Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

czbz t1_j6ojf49 wrote

Reply to comment by AceDecade in ELI5: Why does the order of adjectives matter? by AbleReporter565

What about the subject-verb-object order rule? I can say "Sam reads Reddit", or I can switch the subject and object and say "Reddit reads Sam". Breaking the rule didn't make an ungrammatical sentence, it made one with different meaning.

1

AceDecade t1_j6ol10r wrote

Ah I see, in this example the rule is "broken" because we know that "Sam" is the subject, but it can be interpreted as a grammatically correct, semantically meaningless sentence where "Reddit" is the subject instead.

I guess that makes sense, but I wouldn't say that both the grammar rule has been broken AND the result is a grammatically correct sentence; rather, it's one or the other. Either the grammar rule has been broken because the subject is in the wrong place, or the grammar rule has not been broken but the subject is such that the sentence becomes meaningless.

1

czbz t1_j6om9o0 wrote

I wouldn't say "Reddit reads Sam" is semantically meaningless. It can mean the Reddit community forms an understanding of who Sam is, or just that they read words Sam wrote, depending on context.

I would say the rule has been broken if the speaker intended to communicate that Sam was the one reading but they said the words in the wrong order, perhaps because they didn't know English grammar well. It's a particularly bad mistake because it may lead to a misunderstanding.

2