I’ve encountered this phrase: 給料の低い仕事, would the phrase 低い給料の仕事 be also correct and have the same meaning? And if so, is it correct to think of these two as the same phrase just with slightly different word order? Specifically, does the の in both cases really connect 給料 as a modifier and 仕事 as the thing being modified? Or is the structure of the phrases different?
4 comments
The nuance might be different in some way but they are effectively the same. I wouldn’t dwell too much on the difference.
It’s a bit like
Low-pay job
Vs
Job with low pay
They’re extremely similar
の can substitute が in some clauses.
給料の低い仕事 is “a job that has low wages”
低い給料の仕事 would be “a low-wage job”
Consider the following phrases:
給料が低い
低い給料
If you know what these mean, you should then understand how to modify the noun 仕事 with each one. For the first one, since 低い is an い-adjective, the phrase attaches directly to 仕事 to form 給料が低い仕事 describing rhe job as a low paying one. For the second one, since 給料 is a noun, you attach it with の to form 低い給料の仕事 which designates 仕事 as a member of a category of things which have low pay. As you can see, these are effectively synonymous for most practical purposes
Finally, there is one grammar point you need to learn. In relative modifying clauses, が may be replaced by の. Therefore, 給料が低い仕事 may also be written as 給料の低い仕事. You can basically treat this usage of の as a special oddity of sorts.