In case anyone is interested now this “helpful” character has departed:
The conventional explanation for “bad big wolf” sounding “wrong” is that “big bad” is an example of ablaut reduplication, which has a fixed sequence of vowels.
This is a weak explanation for two reasons: a good example of ablaut reduplication is for example “bish bash bosh” where only the vowel changes. This is a weaker example, and so ablaut reduplication is a weaker predictor of the pattern, because the final consonant is not the same between “big” and “bad”. Secondly, “big bad wolf” is a phrase from a folk tale and hence deeply embedded in the language in its own right. It’s hard to disentangle whether “bad big wolf” sounds strange to native ears because it’s a violation of the pattern of ablaut reduplication, or because it’s a violation of the specific example, “big bad wolf,” that all native speakers heard many times as children.
Remember, this is all a tangent from whether English has a rigid adjective order. A stronger example to consider is A1: “big beautiful house” versus A2: “beautiful big house”, and B1: “little beautiful house” versus B2: “beautiful little house”. As a native speaker, I strongly prefer A1 but B2. The adjective order adherents say it should be A2 and B2.
So, I don’t think the supposed rule of adjective order really exists.
I think if the helper were still around, they would say that actually this just proves their point. Even though they complained about the “rule” of adjective order, actually the fact that there is no rule is even worse! (how convenient, if true), and you just have to learn each example - B2 not B1, A1 not A2 - one by one, and their real point is that English is particularly bad because of this.
Unfortunately, because they are apparently not any kind of linguist, they never presented any comparative examples. Tagalog has a strong preference for adjective order, for example. Languages with flexible word order in general, such as Finnish, nevertheless have a preferred default word order and if you don’t learn it you will sound weird. Languages which use prepositions pair certain verbs with certain prepositions (so in English you sit in your seat, watch the performance in English, and in the end the good guys win) but this pairing is arbitrary and if you pick the wrong one you’ll generally be understood but sound wrong (in German you sit im Sitz, watch auf Deutsch, and am Ende the good guys win).
Languages - all languages - abound with aspects that mark out non-native speakers. That’s because they’re complex things that incorporate huge aspects of culture, not merely a means of communication. That’s not something that anyone needs to “defend” and it’s not something that makes a language cease to be “real”. Is it the same degree in all languages? I’m sure it isn’t, but that’s not the point either.
In case anyone is interested now this “helpful” character has departed:
The conventional explanation for “bad big wolf” sounding “wrong” is that “big bad” is an example of ablaut reduplication, which has a fixed sequence of vowels.
This is a weak explanation for two reasons: a good example of ablaut reduplication is for example “bish bash bosh” where only the vowel changes. This is a weaker example, and so ablaut reduplication is a weaker predictor of the pattern, because the final consonant is not the same between “big” and “bad”. Secondly, “big bad wolf” is a phrase from a folk tale and hence deeply embedded in the language in its own right. It’s hard to disentangle whether “bad big wolf” sounds strange to native ears because it’s a violation of the pattern of ablaut reduplication, or because it’s a violation of the specific example, “big bad wolf,” that all native speakers heard many times as children.
Remember, this is all a tangent from whether English has a rigid adjective order. A stronger example to consider is A1: “big beautiful house” versus A2: “beautiful big house”, and B1: “little beautiful house” versus B2: “beautiful little house”. As a native speaker, I strongly prefer A1 but B2. The adjective order adherents say it should be A2 and B2.
So, I don’t think the supposed rule of adjective order really exists.
I think if the helper were still around, they would say that actually this just proves their point. Even though they complained about the “rule” of adjective order, actually the fact that there is no rule is even worse! (how convenient, if true), and you just have to learn each example - B2 not B1, A1 not A2 - one by one, and their real point is that English is particularly bad because of this.
Unfortunately, because they are apparently not any kind of linguist, they never presented any comparative examples. Tagalog has a strong preference for adjective order, for example. Languages with flexible word order in general, such as Finnish, nevertheless have a preferred default word order and if you don’t learn it you will sound weird. Languages which use prepositions pair certain verbs with certain prepositions (so in English you sit in your seat, watch the performance in English, and in the end the good guys win) but this pairing is arbitrary and if you pick the wrong one you’ll generally be understood but sound wrong (in German you sit im Sitz, watch auf Deutsch, and am Ende the good guys win).
Languages - all languages - abound with aspects that mark out non-native speakers. That’s because they’re complex things that incorporate huge aspects of culture, not merely a means of communication. That’s not something that anyone needs to “defend” and it’s not something that makes a language cease to be “real”. Is it the same degree in all languages? I’m sure it isn’t, but that’s not the point either.