Can I use the adjective as the first word?

Question

Is it okay if I rearrange the sentence

The apple on the table was green
or
The green apple was on the table

to put the adjective in front, as the first word, like

Green, was the apple on the table

All of them sound acceptable to me. Why is that? What is this called?

Also, does the meaning of the sentence change? Does it place more emphasis on different things?

The comma in the third sentence is superfluous. Nevertheless, the sentence is grammatical albeit rather archaic. It puts emphasis on the greenness of the apple rather than the apple itself. — Anonym, Sep 27 '14 at 18:15
Not merely 'rather archaic', but exclusively literary. You would only find this today in fiction or song lyrics aiming at a very old 'feel'. — StoneyB on hiatus, Sep 27 '14 at 18:32
@StoneyB a.k.a. Yoda speak "Green, the apple was... ehem." — Crosscounter, Sep 27 '14 at 22:26
@FumbleFingers Regally speaking, both King Henry VIII’s Green Groweth the Holly and Théoden King’s “Dark have been my dreams of late” come to mind — or to the mind come, as you like it. :) — tchrist, Sep 27 '14 at 22:29
@Crosscounter It is exasperating how often, quickly, and wrongly those of limited experience in English literature equate any variation from SVO ordering to “Yoda-speak”. This is nothing whatsoever like that. So-called “Yoda-speak” is nothing more than OSV ordering, and this at most is OVS, which is completely different. Calling it Yoda-speak is linguistically and historically ignorant: English has always enjoyed more flexibility in word ordering should occasion demand it than is commonly today credited. See this answer and its citation. — tchrist, Sep 28 '14 at 00:08
@tchrist thanks for rectifying that. Always good to know the true roots. — Crosscounter, Sep 28 '14 at 00:12
Brilliant! is ocassionally a sentence in itself, so first, last and middle. — Wayfaring Stranger, Sep 28 '14 at 13:55
@tchrist Pullum seems not to fully agree with you that 'So-called “Yoda-speak” is nothing more than OSV ordering'. Assuming you're using 'Yoda-speak' to mean 'the strange constructions Yoda uses in the films'. — Edwin Ashworth, Sep 28 '14 at 14:56
Green was my valley -a book title. The adjective in front is a special literary device. "My valley was green" would be a trivial sentence whereas the formulation with green at the beginning has an emotional value and the character of an exclamation. One might think of a man who in old age thinks of the place where he spent his youth and he thinks of this place with yearning as it was so beautiful. — rogermue, Sep 28 '14 at 18:44
@Anonym Thanks for telling me about the superfluous comma. It's a bad habit of mine. — Apples, Sep 29 '14 at 01:39

Araucaria - Him · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-28T17:52:12.793

Green was the apple on the table.

This is an example of subject-dependent inversion. There are many types of inverted sentence. This one has a very specific pattern which makes it very different from others. Looking at the three sentences, it would be easy to think that the structure of the three sentences were completely unrelated:

The apple on the table was green.
The green apple was on the table.
Green was the apple on the table.

The structure of sentence (1), where Predicator is the function carried out by the verb is:

Subject, the apple on the table; Predicator was; Predicative complement green

The subject there is a Noun Phrase the apple modified by the Preposition Phrase on the table. The Adjective green describes the subject.

Sentence 2, on the other hand is structured so:

Subject, the green apple; Predicator was; Locative Complement, on the table.

This time the Noun apple is modified by green. The complement, the locative Preposition Phrase on the table is now describing the green apple, the subject.

Sentence 3, actually has exactly the same structure as sentence 1. The subject is the apple on the table, the predicator is was and the predicative complement is green.

Subject-dependent inversion is an information packaging device where the subject moves to the end of the sentence and the dependent, in this case the complement, to the beginning. This is what has transformed sentence (1) into sentence (3). There are four notable aspects to subject-dependent inversion. Firstly it is much more common with Prepositional Phrases than Adjectives and it's very infrequent with Noun Phrases. Inversions with Preposition Phrases are actually quite frequent in everyday speech:

At the end of the garden is the potting shed.
There goes the bus.
Over the road are the chemist's and the Post Office.

Secondly, it usually happens with the verb BE, and rarely with other verbs.

Thirdly, with the verb BE it can only happen with a complement of the verb , not with an adjunct (read adverbial). Consider:

My only friend is in the garden / In the garden is my only friend. (correct)
My only friend is happy in the garden / In the garden is happy my only friend. (wrong)

Finally, there is a constraint that the subject contain new information. It can not already have been mentioned in the conversational text so far.

The reasons for using Subject-Dependent inversion are usually either that we wish to link the complement with the previous sentence:

The Police station's at the end of the Road. Opposite the Police station is the ...

Or alternatively, if we haven't mentioned the subject yet, we may want to make it more prominent by moving it to the end of the sentence, the position that commands the attention of the listener.

In the case of Adjectival complements which are only one word, such as green, this type of Subject-Dependent inversion is quite rare. As mentioned in the comments, it gives a very literary, if not archaic, effect. Arguably it does seem to put emphasis on the first word of the sentence. This is very unusual, because the beginning of a sentence usually carries the least emphasis. It would rarely be found in formal writing or in everyday conversational speech.

