Describing trends

Halfway down the list stand il forte calo and l’aumento marcato, and a reader of English should stop at the word order before stopping at the words. English has one slot for an adjective: it goes in front, so « a sharp fall » and « a marked increase » are built the same way. Italian has two slots and uses both. The default is after the noun, and that is where an adjective sits when it classifies — when it says which kind of rise or fall this is: l’aumento ripido, l’aumento marcato, la crescita costante, la diminuzione graduale. In front goes a small, closed group of short adjectives that measure rather than classify — forte, lieve, modesto, grande, piccolo — and the list obliges with il forte calo, la lieve flessione and il modesto guadagno. Moving one is less a mistake than a change of tone: un calo forte is heard as a fall of the strong kind, set against other kinds, while un forte calo simply says how big it was. Read the position first, the adjective second.