Editing Esperanto grammar (section)

===The noun phrase===
Within a noun phrase, either the order ''adjective–noun'' or ''noun–adjective'' may occur, though the former is somewhat more common. 
:''blua ĉielo'' 'a blue sky'
:''ĉielo blua'' (same)

Because of adjectival agreement, an adjective may be separated from the rest of the noun phrase without confusion, though this is only found in poetry, and then only occasionally:<ref name=wells/> 
:''Mi estas certa, ke brilan vi havos sukceson'' 'I am certain that you will have a brilliant success',

Possessive pronouns strongly favor initial position, though the opposite is well known from ''Patro nia'' 'Our Father' in the [[Lord's Prayer|Paternoster]].

Less flexibility occurs with demonstratives and the article, with ''demonstrative–noun'' being the norm, as in English:
:''la ĉielo'' "the sky"
:''tiu ĉielo'' 'that sky'
::also ''ĉielo tiu''
:''la blua ĉielo'' "the blue sky"
:''tiu blua ĉielo'' 'that blue sky'
Noun&ndash;demonstrative order is used primarily for emphasis (''plumo tiu'' '<u>that</u> pen'). ''La'' occurs at the very beginning of the noun phrase except rarely in poetry.

Even less flexibility occurs with numerals, with ''numeral–noun'' being almost universal:
:''sep bluaj ĉieloj'' 'seven blue heavens',
and noun&ndash;numeral being practically unheard of outside poetry.

Adjective–noun order is much freer. With simple adjectives, adjective–noun order predominates, especially if the noun is long or complex. However, a long or complex adjective typically comes after the noun, in some cases parallel to structures in English, as in the second example below:<ref name=wells/>
:''homo malgrandanima kaj ege avara'' 'a petty and extremely greedy person'
:''vizaĝo plena de cikatroj'' 'a face full of scars'
:''ideo fantazia sed tamen interesa'' 'a fantastic but still interesting idea'

Adjectives also normally occur after correlative nouns. Again, this is one of the situations where adjectives come after nouns in English:
:''okazis io stranga'' 'something strange happened'
:''ne ĉio brilanta estas diamanto'' 'not everything shiny is a diamond'
Changing the word order here can change the meaning, at least with the correlative ''nenio'' 'nothing':
:''li manĝis nenion etan'' 'he ate nothing little'
:''li manĝis etan nenion'' 'he ate a little nothing'

With multiple words in a phrase, the order is typically demonstrative/pronoun–numeral–(adjective/noun):
:''miaj du grandaj amikoj ~ miaj du amikoj grandaj'' 'my two great friends'.

In [[prepositional phrase]]s, the preposition is ''required'' to come at the front of the noun phrase (that is, even before the article ''la''), though it is commonly replaced by turning the noun into an adverb:
:''al la ĉielo'' 'to the sky' or ''ĉielen'' 'skywards', never ''*ĉielo al''