Equative sentences have unusual properties. As usual, the predicate determines; however, in these cases either side of the be can be the predicate. I recall a paper on the subject (circa 1975, but I can't remember where it was published) that used the example sentence An Italian was her dancing master and Her dancing master was an Italian. — John Lawler, Sep 28 '14 at 00:22
Or, if you're small and green yourself, "Green the apple on the table was." — Kevin, Sep 28 '14 at 05:25
@Kevin A very nice example of topicalisation that is. Available to English speakers as well as small green beings it is :) — Araucaria - Him, Sep 28 '14 at 12:23
The answer was very helpful, thank you. Also, I have something else I am curious about, after reading @Kevin 's comment. If the predicator is at the end of the sentence, would it still be subject-dependent inversion? (Since the subject is not at the end of the sentence anymore) For example, "Green, the apple on the table was." — Apples, Sep 29 '14 at 01:35
@Apples my comment was an allusion to Yoda's speech pattern. You would never hear it from a native English speaker outside of that context. — Kevin, Sep 29 '14 at 02:58
@Apples Kevin, well it's very rare but it does happen: No, no, no, Jane, I hate, it's Barbara I love! As Kevin points out this is very unusual and we very, very rarely do this if we aren't aliens! However, it doesn't count as inversion when we do, because, as you say, the Predicator follows the verb. It is normally referred to as topicalisation. This is when we take any word, but often a direct object, and move it to the front of the clause or sentence to mark it as the central topic of this sentence — Araucaria - Him, Sep 29 '14 at 13:54
yeah thanks, I know better than to use this sort of sentence structure without valid reason. It's just that this is all very interesting to me. The English language is quite strange. — Apples, Sep 29 '14 at 21:11
“. . . if mod. E. has lost the trick of putting a word desired to emphasize (for pictorial, emotional or logical reasons) into prominent first place, without addition of a lot of little ‘empty’ words (as the Chinese say), so much the worse for it.” — tchrist, Dec 07 '14 at 15:13

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 27 '14 at 18:31

2

Yes, it is ok to rearrange the sentence as per your example. It is called an inverted sentence.

From Wikipedia:

An inverted sentence is a sentence in a normally subject-first language in which the predicate (verb) comes before the subject (noun).

As @Anonym commented, the comma in the third example is superfluous. Inverting the sentence structure does change the emphasis, putting it on the greenness of the apple. Saying instead "on the table was the green apple" would emphasise that the apple was on the table.

answered Sep 27 '14 at 18:31

Frank H.

3,285

1

It's as OK to rearrange the sentence the way you suggest as it is to speak like Yoda. Possibly. – Edwin Ashworth Sep 27 '14 at 19:20
@EdwinAshworth Are you saying that even you cannot tell the difference between SVO and OVS ordering, or that you have forgotten this sound advice? – tchrist Sep 28 '14 at 00:10
1

SVO and OVS occur in English, along with lots of other stuff. However, it's all rule-governed, and there should be a derivation, rather than a definition like Wikipedia's, which basically ignores the details that would distinguish one rule from another. – John Lawler Sep 28 '14 at 00:24
@tchrist I'm saying that one certainly needs to 'learn to distinguish between the bogus and the genuine antique'. I'm quite happy with Yoda's later utterances, but Apples I know not. StoneyB's advice makes sense, and should be taken on board by anyone not wishing to sound ridiculously affected in normal conversation. Incidentally, I'm a little perturbed that you seem able to jump to the conclusion that saying X is like (etc) Y might imply that the speaker believes X to be Y. – Edwin Ashworth Sep 28 '14 at 14:29
@EdwinAshworth I am annoyed that any change to word order means people immediately say Yoda! Yoda! Yoda! Yoda! Yoda! Yoda! Yoda! Yoda! Yoda! Yoda! Yoda! Yoda! Yoda!. It’s like a knee-jerk response, and it’s stupid. – tchrist Sep 28 '14 at 14:56
@tchrist I retain my right to point out that while certain ways of using English words may be quite acceptable, even preferable, in certain contexts (to show foreign/alien speakers of English, or to create an old-world, humorous or epic atmosphere), answering the question 'Is it okay if I rearrange the sentence ...' without pointing out that the result may be 'grammatical' but sounds outlandish in general conversation is unhelpful. Yoda provides a well-known example of the use of non-idiomatic expressions. – Edwin Ashworth Sep 28 '14 at 15:03
@EdwinAshworth But that’s just it: it is not that these orderings are all of them automatically non-idiomatic. The issue is that many of them are perfectly idiomatic, only that they are governed/triggered by a particular set of rules that probably do not apply in the OP’s situation. Like when people without ample context ask if they can put the adjective after the noun. So we of course say no. But then we learn in comments they’re asking whether it’s better to ask for a martini stirred not shaken or if they oughtn’t instead ask for a stirred martini not a shaken martini. See the problem? – tchrist Sep 28 '14 at 15:31
'Idiomatic' means used normally by most people. Tolkien wasn't most people. – Edwin Ashworth Sep 28 '14 at 21:26

Can I use the adjective as the first word?

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