Usage of 色の in the following sentence


I was reading 雪女

Can anyone please explain me the difference between 白い女 and 色の白い女. Especially
the usage of 色の and why, 色の precedes 白い. Also, shouldn't be more like 白い
coming before 色, as in 白い色の女 (Women with white colour, or literally women with
colour (that is white)). As, 色の白い女 sounds more like white women of colour, or
colour white women.

教えてください




This の is not "of" but a subject marker usable in a relative clause. 色の白い女 is
the same as 色が白い女, and they literally mean "a woman whose color is white". If
you know how to parse 心の美しい人, 背の高い男, 尻尾が長い猫 and so on, it's exactly the same
structure. (Please see [this](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/53580/5010)
if you are unsure.)

So something like 色の青い車 is grammatical, but we usually don't say this because
it's obviously redundant and 青い車 is enough. However, 色が白い is an exception.
This is almost a set phrase that automatically refers to skin colors without
explicitly saying 肌. We also have a no-/na-adjective version of this,
[色白](https://jisho.org/search/%E8%89%B2%E7%99%BD). Likewise, 色が黒い and 色黒 mean
"dark-skinned" without explicitly saying 肌. 肌の白い人 and 色の白い人 roughly mean the
same thing, but the former sounds a little too direct, and the latter is
usually preferred.

Also note that 白い女 usually makes little sense even outside the story of 雪女; if
you mean "white woman" in the sense of Caucasian, you should say 白人の女 or 白人女性.




This の is not "of" but a subject marker usable in a relative clause. 色の白い女 is
the same as 色が白い女, and they literally mean "a woman whose color is white". If
you know how to parse 心の美しい人, 背の高い男, 尻尾が長い猫 and so on, it's exactly the same
structure. (Please see [this](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/53580/5010)
if you are unsure.)

So something like 色の青い車 is grammatical, but we usually don't say this because
it's obviously redundant and 青い車 is enough. However, 色が白い is an exception.
This is almost a set phrase that automatically refers to skin colors without
explicitly saying 肌. We also have a no-/na-adjective version of this,
[色白](https://jisho.org/search/%E8%89%B2%E7%99%BD). Likewise, 色が黒い and 色黒 mean
"dark-skinned" without explicitly saying 肌. 肌の白い人 and 色の白い人 roughly mean the
same thing, but the former sounds a little too direct, and the latter is
usually preferred.

Also note that 白い女 usually makes little sense even outside the story of 雪女; if
you mean "white woman" in the sense of Caucasian, you should say 白人の女 or 白人女性.

