This is a not big dog

[Sped Tiger]

Can you please tell me which of these are correct?
a. This is an ordinary, not very big dog;
b. This is a not very big, ordinary dog;
c. It's the ordinary, not very big dog that we saw yesterday;
d. It's the not very big, ordinary dog that we saw yesterday.

 

[Barque]

What's the context for these sentences? If you're speaking to someone who can see the dog too, they should be able to make out what sort of dog it is.

"Ordinary" before "not very big" sounds better to me than the other way round. But what do you mean by "ordinary"? You can use 'ordinary' for a dog in some contexts but I'm not sure what you're thinking of by it.

The phrase you've used in your title doesn't occur exactly the same way in your sentences.

This is an ordinary dog that isn't very big.
This is an ordinary, medium-sized dog.

 

[emsr2d2]

@Sped Tiger Take some time to study the long-standing order of adjectives.

 

[Sped Tiger]

@Sped Tiger Take some time to study the long-standing order of adjectives.

Thanks. That link is great. Yet my question has to do with whether we can use not with adjectives before nouns.

 

[Barque]

It depends.

This is a not big dog: Unnatural. You need "This isn't a big dog".
This is a not very big dog: Possible in some contexts. You're more likely to hear "This isn't a very big dog".

 

[Tarheel]

I have never heard of an ordinary dog before. Anyhow, I wouldn't say a dog is not big. It would be much more natural for me to say it's a small dog. Or medium-sized dog.