Word Order - 前華裔警長

[YuehanHao]

I was reading an article in a Chinese language newspaper about a tragedy that took place in California last month. As such I am ashamed to have the temerity to ask a pointless question about the grammar in the article's subhead:

前華裔警長女兒遭槍殺

But I wonder why it would not be written better as 華裔前警長。。。

Since ethnicity may be presumed invariant, there is no ambiguity in either wording, but what about

前同性戀電視福音傳道者 or 前德高望重政治家？ (Even if these examples are objectionable, valid cases would presumably still exist.)

If the article's subhead is to be considered acceptable, then aren't these hypothetical examples necessarily ambiguous? Would it be incorrect to place 前 as I would have? What should the rule be?

Thanks.

[skylee]

Consider 華裔警長 as a term (police sergeant of Chinese descent).

I understand what you mean by ambiguity in your examples. But whether it is incorrect I can't say. I think it depends on what you mean to say. For example, is the guy a former gay person who hosts a gospel TV programme, or is he a person who formerly hosted a gay gospel TV programme. Then you can improve the term to remove the ambiguity.

[timgun]

I'm a Chinese. In fact , 前 is a translation of English prefixion "ex-"，so you should always put it at first place.

Chinese don't have any prefixion , so Chinese usually take it as a adjective , yet use it in English way without even realizing it , that is why when you ask about 前德高望重政治家 or 德高望重前政治家，many Chinese will tell you they guess both is right , but they never use the latter.

[陳德聰]

Your examples "make sense" in that they work, but they are still ambiguous. I'm not sure why that is a problem.

If they're ambiguous, it would be clear from context what you're talking about. Say you spend half a paragraph talking about a gay man, and then half a paragraph about him being a gospel tv host, and then a sentence about him getting fired from his position. The next sentence starts with you referring to him as a 前同性恋福音传道者, nobody is going to think he suddenly stopped being gay are they?

Think "American history teacher". Without context, is it a teacher of American history or a history teacher that is American?

[creamyhorror]

I think YuehanHao's question still stands: why not 華裔前警長? Skylee said that 華裔警長 could be considered a fixed term, which would provide justification. But 華裔 doesn't seem like a natural candidate for tight coupling with 警長, unlike, say, 美国总统. And even then, I'm pretty sure I've heard 美国前总统 fairly often, so 前 can be put in the middle of a relatively tightly coupled phrase.

So I'm speculating that 前 may not need to be right next to the adjective/noun it modifies. This would allow it to sometimes "float" to the head of the phrase, e.g. in 前同性戀電視福音傳道者. If that's true, 前 doesn't quite work like English's "former(ly)" or "ex-" .

Confirmation and opinions are welcome~

[li3wei1]

I agree with first paragraph of #4. If 華裔警長 were a set phrase with 前 in front of it, it kind of suggests that there's a current 華裔警長, just as there's a 美国总统 and several 前美国总统. I think 前警長 is more likely to be a set phrase than 華裔警長. I'll bet there are more 前警長 then 華裔警長.

[陳德聰]

While I don't really agree with #3, I also don't think that it intuitively feels as though there is a current 华裔警长 as suggested in #6.

Do people say 前美国总统? I am more comfortable with 美国前总统 since 前美国总统 sounds a bit too much like 前苏联 if you know what I mean.

I think it is important to note that there are often restrictions based on semantics rather than grammar, since it is clearly possible to grammatically put the 前 at the front or in the middle, and yet 华裔前警长 doesn't not sound as good to me as 前华裔警长. I think what skylee was saying is that the 前 doesn't refer to the 华裔, it refers to the 华裔警长. Basically agreeing with #5's float-to-the-phrasal-head idea.