The teacher who is observing notices whether the child has taken the right objects; if so, she proceeds to the permutations.
Permutations
At this point, the teacher should recall (in dealing with Italian) the grammatical rules for the position of adjectives, some of which (the fundamental ones) will certainly be very useful to her in executing these first permutations:—
I. In general, the adjective follows the noun. If placed before the noun, it is less conspicuous; if placed after, it assumes more importance and has a different force.
II. When the adjective is used to signify the exclusive superlative of a quality, it is not only placed after the noun, but is preceded by the article. (Umberto il buono, "Humbert the Good.")
Example:—The child has composed the following phrase with his cards: il triangolo rettangolo "the right-angled triangle." The teacher can interchange the words thus: il rettangolo triangolo, "the triangle right-angled." Similarly also, for other phrases:—
| il prisma rettangolare azzurro | the rectangular blue prism |
| il rettangolare azzurro prisma | the prism, rectangular, blue |
| i lapis neri | the black pencils |
| i neri lapis | the pencils black |
| il colore rosso | the red color |
| il rosso colore | the color red |
Both the meaning and the child's habits show him the normal position of the adjective. In some phrases, such as,
| il rumore leggero | the faint sound |
| il sapore dolce | the sweet taste |