modifies the verb most often closest to the noun, e.g. a multi-layered chocolate cake, where "chocolate" is a more common modifier of "cake" in comparison to "multi-layered".

There is this word-order table, which kind of follows what I just said before. The idea is that what is considered more specific, more characteristic, more useful... of the noun is closest to the noun...

NB: * Remember nouns can behave like adjectives.

determiner quality size/age/shape colo(u)r origin made of type/usage noun
a boring         football* conversation
that   small green   cotton   T-shirt
the wise old   African     queen
my funniest         travel* dreams
    almond chesnut       eyes
  lovely wavy shoulder-length dark brown       hair
that delicious     Arabic almond   desert

More...
From this section, Functional Grammar, check out Ways to describe
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