🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <By0nyB.7nM@swi.psy.uva.nl>, johan@swi.psy.uva.nl (Johan Henselmans) writes:
> connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:
> 
>>There are some fossilized expressions of this sort in English:
> 
>>	knight errant
>>	durance vile
>>	Chicken Little
> 
>>But these examples are true fossils; other nouns and adjectives cannot
>>be substituted, and the adjective cannot be compared.  In other words,
>>there is no _*knight peripatetic_ or _*musician errant_, and certainly
>>no _*durance vilest_.  _Proper_ is unusual, perhaps unique, in that it
>>is only postpositive in this usage and can be used after many other nouns
>>than _city_.  But even _proper_ cannot then be compared (_*city most
>>proper_).
> 
> How about adjectives such as "enough", "aplenty" and "galore" which 
> often appear after the noun they qualify.

_Aplenty_ is not an adjective in any sense of the word: neither syntactically,
nor formally, not historically (it's an old PP).  Neither, apparently, is
_galore_, though it's far from obvious what it would be.  (An adjective
is ruled out on both syntactic and morphological grounds; the etymology
I don't know about).  That leaves _enough_.  It too does not have adjectival
syntax or morphology even when used in prenominal position: no comparison,
and an article is excluded (*the enough time).  The lack of morphology is
not unique to English: cognate German _genug_ and Dutch _genoeg_ cannot
take adjective endings.  So I submit that whatever _enough_ is (a noun
comes to mind), it is certainly not n adjective.  That leaves _proper_,
which in pernominal position certainly is an adjective, and hence
presumptively also in postnominal position.

--Leo Connolly